From the Tenth to the Twelfth

Looking out onto Waukazoo Street

December

Oddly enough, the name of our twelfth month of the year comes from the Latin word for ten, decem, thanks to an earlier Roman ten-month calendar. New months January and February were added on at the beginning of the year on the new Julian calendar, rather than at the end, in 45 BCE, making the old tenth month the new twelfth month. 

 

To a friend who remarked gloomily the other day that winter “hasn’t even started yet,” I gave my own Pollyannaish (not my nature--I have to work hard at it) view of December 21: That’s when darkness begins to retreat, days begin to lengthen, so I see the official first day of winter as a happy turning toward spring—and don’t try to talk me out of it! 

Morning sun! A rare winter treat in Michigan!

 When Is Your Work “Finished”?

 

French writer Albert Camus died in a traffic accident at age 46, and his last book, an unfinished draft manuscript, was found in the mud at the scene of the accident. Russian fiction writer Gogol completed only the first volume of his projected trilogy, destroying multiple copies of sequels that failed to satisfy him. American poet and novelist Jim Harrison died in his writing studio with an unfinished poem on his desk. 

 

Some people find it tragic when writers’ last works are not completed. I find it inspiring. 

 

Is this an old Chinese saying or something that can be traced to Japanese samurai Miyamoto Musashi? “A man builds his house; then he dies.” My husband the Artist took it to mean that living meant working toward a goal, “building one’s house,” and that having finished the house down to the last perfect detail, there was nothing left to do but die. And so, the Artist’s thought continued, it was best to have many unfinished projects, goals to anticipate, and reasons to get up in the morning. Having finished all projects meant no more reason to live, as he saw it.

Unfinished, unsigned --

From time to time I wonder what people do with themselves when they retire, sell their houses, stop driving, and move to senior apartments. Some, I’m sure, remain socially active in their new environments, but what about life outside of socializing? What would I do if deprived of my housework, yard work, dog responsibilities, long walks and drives, travel, gardening and foraging, and my bookselling life? Reading and writing would remain, as long as my eyes and mind cooperated, and maybe I would even get more writing done—actually hold myself to a daily schedule! (There’s a concept, eh?) Physical tasks, though, have always been fruitful interludes during any big writing project (say, a doctoral dissertation) I’ve ever had. Washing dishes or raking leaves, shoveling snow or taking a long walk or drive—anything to jog the mind out of a rut, because getting away from a desk re-opens space for thoughts and words to find each other in the happy, cooperative way they can stubbornly refuse to do when a writer sits too long in one place. 

 

The Artist and I talked about taking a very long, meandering way home from Cochise County, Arizona, in the spring of 2022, driving north as far as the Badlands of South Dakota (he’d never seen my birth state) and then east to the Twin Cities of Minnesota (to visit kids and grandkids). He had in mind an experimental method for casting his wax sculptures and looked forward to trying that, also. A friend asked if he left unfinished paintings. Of course. But that’s just it. He went into the hospital that last time already looking forward to coming home and going on. He was living, not dying, until he died. For Harrison, life was writing poems, and so Jim, too, caught mid-poem, despite his acknowledged loneliness in the months following Linda’s death, was still living up to the end. 

 

“We must draw a lesson from this,” say the Chinese. What lesson do you draw? I say, don’t finish your house and call your life over. There is always more to do, and it’s good to keep living as long as you have breath.

 

 

Mailman Wisdom

When Stephen was laid off from a high-paying job as some kind of business consultant in the early days of the COVID epidemic, everyone else was laying off or being laid off, too, which is how Stephen found himself taking the test and training to become a rural mail carrier in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, his home territory. Accustomed to feeling smart as well as being well paid, Stephen was overwhelmed by his new job and discouraged by mistakes. One day everything came to a head when he forgot that a house on his route was vacant, stuck his hand into the mailbox, and was attacked by hornets. “I can’t do this,” he tells a fellow carrier who has been helping him with the new route. Her advice is simple.

 

“…It’s like this for everybody. Just show up one more day. Just deliver the rest of this stuff and you’ll be done for today.”

 

“Okay.” 

 

“Don’t quit today.” 

