The Best Things in Life

Redbud on the creek, Northport

Northern Michigan is in bloom!

Let’s start with beauty, because there is no such thing as too much beauty. Leelanau County has been bursting with blossoms. Cherries first, then apple blossoms, now lilacs. Not only orchards, though. There are lots of flowering plants in the villages, too. 

Chokecherry and viburnum, Northport

Closer look at viburnum called 'Chenault' (somewhat past peak)

These blooming trees in Leland stopped me, too.

At home, wild violets gave me enough for two batches of violet jelly (lots more violets, but how much violet jelly do I need?) and made a stunning setting for photographing my dog when Sunny Juliet plunked down in another little sea of deep purple. And while there aren’t many redbud trees this far north, those few do their part, even the spindly little volunteer behind the old henhouse at my place.

Wild Violet Jelly

Redbud flower closeup

It’s worth looking close to the ground, as well, for beauty you would not be able to take in from a speeding car.

Not much to look at?

Look closer!

And gardens! This is the time of year I live for! I think of it as my real life, with before and after mostly prologue and epilogue. 

Lobelia! Need I say more?

That got me to thinking the other evening about seasons and how, for me, here in Northern Michigan, the four seasons as generally divided don’t make sense. Spring isn’t really March-April-May, but (in my opinion, in my life) April-May-June, with summer July-August-September, and so on. December is more late fall than early winter, and winter usually hangs on through most of March. What do you think about that?

My reading these days--

As is so often the case, my attention hops like a flea (or buzzes like a bee?) from one book to another. Having trouble with Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (I could not seem to hear the characters’ voices in my head), I picked up a less demanding book, Dark Light, nonfiction about the dawn of electric light and all the promises and fears any revolutionary new technology spawns, but have yet to finish it, because morning reading on the porch for several days was Remember, by Lisa Genova, neurologist and author of the novel Still Alice, in which the main character develops signs of early onset Alzheimer’s. Not being able to recall a name, Genova assures readers in her new nonfiction book, is not a sign of dementia. It happens to 20-year-olds as well as 80-year-olds. Older people simply worry about it more. 

Remember is an easy read and a quick one. Whatever your age, and whether or not you worry about your memory, it’s worth learning what helps us remember, what gets in the way, and what we can do to keep memory as sharp as possible as we get older. Pay attention, the author tells us at the beginning. (“Stop, look, and listen,” I think to myself, remembering the lesson about crossing streets that I was made to repeat over and over when young.) You can’t remember that to which you have not paid attention. I particularly like this piece of advice, since I decided years ago that paying attention is my #1 job in life. There are other pieces of advice. Sleep, exercise, a healthy diet—all the things that are in general good for our physical health are also good for preserving our memories. Alcohol is a culprit, better avoided. Caffeine in moderation and not too close to bedtime. 

***

Then there was One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad, a difficult book to read, not for the difficulty of the writing but for its subject matter. Still, the urgency of El Akkad’s book is such that I believe every American should read it now. Because, as he says --

No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness? Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.

- Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025)

That will be one day. What about today? Where do you and I stand today? 

Detail from book cover

I did, finally, finish As I Lay Dying. Faulkner will never be my favorite writer, but reading one of his famous works was a duty I could not neglect forever.

Big Life, Little Life; or, Macro, Micro

“Big Life, Little Life” is the title I gave to my most recently filled volume of journal writing. “Macro/Micro” are the terms used by Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse on their Saturday Coffee Klatch videos. For those of us fortunate enough to live far from war and famine, the contrast is often stark between happiness in our personal lives and the agony we feel over our country’s disintegration and its role in world suffering. My parents were spared this, I have thought so often. My late husband was spared this.

Recently I had my annual Medicare wellness visit. Am I depressed? No, I can’t say that I am depressed, because my personal life is fulfilling. When I wake up in the middle of the night, however, I often wake into rather than out of nightmare, as I remember what is happening in my country and in the world. Anxiety? Yes, on a daily basis. You are not alone, I was told. “Ninety-nine point nine percent” of her patients are anxious about the country and the world, she told me. And we are the lucky ones! We did not send our children off in the morning only to have a bomb drop on their school and kill them. We are not handcuffed and shackled and herded from one “detainment center” to another, treated worse than American pet owners would ever treat their dogs and cats. We are not starving. Why are we anxious, and what do we fear—if not the theft of our souls? And the death of freedom and the actual deaths of innocent human beings, our brothers and sisters.

