How Do You View It?

Weeds are looking weedier. This is chicory.

The Artist liked to call August “the rotten heart of summer.” It's the time when much of what was bright and blooming starts to look tired, tattered and seedy. The atmosphere reeks of pollen, especially that of Queen Anne's lace, rank smell belying regal name.

The more common name for late summer is “dog days,” the name coming from the Dog Star, Sirius, appearing in the sky close to sunrise. (“What is the brightest star in the sky?” my parents would ask little toddler P.J., and I would respond on cue with the answer they had taught me, “Sirius, the Dog Star!” Did I lisp the name?) Hot, humid, dense, thick, and heavy lies the air in northern Michigan during the dog days. 

The angle of the light seems changed (and probably is).

A time of thunderstorms and frequently the most uncomfortable stretch of summer, the dog days are also, paradoxically, a popular time for family vacations. My birth family—father, mother, three girls—always vacationed in August. The reasoning was that lakes were still cold in June, and if we put off vacation until just before school we could look forward to it for weeks. It was our summer's dessert. 

Sunny takes the seasons and their changes in stride.

When I look at the etymology for "dog days," I find the familiar story of Sirius but also learn that Swedes and Finns call this time the “rot month,” warmer weather making infections and food spoilage more likely. It seems the Artist was not alone in his thinking.

In France, traditionally, all family vacations were taken in August, which made it beastly hard on foreign tourists. All over the City of Light, shops were closed up tight. Where to obtain the daily baguette? Finally Parisians got wise and began staggering annual closures within each neighborhood so that every quartier had at least one bakery, one grocer, one cafe, etc. open that month. 

Restaurant workers and retail clerks in Michigan tourist towns are worked pretty hard by the time the dog days roll around. Many schools also begin before Labor Day, leaving many businesses short-handed without their seasonal student help. 

And yet also in August come many regular annual customers. For me, many are dear friends I look forward to seeing every year. Kids grow taller, graduate from high school and then college, get married, have children of their own. Grandkids arrive! And we older ones grab the opportunity to catch up on each other’s lives and wish each other healthy winters until another summer rolls around. For now, we’re still here! We’re still here!

More Friendship!

My friend Juleen and I RELAXED together!

Sunny and I had more company! A friend of mine from decades-ago Kalamazoo days, Juleen has made her home in Tucson, Arizona, for such a long time now that lush, jungly, green and humid Michigan was a visit to her past in more ways than one. Before coming up to see me in Leelanau, she reunited with old friends she had worked with years ago at a camp down in Arcadia, Michigan, and after our time together she turned back south again to Kalamazoo, where more friends awaited. While she was here, we enjoyed two leisurely evenings and two mornings together, and I shared with her some of my "wild nearby." She remarked on the look of so many Michigan gardens, with little to no space between plants: In Arizona desert landscapes, plenty of open space is left between plants to eliminate hiding places for rattlesnakes!

Sunny has become more gregarious this summer with each successive visit. She is finally starting to see visitors as playmates rather than as intruders. She was positively a pest at times, wanting Juleen to play, play, play with her all the time, but that was better than nervous, hostile barking, and by the second morning Juleen caught on to giving firm commands when she wanted a break. I was very happy that my dear friend and my dear dog got along so well!

"Come play with me!" Sunny kept saying.

Naturally, my friend spent time with me in my bookshop, also, where neighbor Clare obligingly photographed us together. The image immediately below is the only one that was slightly blurred, but I am using it, anyway, because I love its liveliness. 

We laughed a lot.

We laughed about all kinds of things!

And here is a photo that didn't make into a previous post:

My sisters and my dog!

Author! Author!

People who came to hear Tim Mulherin speak on Wednesday evening were glad they had made the time. His presentation was informative, sensitive, and entertaining (he has a subtle and wry sense of humor), and the audience was attentive and engaged, several people staying afterward to talk with him further. I was only sorry I didn't have twice as many people on hand to appreciate (and reward him for) his good work. I do, however, have signed copies of his book for those who missed meeting him and hearing him speak.

