Back at Last

 

…Time slowed until individual moments separated and grew plump, and I picked them, held them in my palm, and popped them one after another into my mouth, savoring them as if they were berries. I remembered childhood was filled with moments like that: plump and succulent. And, as in childhood, every snowflake and cedar frond, every fox and goldfinch, every car passing on the road and every cloud passing in the sky was unique, vivid, and vibrating with actuality. The world brimmed with an astonishment of things, and each was adjoined by all other things. 

 

-      Jerry Dennis, The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes

 

It’s coming again, our Great Lakes winter. Or is it? Last winter we had a little snow in January and none to speak of (at least, none to plow) other than that. Then spring 2024 was early and wet, and after that summer descended into drought, a long, dry spell that, while it lasted into early autumn, did nothing to dull the fall colors, which were seemed to go on and on and on until November winds came to strip branches and topple trees, until now, here we are looking for snow. There was a bit on the ground Thursday morning, our first, but it didn’t last long, and our long-range forecast is for a “wet” winter, 40-50% chance of wetter-than-average weather, as in rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain, and hail. Does that mean the yo-yo continues to bounce back and forth, never a settled season? 

 

Whatever the weather, winter's increased darkness always brings an increase in indoor reading time. More on that in a minute, but for now I hope you noticed that Jerry Dennis's sentences are as savory and mouth-watering as the moments they describe.

One January day in 2024 -- real winter!

Where have I been?

 

Since September 13, 2007, my initial post on Books in Northport, this is the longest I’ve gone between postings, the most recent one before this dated October 29, 2024. The main reason for the long hiatus was the death of my laptop screen. I tried one day to work from my phone, posting directly to the Blogger platform, rather than working through a Word draft first, then uploading it, the result not quite an unmitigated disaster but when done at last I realized -- too late! -- that I’d uploaded to my photo blog rather than either this (primarily, or at least initially) book blog or even my dedicated bookstore blog. (Here is where that post ended up, for those of you who never happened on it.) With the laptop, I could have rectified the error easily. Of course, with the laptop I wouldn’t have been posting from my phone in the first place. 

 

Then one day last week a friend called and said, “I need your blog!” She clarified by adding, “I mean, I need you to write something new!” So now that I have a clean new screen and keyboard at my disposal (and all my old programs and files right where I want them, too), I’m jumping back in. Perhaps not a peak performance, but at least something to indicate that there still are books in Northport!

And bookmarks!

 

Still reading – and rereading

 

Away from my email for three weeks (that part, I have to admit, felt like kind of a vacation), I made a few feeble stabs at handwritten notes for a future blog post and kept my “Books Read” list up-to-date with handwritten additions but didn’t bother with long descriptions of or reflections on the books added to the list. I also wrote a few letters to distant friends, made notes about new books to order for the shop, and set aside Hodding Carter’s The Lower Mississippi to reread Walter Mosley’s Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, one of my favorites among his novels, which inspired me to pull RL’s Dream off the shelf next, a Mosley novel I read so long ago it was as if I were reading it for the first time. With the main character a musician originally from the South, and with Mosley’s brilliant sentences, I sensed many echoes of Albert Murray. There was also a historical novel squeezed in there, a 24-hour spell with The War Began in Paris, in which a former Mennonite woman from the American Midwest, working as a small-time journalist, becomes entangled with another American woman journalist with Fascist sympathies, glamor and excitement dulling her sense of danger. 

 

Oh, the world, the world! Even in fiction, there is no escaping it! Not that escape should be a relentless quest. Understanding, empathy, living other lives in other skins – that’s the magic offered us in fiction, don’t you think? I’m curious what my readers have to say on this topic, especially as not long ago I stumbled on a website where a writer proclaimed something like “Life is too short to read depressing books,” and her readers all agreed in their comments that they wanted nothing but escape from novels and therefore avoided any book that received a major prize and/or had been recommended by Oprah! Novels without conflict, characters without challenges? To me, this is a peculiar narrowing of the entire idea of reading, although I certainly understand the need at times for “happy endings.” But what do you think?

