Solstice wanderings and the dance of the swallows

I came to Spokane Bay on the summer solstice with no intention of writing something new. Paddling up central Montana’s Hauser Lake from my friend Margaret’s house, my idea had been, if anything, to escape my home office and my many writing projects, perhaps to find inspiration for yet another magazine pitch among the wild creatures. But as my kayak and I reached the bay under an unsettled gray sky, with cliff swallows and white-throated swifts foraging low under the brooding cloud bank, something about the day and the place and its diversity of life made me want to share it. This story is a portrait of one of my special places in nature—a place where violet-green swallows dart, where Phacelia blooms among the rocks, and where song sparrows sing from the marsh. Does Spokane Bay remind you of some of your special places in nature?