Other Books

Every American should read Robert Reich’s new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America. Every American, from yellow dog Democrats to MAGA Republicans—and also all Independents and disaffected voting dropouts. Every American. Much more than a memoir, the book is American political history from postwar 1950s to the present day. Not from someone running for office or married to a political party or in bed with large corporate interests, either! Robert Reich may be smarter than you and me (he’s certain smarter than I am), but his head is not in the clouds. I have the hardcover book in my shop, and the audiobook is available through libro.fm. If your library doesn’t have it, they need to get it. Read the book! Then share your thoughts with me, please, whatever those thoughts may be.

I also want to plug a couple new nonfiction books with special regional interest. The first is The Vacation: A Teenage Migrant Farmworker’s Experience Picking Cherries in Michigan, by Robert "Carlos" Fuentes, a happy Lake Leelanau story. 

The second, very different book, is Prison: The Inside Story — Transforming Lives as an Officer and an Educator, by Jack Myette, the story of his 25 years in Michigan prison work, which I only received and am beginning to read today ( Thursday, 8/14). 

Agricultural work and prison life are two very different aspects of American life, common only in that many Americans never experience either one. That’s one reason I am recommending these books. Another is that both titles come from Michigan authors. And the third is that I believe both can help us, in important ways, when we are considering and making choices about the kind of Michigan and the kind of United States we want to shape for the future—a message that was part of what Tim Mulherin (section above) said in the conclusions of his prepared remarks on Wednesday evening. 

What's ahead? Who knows?

There is no stopping change, but we can at least try to guide it away from treacherous shoals and into safer water if we are clear about what changes we can accept and which we absolutely don't want. Farm workers, like all who live and labor, deserve safe working conditions and decent treatment, the kind Carlos and his family enjoyed. And when people who have committed crimes must pay the price by losing their freedom, they should not also lose their humanity. (Prisons should not be "monster factories.") I'll get back to you with more on Myette's book when I've had a chance to read it. 

Goldenrod is exploding everywhere like silent fireworks.

Is summer almost over?

Don’t cry! Summer’s ending is autumn's beginning, a cooling-off and slowing-down in tourist trade (though teachers and others are gearing up, I know), and then before we know it we will have beautiful fall colors and a tide of new fall books.

Black-eyed Susans have not all gone to seed yet.

 

No Sunrises, No Sunsets, Lots of Changes

Deborah Wesley photograph

Wildfires are currently burning (as of Wednesday morning) in the U.S. states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, as well as in western Canadian provinces (from British Columbia to Newfoundland but mostly from western Ontario to the Pacific Ocean). Since prevailing winds blow west to east across North America, air quality in the Midwest and all the way to the eastern seaboard is affected. The only escape is indoors, but who wants to stay indoors all summer? Some people must; others of us are taking our chances, despite the occasional cough. (Don't scold, please! I won't live forever!) My two younger sisters from Illinois came for a visit, and we spent time outdoors each day. 

Three sisters -- yes, styles have changed, too.

My sister Deborah also spent considerable time spoiling Sunny Juliet—that is, tossing tennis balls out in the yard for a certain lucky dog girl to chase. When all three of us were outside, Sunny still brought her tennis balls to Auntie Deborah rather than to her dog mom. No fool, my Sunny!

I finished In the Merrimack Valley: A Farm Trilogy with a big sigh. Like The Vacation, by Carlos Fuentes, and This Magnetic North, by Tim Mulherin, Jane Brox’s book is a story of change. I guess that is the story of life, isn’t it? Change! I learned a few things in the Brox book, and one of those things is that big bluestem (Andropogon gerardi), a native prairie grass I seeded into the edge of my meadow 25 years ago—a native grass, mind you, not an invasive alien—can nevertheless outcompete other plant species. Now I’m thinking maybe that’s what happened to those purple coneflowers that failed to appear last summer after a quarter-century. The little grey-headed coneflowers are holding their own, so far, but the purple ones have vanished. 