 

-      Stephen Starring Grant, Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home

 

 

A friend and I were talking about how difficult life can be, especially these days, what with aging (for us), and political division, and what feels to us like the tearing-down of the America that had been built during our lifetime, and we acknowledged how easy it can be to slip into depression and say, “I can’t do it!” We talked about how often people say, “Take one day at a time,” when there is, after all, no alternative! 

 

When I told her about the mail carrier saying, “Don’t quit today,” she liked it as much as I did. Really, “Take one day at a time” and “Don’t quit today” may look like the same advice, but don’t they feel different somehow? For me, when things look particularly gloomy, “Don’t quit today” is all I need to promise myself. Not quit today? I can do that! I’m not looking at a whole long string of “one day at a time” days, just this one day I’m in. Don’t quit today. All right!

 

(I don’t need to tell myself that every day or even most days. Most days are either neutral or brightened by what Dana Frost calls “forced joy,” or begin and end in downright deep gratitude. Once in a while there are spots of bliss. It’s just good to be able to pull out a mantra that works when you need it.)

Postage stamps are miniature works of art.

I found Mailman an inspiring book. In one early chapter, I feared the author was going to bog down in procedural minutia, but I waded through those pages and was glad I did, because knowing how much the job involves makes Grant’s livelier stories all that much more vivid, and without ever having worked for USPS, I can appreciate and identify with his feeling for the postal service. They don’t cherry-pick profitable routes! USPS delivers to everyone. In that regard, they are like public schools and similarly foundational to the social infrastructure of the United States.

 

Coming from a family of letter-writers, I absolutely love the United States Postal Service! Their service is priceless! But how many of us know how hard the work is, how efficiently it is managed at the over 40,000 local offices, and what a downright bargain it is compared to postal prices in other parts of the world? Thank you, Benjamin Franklin, and thank you, U.S. postal workers, past, present, and future!

 

And now, a little shameless self-promotion

 

First, I’ll boast on behalf of my village and say that Northport’s holiday-decorated tree is easily the most beautiful in the county. Of course, you know I am completely unbiased, right?

 

What I have on offer now at Dog Ears Books is a postcard featuring that beautiful tree (from 2024), and on the reverse side, where you put a postage stamp and address to someone you want to remember with a written message, are the words “Happy Holidays from Northport, Michigan!” 

I’m asking 94 cents a card, so that with tax it’s just a dollar, and I’m also selling a dozen cards for the price of ten: $9.40 + tax = $10. You may not send out hundreds of cards for the holidays, but there are surely a dozen people in your life whose hearts would be warmed to having a greeting from Northport. Anyway, I’m hoping that’s the case.

 

New Playground!

Now that snow is falling and piling up and drifting along our driveway and in the yard around the old farmhouse, once more we have periodic morning visits from a snowplow. Sunny finds it alarming to have a truck drive right into the yard, but the great part for her comes after the truck leaves, having cleared a big new playground for us! Room for the bouncy ball to bounce! Room for Sunny to run and leap after a Frisbee! Maybe that old snowplow isn’t such a bad thing, after all!

Pollyanna, Mr. Rogers, and the Trials of November

And so it began....

November so far has been a rough month, starting with the weather. Unusually early snow, unexpected in its quantity as well as its timing (calendar winter not yet arrived), was a trial to all of northern Michigan. Even the business provided to the guys who do the plowing was not an unalloyed cause for rejoicing on their part, because many of those same guys do lawn maintenance and hadn’t yet gotten up all the fall leaves. In fact, many of the leaves had not yet fallen and are even now coming down on top of the snow and making a real mess of things. 

Autumn storms also brought additional shorline erosion, not as gradual loss but overnight disappearance. 

Well, what would Pollyanna say, that character in the novel by Eleanor Porter (1868-1920)? Pollyanna was a little World War I-era orphan who pulled crutches as her gift from the Christmas barrel instead of the doll she wanted. Well, she got through the trials of her life by playing the “glad game,” finding something to be glad about in every situation. The good thing about the crutches was — she didn’t need them! So if we apply the glad game to a blizzard that kept people home from work and school on one November Monday, we see how lucky we were. Spared forest fire, hurricane, and tornado, most of us were able to take refuge in place rather than being forced to flee our homes. And while we may not have chosen to have it in early November, who doesn’t love a snow day?