 

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A little “playing tourist” –

My son and his wife came up for three nights, making for cheery alterations to my usual schedule. After their Monday of hiking Whaleback and tasting at Tandem Ciders while I took Sunny to the dog park and did a bit of housework, the three of us reconvened for dinner. Having company is inspiration to the cook in her tiny Paris kitchen: On Sunday evening there was a curried soup made from Hubbard squash and coconut milk; Monday’s vegetable dish of cauliflower and mushrooms with parsley exceeded my expectations, and the leftovers were even delicious cold. As for the rice pudding, while it was hardly a failure, next time I’ll let the rice steam much longer so that it disappears a bit more into the custard.

Tuesday the three of us went out together, visiting Samaritan’s Closet in Lake Leelanau and the Polish Art Center in Cedar before dinner at Dick’s Pour House in the evening. Shopping! Dinner out! Not things I usually do on my own, and it was even more fun to know that Ian and Kim were enjoying their little Up North vacation. Kathleen at the PAC in Cedar is delightful, too, as is her shop. 

Deer season and outdoor dog activity

 

Sunny and I are challenged in our outdoor time during firearm deer season, although she has no idea why mornings are different. When it isn’t raining, we still have tennis ball play in the yard or even in the two-track, but there is no off-leash running along the edge of the woods these days. All the more reason, then, to take Sunny to the dog park when I can. But the extra round trip to Northport is only worthwhile on days my bookshop is closed (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday), as the morning’s first regulars don’t arrive early enough to provide Sunny with playmates if we get there at nine o’clock. By ten, though, we can usually count on another Aussie, a couple of Pyrenees, a Bernadoodle and a smooth-coated collie. A few times there was a little fierce barking (some from my Naughty Girl, some from others), but a tennis ball hurled through the air quickly distracts everyone from conflict. And it is so good to see dogs running off-leash!

  

New Books: Arriving Soon!

 

My new book order, usually sent in on Mondays, finally (after not happening at all for a couple of weeks) got done on Thursday this week, a bigger order than usual, making up for weeks missed. There will be an assortment of new board books for the pre-reading crowd of babies; a fun book of dog poems for “kids” of all ages; Robin Kimmerer’s new book, Serviceberry, as well as a version of Braiding Sweetgrass for young adults; a couple editions of Wind in the Willows for those who need to re-immerse in it or discover it for the first time; and, as usual, a few surprises. The order should come in early next week, so I may be in the shop on days you’d expect me not to be there, because opening boxes of new books is a delight not to be postponed but indulged as soon as possible.

The run on jigsaw puzzles has already begun, though, so don't wait too long to make your selections for those long winter evenings ahead.

  

And the season rushes on!

 

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving already -- the best, I always think, of American holidays, being all about gratitude rather than hoopla. Hoopla fun will come two days later, though, never fear, with Saturday evening’s lighting of the Christmas tree in Northport and a visit from Santa – and then the race is on! Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 25 this year and continues to January 2, with Kwanzaa from December 26 to January 1, so the end of one year and entry into the next will be rich with holidays. 

 

We need our holidays. We need to shift focus from competition to celebration, from conflict to love. We need festive lights during the shortest days and longest, darkest nights of the year. We also need to take time to remember those in less fortunate circumstances (far too many!) and do what we can with our end-of-year contributions. Writing those checks, like writing a holiday letter or addressing cards to friends, is a good December ritual.

A couple of longer bookstore days

 

My 11 a.m. -3 p.m. hours will be subject to some stretching for the days following Thanksgiving. I’m not sure how late I’ll be open on Friday, November 29, but I’d love to see local shoppers in my bookstore on that day, and if there are enough of them, I’ll be happy to stay open as late as 5 p.m. 

Indie Bookstore Day!

The next day, Saturday, will definitely be a later business day, as Northport's tree lighting doesn’t take place until 6 p.m., and I don't want to miss that!

Lights are strung, ornaments are on. All systems are GO for a week from Saturday!