Gone with the wind! Here they were years ago.

These are still with me...

co-existing, for now, with big bluestem.

A meadow, a forest, even a roadside changes from year to year. About three years ago I noticed a little bright yellow flower blooming on the side of M-22 just north of Fischer’s Happy Hour Tavern. Birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) is a nitrogen-fixing legume, but it is invasive and aggressive, forming root mats that crowd out native plant roots, and this year I am noticing it blooming all up and down M-22. Spreading rapidly! So, pretty though it is, I will not be transplanting any to my meadow, which changes just gradually enough (except for the disappearance of purple coneflowers) that I manage to accept the differences from one year to the next. 

Birdsfoot trefoil

This Saturday (already!!!) is Northport’s annual dog parade—and how many does this make? My old Nikki was in the parade back in 1997 ("Mardi Growl”) and again in 1998 (“Treasures of King Mutt”).

Memorabilia! Priceless!

Our Sarah made one parade appearance. That year (2010, and you can find Bettie and Ben and Gracie and Sarah by following this link) my sister and her husband were visiting, along with our mother and their dog, Gracie, so Ben and Bettie each had charge of a dog while I stayed near my shop, watching the parade with our mother. Mother is gone, Gracie and Sarah are gone. More changes…. But the dog parade goes on, this year as “Bone Appétit.” (Note: That final 't' is silent.)

The pretty Bernese below made her first bookstore visit—first time in any bookshop—to Dog Ears! She will have moved on from Northport before parade time, but we commemorated her inaugural bookshop visit with a photo shoot.

My own general view of change (returning to my theme) is that I can handle it better if and when it’s gradual rather than overnight. How about you? 

Please come for guest author Tim Mulherin’s talk at Dog Ears Books on Wednesday, August 13, starting at 7 p.m. The topic will be changes in our own Northern Michigan! 

The book for August 13 event

Author Tim Mulherin

The season is moving right along

Days begin and end in smoky haze.

Smoke from Canadian fires makes for dramatic sunrises and sunsets, in addition to reduced air quality. I was going to say “daytime” air quality, but quality must be compromised at night, too, though we don't see the haze. 

In my neighborhood, cherry harvest is over for another year. The month of July is over everywhere! Admittedly, the season we anticipate all winter long, summer, always passes too quickly, but I can’t believe how this one is flying by—a blur, as I always tell people when they ask how my summer is going or, later, how my summer was.

Daisies at their peak bloom. This now is in the past.

For now we still have black-eyed Susans, and the raspberries aren’t quite finished, but already daisies are going to seed, Joe Pye-weed is blooming, and the first goldenrod is showing its bright color. Too soon! Too soon! 

Goldenrod already!

What Has Happened

The Friends of Leelanau Township Library wrapped up their summer author series with guest author Aaron Stander, who read from the 12th book in the very popular Sheriff Ray Elkins series, Smoke and Mirrors, set right here in what he calls “Cedar” County. Aaron shared with the audience some background on how he started writing murder mysteries (Elmore Leonard inspired him) and told stories of having an agent (briefly), looking for a publisher (one was interested until she learned the author's age), and—this was the happiest story—having a loyal, trustworthy editor.

"Did I overdress?" he asked me facetiously.

On the home front, Sunny and I had a visit from a couple old friends of mine and the new little dog of one of those friends. How apprehensive I was beforehand! Would my Naughty Barker terrorize the little rescue pup, who had been cagebound for most of his life until he came to live with Sandra? 

Little Milton, visiting dog

They were fine! They were better than fine! Milton was friendly and relaxed, and so was Sunny. My girl barked briefly at introductions, but soon the two dogs seemed to have been best dog buddies all their lives, and their easy-going happiness added to the humans’ enjoyment of the visit. Relieved? I was overjoyed! It was almost as if Sunny Juliet were channeling Sarah….

Getting acquainted...

Accepting...

Posing...

