Good and Exciting Things Still Happen

Sunny Juliet post-paddle

The puppy and I are home. SJ loves the yard at the farm, and she had her first dog paddle in Lake Leelanau. We are still adjusting, but in time what I call her “good girl potential” is going to come shining through, and we will be fine. Meanwhile, the world has gone on turning – and besides all the bad news and my personal grief, there are some wonderful and exciting things happening, too.

 

A Pulitzer Winner

 

For instance? Well, someone I know won a Pulitzer Prize. And she’s a Michigan poet, too. 

 

Originally from Niles, Diane Seuss (cousin of a friend so dear he and his wife and kids are like family) first appeared on Grath radar when she was one of a number of women poets (the event was billed as “women poets”) reading their work in a classroom setting at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. (Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo, but there is only one.) It was a small event that the Artist and I attended together, at the suggestion of our friend, Michael, the poet’s cousin.

 

Diane, as I recall her on that long-ago day, was young, barefoot, and wore a long cotton hippie sort of skirt. Instead of standing behind the desk and reading from the small lectern, she sat on the desk, bare feet swinging. I remember being somewhat dubious and not expecting much. 

 

Then she read.

 

At the end of her first poem, the Artist and I looked at each other in amazement. Had we really heard what we thought we heard? I wish now that I had made notes (and kept them) of the pieces that made our hair stand on end that day. I do remember going to see our friend, her cousin, Michael, soon afterward to tell him that I would be more than happy to type Diane’s manuscript for free if she needed a typist, so that her work could be published with the least possible delay. 

 

But her career did all right without my help. A Guggenheim Fellow in 2020, she received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2021. And now, for her frank: sonnets, she has won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The Pulitzer committee said of this book that it is “a virtuosic collection that inventively expands the sonnet form….” Wow. I mean -- wow! A Pulitzer!!!

 

 

Coming From Way Behind

 

Then there was another winner, the long shot, come-from-behind winner of the 2022 the Kentucky Derby, which I was unable to watch as I was on the road that day, traveling the last stretch of my cross-country odyssey home to Michigan from Arizona. I had no idea of the horses running that day, and the names would have meant nothing to me, but someone posted a link on Facebook, I watched it a couple days later, and -- Oh my God, I have never seen such a race! Has there ever been such a race? The announcer himself, focused on the front runners, never saw the upset coming, even as Rich Strike was coming up through the field, passing every horse in sight.

 

What a horse! What a race! Nunca te rindas! Never give up! 80 to 1 odds! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! It is an exciting race every time I re-watch it!

 

 

Life Is Hard, Driving Is Easy

 

How many of my friends offered to fly out to Tucson and drive back with me across the country to Michigan? I lost count. There were a lot, and quite honestly, not to sound churlish or ungrateful, I had a few moments of annoyance at all the concern. Did my husband’s death render me suddenly incompetent and/or foolish? And how could I even begin to imagine making that long, familiar, cross-country drive David and I had made together so many times with anyone who wasn’t David? The very idea, so popular among my friends, I found unthinkable. 

 

I wrote recently, “This trip was, for me, a kind of pilgrimage but not to one particular destination: the entire length of the journey was its point.” It was, if you will, a kind of secular-marital Camino de Santiago, driven rather than walked, and I had to do it alone. We walked around the square in this little town. It was on this stretch of country two-lane road that we saw the armadillo. My memories would mean nothing to anyone else.

 

The other thing is that since the Artist died, missing him so terribly, I do a lot of crying in the car. A second person would have constrained that tearful freedom, conversation would have impinged on my memories, pushing them aside, and silence would not have been the comfortable kind that comes about in a marriage after decades of crazy passion, sturm und drang, quiet, mundane happiness, and all the rest, whereas alone on the road, I had no need to respond except to my puppy, and while Sunny Juliet occasionally makes demands (she is both vocal and physical in making her needs known), she never asks questions. 