And there's no denying it was beautiful.

Trial #2, the impeachment hearings, is more of a challenge to a player of the glad game. The president, of course, feels persecuted, but the whole country is suffering, and the suffering goes back to the campaign that led to the 2016 election, when partisan divisions became more than acrimonious and turned downright nasty. Also, unlike a snow day, we can’t turn the impeachment hearings into fun by baking muffins and making hot chocolate. 

Impeachment is always regrettable. Whatever anyone’s feelings and opinions about whatever president it involves, the impeachment process is an attempt to solve a worst-case scenario -- or what we have come to hope is the worst that can happen. And what if it isn’t? If things got worse? Much worse has happened in many countries around the world over the course of human history. And so even sleep provides no surefire escape: “Perchance to dream! Ay, there’s the rub!” To have the country’s leadership invade our hours of sleep seems a most egregious violation, does it not?

As a nation, though, we have suffered and survived periods of horrible political division before this. Without harking back as far as the Civil War, I think back to violent protests over desegregation in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s, and the rash of nightmare assassinations then, too. Surely, in those times as well as these, lies were spread, friendships destroyed, families torn apart. 

But it does seem that lies travel faster in these times — almost at the speed of light. “Misinformation,” as it’s called, has become an industry, prolific and profitable. So it’s hard to find anything to be glad about in our present whole situation, isn’t it? 

And yet — as I must remind myself almost hourly — we can be glad that the situation is being addressed by hearings in Congress rather than by military coup; that men and women of courage and principle are willing to put their devotion to country above political expediency; and that we still have reliable sources of news and can hear testimony for ourselves rather than having it filtered and presented in Newspeak.

Overwhelmed, we have to carry on.

Well, the blizzard was regional. The hearings are national, with international implications. But of course each of us has, besides, always, our personal trials. I will not go into mine, because it’s an old story — the behemoth in the room — and I would be either preaching to the (tiny) choir or beating my head pointlessly against the wall. 

What I can be and am glad of in the current global retail situation are those individuals, both the ones who saw the writing on the wall from the start and those only belatedly seeing where present trends would take us all, if continued — that small but perhaps expanding contingent — the people who value and support real bookstores. I’m glad of every visitor to my bookstore who doesn’t waste my time with idle questions about business but asks instead about books and takes the time to browse seriously. I'm glad of the many wonderful authors I've met over the years. And I am especially glad of and thankful for every single customer, neighbor or stranger, who leaves with a purchased book (or more than one), because that’s what it means to “love bookstores.”

Strange as it may seem, then, when I take the time to dig down under what I can’t help perceiving at times as the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” I’m still glad to have chosen this life in the slow, challenging, difficult lane strewn with trials and tribulations. Not giving thanks for the hardships, you understand, but grateful for the opportunity to scratch out a living without compromising my principles and extraordinarily grateful for having a coterie of loyal supporters in that endeavor. 

I’m so glad my goal is not now, never was, and never will be world domination and expansion into outer space! What could be better than our green planet? I’m glad to be able to say that I have invested instead in myself and my own small-town vision.

Now, as for that small-town angle, a couple paragraphs above I used the phrase “neighbor or stranger,” but I’ve been reading quite a bit lately (as have you, perhaps, the new Tom Hanks film getting quite a lot of press) about the late Fred Rogers, who so famously and unforgettably asked on his television show, "Won't you be my neighbor?" And reading about Mr. Rogers, I can't help looking into the way I live my life and asking myself some pretty hard questions. 

Mr. Rogers spoke directly to children, to all of their fears and confusions, and also to the confused and frightened children inside every adult. I wish I could say that I always do the same, but that wouldn't be true. More often than I want to admit, I respond too quickly (even when I attempt to hide that response) from a feeling that I have been attacked or insulted or dismissed as inconsequential when there was no such intention in the words that wounded me. 

And what if there really had been an intention to inflict pain? 

I think the possibility of intention to hurt is much rarer than our almost automatic response of self-defense, actually: my personal concerns are not the center of anyone else’s consciousness, and so what other people find important to say, whatever the context of our conversation, will seldom address my core concerns but simply express their own. But whether the words of another came from ignorance, thoughtlessness, or what looks like plain meanness do not matter at all if I think of them as the words of a child, which is how Mr. Rogers counseled us to respond to one another. 