Resting, hanging out after play -- ah!

What’s Still to Come

Please disregard the erroneous headline in the Enterprise story on my upcoming bookstore event. Our township librarian was even more startled than I was to see the words “library event” (she thought she had forgotten something major!) above the story about Tim Mulherin’s August 13th appearance at Dog Ears Books. 

We’ll begin at 7 p.m. that Wednesday, but you might want to come a little earlier to be sure of a chair, because I’m thinking Tim’s topic is one that could draw a pretty big audience.

Even before that, Northport will have on Saturday, August 2, the annual Fly-In and pancake breakfast, and on Saturday, August 9, the annual and always highly anticipated dog parade. The theme this year is Bone Appétit (please note that final 't' is silent), and, please note, I am registering dog parade entries at Dog Ears Books.

AND my sisters are coming for a visit!!!

My Current Reading

I am still reading the book about Aristotle mentioned in my previous post, along with the other book I wrote about there, In the Merrimack Valley, but was sidetracked yesterday by a very small paperback that I haven't finished yet, an account written in prison—of what turned out to be his last days on earth—by Andrei Ivanovich Shingarev. He was arrested and thrown into prison, without trial, on November 27, 1917, and murdered in January 1918 after being transferred to a hospital. What is available online about Shingarev's life is sparse and conflicting. I have to say, however, that when he writes from prison that members of his political party, the Constitutional Democrats, were declared “enemies of the people” by the antidemocratic Bolsheviks, I thought of similar name-calling from our own White House in our own time. He also writes of lies and hypocrisy but is steadfast in his hope that the Russian people will eventually wake up and throw off those who betrayed their revolution. An empty hope, as it turned out, for that country. Will Americans be different?

Words he wrote from prison --

Which leads me to....

My Thoughts on Forgiveness (because it’s something I think about)

If someone hurts me but exhibits remorse and asks for forgiveness, I can forgive that person. If there is no remorse, no “Sorry!”—let alone a mending of the ways—I feel no compulsion to forgive. I can “move on” without it. Because you can’t make people care.

As I see it, though, forgiving wrongs done to others is an entirely different matter. That is not a matter of forgiveness for me. It is not up to any unharmed and uninvolved person but up to the person or persons harmed to offer forgiveness—if they are still alive and can find it in their hearts to forgive.

In this light, when I look at what is being done in the name of my country in today’s world, at members of our own government who are inflicting harm in our name within our borders and around the world, I not only hold them responsible but also those who put them in office and continue to support them. Can I ever forgive these people? I doubt I will ever be asked, but if I were, my answer would be no. I could forgive ignorance if the truth were inaccessible, but it is not. I could forgive honest mistakes if they were admitted and ways mended, but this is not happening. And even then, I myself cannot forgive violations of the rights and liberties and lives of other people, the ones wronged. 

People who support these violations and call themselves Christian (or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu or whatever!) can ask their God for forgiveness. Rudolf Vrba wrote a book about the Holocaust and the concentration camps and titled it I Cannot Forgive. As I see things (and I realize not everyone will agree), he was right not to.

And as the unforgivable continues to take place day after day, so does rallying around the golden calf. Where is Moses when we need him?

Never malicious —

That’s one of the things I love about the world of plants and sky and rock. Any of these can hurt you, but they never do so intentionally. Even poisonous plants bear us no malice. They are—and I appreciate this from the bottom of my heart—indifferent to human life. Storms may rage, winds may howl, and trees may crash to the ground, but they would do the same if we weren’t in their way, and if we are—well, that’s our bad luck. 

Nothing living lives forever.

Only one of our fellow living beings can push us off a mountain ledge. We may be alone and slip on loose rock, but the mountain is not responsible. There is no one to blame and nothing to forgive. I find that infinitely comforting.

I love their indifference.