 

“But who will help you with the driving?” people frequently asked. At the end of my odyssey, I was able to put into words what I had known intuitively from the beginning, which is, as the heading of this section of my post puts succinctly, “Life is hard (well, it can be), but driving is easy.” Driving for days requires focus on the task at hand, but except for puppy needs I had no other responsibilities. All I had to do was cover miles. I could take the roads I wanted to take – roads the Artist and I had traveled before – and stop when I wanted to or keep going if I didn’t need or want to stop, consulting only Sunny’s requirements and my own inclination. The hardest part of the odyssey had nothing to do with driving. It was that Sunny slept so much in the car that she wasn’t tired at the end of the day, and I had to amuse and entertain her for three or four hours in the motel when all I really wanted to do was fall asleep over a book or in front of a movie.

One ear up and one ear down

But, as I said up there at the beginning today, we made it, and now we go on from here, day by day. Thanks to David’s gift of a puppy and Sunny Juliet’s presence, I am not alone. Then, too, there are all our friends! 

I'm not alone

So feel free to quote me: "Life is hard, driving is easy."

And then, the other evening in Leland –

 

Summer art classes in Leland, Michigan, began in 1922, a century ago, thanks to Allie Mae Best. Fifty years ago Michigan State University began offering six-week, for-credit art classes every summer in Leland. My late husband, David Grath, a.k.a. “the Artist” here on Books in Northport, came to Leland to study as a master’s student from MSU (having discovered Leland somewhat earlier, but that’s another story), and so for the 100^th anniversary celebration I was asked to loan one of his paintings for the show, which opened Thursday evening, May 12, and runs through May 18 (open 11-3 daily). The show included works by students and instructors from as long ago as the 1960s.

 

I wasn’t sure I was up for a big public event. What would it feel like to be there, in the building where the Artist had so many one-man shows over the years and where so many friends and acquaintances would be gathered? Could I handle it? I just didn’t know, but a friend said she and her husband would meet me outside and we could go in together. 

 

It was a lovely, lovely evening! I was so, so glad to be there and was so glad in retrospect that I didn’t miss it that I had to stop by again to photograph a couple things I missed on Thursday evening. Here, then, are a few of the images that touched my heart. 

 

"Every Day You're Getting Prettier and Prettier"
and 
"Tricoastal"
by David Grath

Paul Welch

"Painting of Portrait," by Paul Welch

"Vanitas," by Paul Welch

"Gauntlet," by Janine Germaine

"Cat? What Cat?" (from the Monster series), by Janine Germaine

screen by Jane McChesney

"Eden," by Cliff McChesney (typical large work of his)

"Soul Catcher," by Cliff McChesney (atypically small for Cliff)

You must forgive me some sentimentality in these choices. I was never a student in the summer art classes but fell under the spell of Cliff and Jane McChesney (as had all their summer art students) when I met them at a dinner party at the home of Jim and Linda Harrison. They were truly lovely people. So while I have no personal memories of the summer art classes, I have my own set of memories, and many of the names invoked on Thursday evening were names I recognized, calling up fond thoughts of years past. 

Mourning Is a Mountain Road

Don't say you weren't warned.

 

When Peter Pan, the little lost boy who wanted never to grow up, found himself on Marooner’s Rock with the tide rising all about him, he looked at the bright side and said stoically, “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” That was in part the view of the author of Meetings at the Edge, a book highlighted in my most recent post. Today I am thinking of adventures in a broader sense, those sought and unsought, adventures geographical and spiritual, with death only part of the picture.

 

I did not plan to go on a hair-raising expedition on Wednesday. I just had to get out of the house and go somewhere – anywhere – to recover from my most debilitating meltdown since losing the love of my life. Everything – and I mean everything! – seemed overwhelming and unbearable! But I had just bought new tires, mounted only that morning, and I had three-quarters of a tank of gas, so driving down the highway a few miles to Chiricahua National Monument didn’t seem an outlandish idea. Maybe, I thought, on my way down the road, I wouldn’t even go that far. Maybe I’d take the road to Fort Bowie but not even as far as the parking lot, maybe just pulling off at some scenic spot along the way. There was a car behind me as the turnoff got close, though, so instead of slowing down I kept going. 