What can we do? First, we must not be silent. Then -- what practical, doable action have you found that you can take in your community?

Here and now, though...

...Tree Guy and I are putting a life together. This as quite an unexpected late-life gift, as we see it, and Sunny Juliet, who is part of it, may not “count her blessings” in quite the same way, but she loves being part of a pack and having a home and people to play with her and provide her with special treats. She is a lucky dog, and Tree Guy and I are a couple of lucky humans.

Summer Days Are Very Full

 

Always perky in the mornings -- and most other times, too.

This first photo is out of sequence, because Sunny Juliet is such an attention magnet. Our mornings, however, start much earlier, in the 5 a.m. dark, when Sunny's dog momma makes herself a first mug of strong coffee. 

Mug from the U.P. Do you know that place?

The sky is growing light. We can get up now and start out into the world.

Most often when Sunny and I have little mini-vacations before my work day, we head south (go to my photo blog to see the most recent morning south of M-204), but when the morning includes an agility session out in Cherry Home it makes more sense to go north, and stopping at dear little Woolsey Airport is a temptation there's no reason to resist.

Helpful hint: August 2nd will be a good time to visit Woolsey Airport. Get there early and watch the planes come in! Another reason to be an early bird is to get your pancake breakfast before the line is too long. 

After that stop, I ducked down a nearby unpaved back road. These are some of my favorite places -- what I call Leelanau insolite!  I learned that French word--in the context of travel--to mean out-of-the-way or off-the-beaten-path. Only today did I stumble on the fact that it used to be part of the English language too but is now considered obsolete. Interesting. 'Insolite' is obsolete....

Off the paved road, anyway --

We still had a little time before our agility session appointment, so returning to the morning-quiet "highway," I drove as far as the old original Cherry Home. It had been years since I'd been out that way, and the buildings looked beautiful in the morning light. That was where we turned back, but it seemed very worthwhile to have gone that far.

The road continues to Leelanau State Park and the lighthouse.

But now let's turn to books, because my bookstore is where I spent six summer days a week. My "ancient" section of children's books got a shot in the arm the other day with half a dozen Walter Farley books, all first editions and only one lacking its colorful dust jacket. (There are a few newly arrived Happy Hollisters, too, but horse stories that excite me more.) Bookstore inventory changes on a daily basis, the new as well as the used. I am delighted to offer some great titles in reprint from David R. Godine and can personally vouch for Jane Brox, Laurie Lee, and Clémentine. 

An older title illuminates the London Blitz in letters from one who was there.

I wrote about the new books above, along with Respectfully Yours, Annie, on one of my other blogs, so you can learn more here.

In the evenings--at least on an evening when it's neither raining nor does grass need mowing--my old farmyard is a place where I can relax in the shade, tossing tennis balls for Sunny to chase and sharing the occasional potato chip with her while currently the blossoming linden trees (basswood, to be more specific) are humming and thrumming with bees. Sometimes, of course, I'll take a book out there, too.

Are You Tired of It Yet?

Are you tired of spring? Impatient for summer's heat? Do blooming cherry trees begin to bore you. Is your eye satiated with the leafing-out of fresh green everywhere? Impossible!

Unlike the white settled blanket of winter or the satiety of full-blown late summer’s dark green, Michigan shoulder seasons, spring and fall, change their appearance almost from hour to hour. Look closely at an open cherry blossom and notice a tiny brown edge. More obvious is the dandelion’s decline from bright yellow flowers to globes of ghostly seeds. 

Every footstep of every road’s vista is unique. Do you prefer the long view or the intimate perspective? To be lost at child’s-eye level among tree trunks or to soar overhead like a bird?

My advice is not to miss any of it. Take every possible opportunity to look about you. Take, take, take your time, but don’t take it for granted!