Theory and Practice of Life

Crabbing upcurrent some evenings [walking in the river], feeling the force of the water on my legs and a night breeze in my face, I often think of myself as passing the house offshore. Up there in that room, as I see it, is the reading and the thinking through, a theory of rivers, of trees, of falling light. Here on the river, as I lurch against a freshening in the current, is the practice of rivers. In navigating by the glow of the Milky Way, the practice of light. In steadying up with a staff, the practice of wood.

 

-      Barry Lopez, “The Whaleboat,” in About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory

 

Carried away as I had been and still was by the writing, I felt a shock of recognition (a happy shock) when I came upon these lines in the Barry Lopez essay. This must be, I thought, the seed that Jim Harrison found and nurtured into a tree, his poem “The Theory and Practice of Rivers,” and then into the forest of his collection carrying the same name. Jim himself was a walker of rivers—the Sucker River that flowed by his U.P. cabin, the Santa Cruz (or was it a tributary?) outside the place he and Linda lived in Patagonia, Arizona, and others I don’t know at all in Montana. Somehow I feel closer to Barry Lopez through this bridge Jim built between us, and of course the Artist is there, too, with us, as one of the Artist's images along with a stanza from Jim's river poem appeared on the poster and wine label from the 1991 vendange Leelanau Cellars called Vis-à-Vis. 

(The Artist and I walked the Crystal River many times....)

 

***

 

But now, breaking news, sent by a friend in Tucson: There is a new threat to the Santa Cruz River, in the form of a 30-ft.- tall stretch of new border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, 25 miles of it, through the grasslands of the San Rafael Valley, where cameras placed along that section of the border have recorded an average of five pedestrian crossings a month, including Border Patrol agents, hunters, and hikers. Estimates are that there is one illegal border crossing in the area every 20 months.

 

Read those numbers again. Now once more. 

 

An article in the Arizona Daily Star by Emily Bregel reports that conservationists forecast “devastating” effects for migrating animals, along with a disruption of the hydrology of the Santa Cruz River. “‘Wall construction will bulldoze into a steep cliffside at the [Coronado National] memorial, which already acts as a natural barrier,’ said Eamon Harrity, wildlife program manager for the Sky Island Alliance. ‘The cliff where they're going to place new wall will be twice as tall as the wall itself,’ he said. ‘It really highlights how disconnected from logic this wall is.’”

 

Some pork barrel projects are simply a waste of money. This one qualifies on that count: “The $309 million contract for the border-wall project went to Fisher Sand and Gravel, a North Dakota-based company with a record of thousands of environmental violations and legal problems including a 2019 lawsuit, filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging poor workmanship on a 3.5-mile border-wall segment in Texas, which was privately funded by Trump supporters.”

 

But other kinds of pork barrel—and this one qualifies also on the second count—seem calculated not only to make money for a private construction company but also to set the stage for environmental tragedy and, no doubt intentionally, to spit in the faces of those who care.

 

In sum, the current U.S. administration has given a $309 million contract to a company with a record number of violations and lawsuits against it to build an environmentally destructive, unnecessary wall, accomplishing nothing of value. Hello, DOGE? Anyone home?

 

Oh, rivers, rivers! How the human race continues to desecrate you!

 

***

 

Back to my little corner of the world --  

 

(Not its permanent location)

The Artist and I moved from Leland out to our Leelanau Township farmhouse 24 years ago, and only now, inspired by having grandson Jack and his crew camping here recently, have I finally taken the plunge and gotten a fire ring for the yard. Sunny and I did not have our agility session this morning, due to rain and wet grass, so a trip to the hardware store fit in nicely, and I was also able to score some jar lids for the next round of rhubarb chutney, having made the first batch on Sunday.

 

My bedside reading stacks had gotten out of control, so it was good to finish three books in the last couple of days—Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers, a mesmerizing post-Katrina true story; The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers, by Betsy Lerner, a reality check for all would-be published authors; and, finally, the book of Barry Lopez essays quoted at the beginning of this post. I had gotten about 1/3 of the way through a biography of Judge Learned Hand before other books tempted me away from it. Will I ever read all of To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History, by Edmund Wilson? Fascinating as it is, I find myself skipping around in the chapters…. And then there is Wilma Dykeman’s The French Broad from the “Rivers of America” series. I’ve only just begun that one and should really not have started it, with the others still waiting to be finished, but—no reading rules in my life! Taking classes, required reading, even teaching are all behind me now, and I can browse the endless buffet to my heart’s desire.

