Lake Michigan is a commanding presence along the eastern boundary of Milwaukee. As a child, my parents would pack a picnic basket and a blanket and take my brothers and me to the beach to play in the waves, dig in the sand, and enjoy each other's company. As I got older, I would bike the 5 miles to the lake to wander the beach and the trails of the parks along the shore. But only in the summer. I never really saw or thought about the Lake in winter.

Now I am spending time so close to the Lake that I can feel it there outside the hospital walls. The Lake calls to me in a quiet but authoritative voice. I want to run the trails above the Lake on the bluff, haul my camera and tripod to sites with wide vistas.

On this particular day, I had only a short time to visit the Lake and only my Canon PowerShot S-100 point&shoot camera in my pocket - a camera that refused to function when it got too cold. But I captured this image of the ice gathered near the shore, as I gazed down from above. I found the pattern of the ice plates mesmerizing as they rose and fell with the waves and moved toward and away from the shore. Calming and peaceful. But then, I had to leave and hurry back to the hospital - with the calm and peace stored within me.