Years ago I did substitute teaching and regular tutoring up at Northport School (one of many “side jobs” undertaken over time in order that my bookstore might survive). Teaching children wasn’t what I had been educated to do, and I quickly realized that subject matter (math or spelling or whatever) is only part of the job. Kids don’t leave their personal lives and feelings in their lockers when they come into the classroom, and sometimes they can say or even do hurtful to one another or even to their teachers. They can behave destructively. And if the behavior is not somehow checked they can be dangerous to themselves and others. 

My big take-away from those experiences was this: I never encountered a child I felt was really malicious. Bad behavior might result from frustration or hurt or embarrassment or fear or confusion, but it was always a reaction to something, never sui generis meanness. 

American society in our time has taken on a pretty mean look. Movies, “reality” television, business, politics — in all these realms, it seems that dirty tricks and name-calling are held up to us as behavior to emulate. Even “Pollyanna,” the name of the character in the old story, is generally used as a derogatory term, like Goody Two-Shoes. It’s like calling somebody “Stupid!” Kind of a dispiriting picture of twenty-first American culture, isn’t it?

A year or so ago I asked someone I don’t know all that well how she maintained her positive attitude. I really wanted to know. I needed her answer. Didn’t she sometimes feel overwhelmed by threats to free speech, truth, democracy, and the natural world (of which we’re all part, even when we forget the fact)? Didn’t she ever feel downright hopeless? I cannot quote her response exactly, but it was something like “Lead from your strength.” When speaking or writing, putting her words out in the world, she wanted those words to be encouraging and hopeful. 

We need those words.

Because we can all see the negative. What we need from each other are reminders that good things are true, too, maybe something we’ve overlooked or forgotten or just temporarily lost sight of, something good we can build on. I don’t know how many times I have sat down to write in a terrible mood but managed to find some small kernel of gratitude and hope, a kernel that grew as my sentences proliferated, and that's because I am aware of writing for a community and trying -- honestly! -- to draw and lead from my strength, although I may have to dig pretty deep some days to find it!

More than one good friend has told me in person or has written to me that they appreciate my ability to find joy in small, everyday sights and events. Whenever anyone says or writes something so complimentary, I feel compelled to tell them not to give me too much credit, because it can often be a huge effort for me to seek out those small joys, and that's true despite the fact that my life in general is really quite blessed. So if you're struggling, you're not alone. Many of us can slip all too easily into feeling overwhelmed and despondent, particularly in November. 

Even that lucky dog, Sarah, is not always wagging her tail.

But who wants or needs to hear the sob story of a fortunate person? The old Eric Berne book on transactional analysis, Games People Play, called that game “Ain’t It Awful?” Ick! Who wants to be invited to that party? Besides, commiseration even with real tragedy can be best in small doses, or it risks being counter-productive and exacerbating the misery.

And we all need the gift of light.

Pollyanna’s game was one she played to keep herself cheerful in trying situations and times. Fred Rogers went deeper, inviting everyone to be his neighbor. The two messages are different but compatible. Don’t we enjoy neighbors who bring cheer rather than gloom into our lives? And aren’t we better neighbors when we look for the good in others, wherever we meet them?

Neither path is always easy, and most of us will fall down over and over, but we can get up and try again each time. As little children must.

One word of caution to neighbors in northern Michigan: what looks like wet pavement these days can sometimes hide — yes, in plain sight! — a thin coating of ice, so step carefully! My own Wednesday morning fall on an icy sidewalk brought no terrible consequences, but not falling must be the standard for which we aim.

Namaste, as neighbor Paul says. Thanks, Paul! You are a good neighbor! And thank you, Maureen, for starting my bookstore Thursday off with your smiling face, and Karin, for the beautiful journal you made for me out of that old, falling-apart school book from Quebec, and all the rest of you who buy your books from me in Northport. And please, I urge you all, while I'm gone this winter, to take your custom down the road a piece to Leelanau Books in Leland and/or Bay Books in Suttons Bay. We will keep getting each other through, one day at a time.

Love to all,
Pamela