Beaver Lake Stories

Beret’s Beaver Lake Stories recall the lovely discontinuities of life at her family’s summer cabin. She writes, “My birth, in 1940, interrupted a picnic.” In fact, Beret’s entire life has been a journey of grace-filled interruptions that have birthed an avid reader, a reflective thinker, a creative writer, and an eclectic artist. Beret began writing these stories in 1998: the evolution of her father Ralph’s cabin project; the tranquility of ancient glacier-scooped Beaver Lake and the loss of Wisconsin’s old-growth forests to build Chicago and Minneapolis; a tiny frog named Ralph Spirit, and the antics of riotous squirrels. She’s a smart, reflective writer, thinking about the depth and breadth of life: marriage and divorce; good neighbors and great celebrations; life and death; her own care for our confounding, compelling world; and the spirit movement that fostered her lifelong learning and servant leadership. These are delightful and arresting stories about the impact of Beret's family, its cultural heritage, growing up, and spending time in a cabin on a lake—something like another world within this world—where nature is home and slowing down sustains us.