 

It's almost the 4^th of July! And the day after the 4^th (the 5^th, right?) is the annual Friends of Leelanau Township Library book sale in Northport, beginning at 9 a.m. Last year I was so busy and had so much on my mind that I completely forgot the sale, and the organizers were exclaiming to each other over my absence, as I am one of their best customers every year (if not the best). In the coming week the FOLTL summer author series kicks off with Karen Mulvahill and her historical novel, The Lost Woman, on Tuesday evening. I’ve taken a picture of the poster, since I didn’t see the list on the FOLTL website:

Planning an August bookstore guest

And sometime in August I’ll have as my bookstore guest author Tim Mulherin. (Note to self: We really need to set a date for that!) Tim’s book, The Magnetic North, addresses the idea that, as I put it, “Everyone wants to be here!” If you grew up in Leelanau County, do you regard newcomers as an invading force or grist for your make-a-living mill? If you’ve been coming up for summers all your life, are you dismayed or heartened by changes you see? Maybe you have just “discovered” Leelanau (I know it feels like that to a lot of people, some of whom have never been in Michigan before) and dream about living here someday. We are not the only area in the country experiencing growing pains, either, so Tim’s exploration of the issues will be of interest to just about everyone.

 

Before leaving the subject of books, I’ll mention that I’ve started carrying a few bilingual board books for little ones. So far I have English-French and English-Spanish but will look into other languages if anyone is interested. 

Now, breaking news, local—and good!

 

Saw this sign when I walked by today! Hooray!

More ice cream! Now there is Buster’s on Nagonaba, Barb’s Bakery on Mill Street for frozen custard, and Deep’s at the corner of Waukazoo and Nagonaba for your Moomer’s fix!

I wrote a four-page letter to a friend this morning, and almost all of it was about trees and wildflowers, appearances and disappearances of same in my little world. Will the purple coneflowers that failed to show up last year get back to me this summer? Time will tell. In the meantime, I’m enjoying every blooming thing in its time. 

 

Lately, the letters I write are less and less like chatty “newsletters” and more and more like rambling meditations, occasionally on a single theme. Do you ever read collections of some famous person’s letters? If you do, what interests you most in them? Their daily activities, family and social interactions, their reflections on contemporary events, or something else entirely? What do you most appreciate and enjoy in a letter you receive in the mail?

It occurred to me this morning that I may never write a book for publication—my doing so isn’t unthinkable, but neither is it highly probable after so many decades—and so my writing is of a very ephemeral nature, mostly letters and blog posts. Ephemeral and unremunerative, not to put too fine a point on it. But that takes a lot of pressure off. Metaphorically, I am scrawling messages and corking them up in bottles flung out onto the waves, in hopes someone will be entertained or someone's heart warmed, if only briefly. Sending a letter says, I hope, “I’ve been thinking of you. You were on my mind. Wish we could sit together in the shade and visit in person. If we could, here is some of what I would have to say.” Of course, if my friend were here, there would be no telling where our conversation would go. Even a reply to a letter isn’t always a response but the correspondent’s own rambling thoughts shared in turn. And that’s just fine! 

 

Last thought for the day: One of my recent customers thanked me for having the Ukranian flag in the window, telling me he was born and raised in Ukraine and showing me his tattoo (you can read about the symbol here), which he allowed me to photograph. Here is a statement today from Johann Walter David Rudolf "Jo" Wadephul , member of the German parliament and current Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, pledging European support to Ukraine. Why? Because all men are brothers. And because theory of freedom is nothing without practice. Will we Americans hold onto our freedom? That remains to be seen.