Detox On the Rocks

"Even time set aside in the most peaceful place imaginable could not separate my soul from the every day that is still happening 6,000 miles away."

By Abigail Pickus

I booked the week in Wisconsin on a whim. My 11-year-old son, my only child, my everything, was headed to overnight camp for the first time, ever. He would be away, hopefully blissfully enthralled, at a camp deep in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. For four whole weeks. 

What would I do with myself? 

So one evening towards the end of the school year, as we continued to slog through the morass of daily life, I decided to give myself something to look forward to. I started sifting through Airbnb and Vrbo, trying to find the perfect getaway that wasn’t too far from Chicago and was on a lake (!) and didn’t cost too much (ha!)… and that was still available after all the other early birds had caught the worm.

And then I found something and quickly booked it, for an entire week! (Thank you, Covid, for making remote working the norm.) I got my son off to camp and despite walking around for a few days with a heaviness in my heart, I consoled myself with the fact that he’s no doubt in pure bliss, having fun all day long at a camp full of boys in God’s country. Did I mention no technology? Because what waits for him at home? Wasting time watching “nonsense”? (I’m looking at you, Youtube, and that stupid reality show set in Alaska is a close second.) And being unhappy at day camp. And yearning for a best friend. And being crabby with his mee-maw, i.e. me. 

You would think I would be super-excited to get out of Dodge, but I was afraid. Afraid of the three-hour drive by myself. Well, not exactly by myself, but with Posy, my anxious rescue dog. 

I’ll spare you the part about me getting cold feet when we first headed out and the sky turned black and the rain came pelting down, so I turned around and went back home, missing half a day and one night in paradise (but who’s counting? Well, at what I’m paying per night, I’m counting!). And I won’t bring up how Posy stress-panted in the back seat of the car the entire drive, refusing to be consoled. 

Because what awaited us was so breathtaking, so serene, so restorative, that really even the mosquitos and the neighbor’s sign tacked to a tree that reads: “We owe illegals nothing … We owe our veterans everything,” or the “Trump 2024” signs, could not mar the perfection of this respite. 

Which is where you’re finding me now as I write, sitting on a comfy couch overlooking a tranquil lake at dusk, tucked under this strange and glorious “round house,” an actual circular cabin balanced upon stilts, like an apartment in the sky, with 12 rectangular windows covering the entire rounded expanse, offering views of the water below, a curtain of emerald trees around and the blue sky above.

After only two days I have established a ritual of dipping into the lake in the morning and evening, like morning and evening prayers. The sandy beach beneath my feet is swampy and mucky at first and then gives way and I’m free; the water is cool on my shoulders, above me the birds are chirping and the wind rustles through the greenery.

Wildlife is everywhere. Bunnies, deer, little creatures scurrying and darting in the grasses. I saw what looked like a stork majestically silhouetted against the setting sun, its twig-like legs awkwardly navigating the rocky terrain near the water. But a Google search for “storks and Wisconsin” “Flamingo in Wisconsin” set the record straight: It was a sandhill crane. 

I was afraid to come by myself and now I am already sad to leave and I still have four more days. 

And yet, the war continues. Today a video came out of three of the hostages from the Nova festival, one of whom is the son of friends. They’re bloodied and wounded (half an arm grenaded off is more than just “wounded”) and terrified and alone, being herded onto jeeps under fire and scary, sharp commands. In France, a young Jewish girl was gang raped and taunted for being Jewish. In L.A., an anti-Israel mob convened outside a synagogue in a Jewish neighborhood, trying to intimidate and prevent Jews from entering.  

I think about all of the worries out there, big and small, in my personal sphere and in the larger stratosphere. They’re still there, buzzing around, but at this moment they are out of reach, like I’m in a bubble of shalva  (שַׁלְוָה), a word that comes from the same root as Shalom and is, indeed, a synonym for peace— but it veers more towards complacency and ease, and the quietness of surrender.  

It’s the shalva that we meet in Psalms 122, one of King Davd’s “Songs of Ascent”:

שַׁ֭אֲלוּ שְׁל֣וֹם יְרוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם יִ֝שְׁלָ֗יוּ אֹהֲבָֽיִךְ׃

יְהִֽי־שָׁל֥וֹם בְּחֵילֵ֑ךְ שַׁ֜לְוָ֗ה בְּאַרְמְנוֹתָֽיִךְ:

Request the welfare of Jerusalem; may those who love you enjoy tranquility.

May there be peace in your wall, tranquility in your palaces.

Because during my one week apart, when I’m able to completely disconnect from the realities of our world, this is the kind of shalva I wish to hold onto. I wish this not just for me but for us, for all of us: for peace to pour down on us like rain; for it to cradle us in its arms and rock us to sleep; for it to carry us softly, like a cloud, and keep us safe. 

Amen.

ABIGAIL PICKUS has written for JUF News Chicago, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and The Jewish Week. She ran the Nextbook literary series at the Chicago Public Library.

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