Find and Be Found

“Find, rather than seek.” When I read those four words in Joan Anderson’s memoir A Year by the Sea, they stopped me short.

I was sitting on the back deck of our family cabin at the edge of Lake Superior. I stopped reading mid-chapter, laid the open book face down on the arm of the Adirondack chair, and stared out over the expanse of gray water stretching like a metal sheet to the horizon.

Sitting in that chair, the sound of gentle waves at my feet, I was at the same time drawn to and trouble...