This way to Pinery Canyon --

Then, should I take the road to the Monument or stay on the main road? I chose the Monument road, but at the T intersection, where turning left takes one into the Monument on a paved road and turning right on gravel and sand leads to Pinery Canyon, I turned right. Again, it was the impulse of the moment. The Artist and I had explored partway up Pinery Canyon once but had always “saved” the expedition over the mountains for another time and so had never together faced the terrors of Onion Saddle at the top of the range. Well, I had no plan to face those terrors on Wednesday, either. But the farther I went into the Coronado National Forest, the more committed I became. Accidentally, as it were. Because turning back seems ridiculous at a certain point, don’t you find? 

Camping spot along the dry creek bed

Once in a while I would see a campsite (a couple of small tents, a few clothes hung on a line strung between two trees, a fire circle made of rocks), and very occasionally (less than half a dozen times in what was finally 30 miles or so) another vehicle approached and the driver raised a hand laconically as we passed each other, but most of the time there was only me, the puppy, and maybe a deer off in the trees. I found myself driving well below the 20 mph speed limit. Once I pulled over to walk the puppy and saw that indeed the rocky creek bed was dry as a bone. We went on….

 

An unplanned adventure doesn’t have to fall from the sky like a tornado, all of a sudden. It can creep upon one gradually, and that was my experience of Pinery Canyon. At one primitive intersection I pulled off when three other cars appeared, two behind me and one ahead, relieved that no one was going my way!

 

…The road narrowed, and the canyon, now on my left, deepened. Loose rocks in the road presented occasional hazards. Basically, as one ascends the mountain, one is traveling a one-lane road with the potential for two-way traffic. 

 

A sign appeared: Portal, on the other side of the mountains, was still 20 miles off, twenty miles of narrow, winding, climbing mountain road! Going on from this point was a big commitment, as there might not be further opportunities to go back, whatever the road ahead presented. Still not completely sure I wanted to go all the way, I proceeded cautiously. Upon reaching a sign that announced Portal still 19 miles distant, I reflected on the length of a mountain mile. Nothing like a mile on flatlands! But I had hours of light, nowhere I had to be, so I might as well keep going.

 

You know that feeling at the top of a Ferris wheel when you pause for a nanosecond and then begin the downward plunge? A glance into the terrifying abyss off the side of my road turned my legs to jelly in just that way. Glancing over was irresistible, but I could not look for more than the briefest glance, even if I stopped stock-still. It was too frightening. My photo does not convey the terror of the vertiginous drop!

Edge feels all too close

At one point the road seemed to be leveling off and even descending, and I wondered, looking off to nearby peaks, if I had passed the highest point. Could it be? Hey! Easy-peasy! My relief was short-lived, as the road began to climb once more, twisting like a snake, making blind hairpin turns – and still it went on and on, as if it would never reach the saddle, much less arrive at Portal on the other side of the range. 

Sometimes I could see below me a portion of road just traveled. Other times the coming road appeared above, across a chasm, and I prayed there would be no other vehicles coming toward me around the turns.

Road to come

Road traveled 

 

At last! The highest hairpin! Onion Saddle! There was the Sulphur Springs Valley spread out below me, my Arizona home valley, a distant panorama – and around the turn the San Simon Valley appeared far below, with its long views into New Mexico. I had crossed Onion Saddle! “If we can do this, we can do anything!” I said aloud to Sunny, tears in my eyes.

Another hairpin

Sulphur Springs Valley

San Simon Valley

Miraculously finding a pull-off spot a couple of minutes later, I paused to catch my breath, get out of the car, and photograph some lupines in bloom. Another car went by, also going toward Portal, and I was glad to be off the road just then and not pressed to go faster by someone behind me. 

Water in the road? Wonderful surprise on the way down! I hadn't counted on seeing and hearing running water.

And a blooming tree! That too looked like some kind of miracle, surrounded by oaks, junipers and pines.

When another decision point appeared, I chose the nine miles to Portal, knowing that the last stretch would be paved and easy. And anyway, Paradise could hardly paradise for me without the Artist, could it?

There were the stunning rock faces that I remembered from a visit to Portal and the Southwest Research Station when the Artist and I had approached it with a visiting friend via I-10, down 80 through New Mexico, and by way of the Portal Road, a long, roundabout way (though they are all “roundabout,” in one way or the other) but much less hair-raising than going over the mountains. My road would be basically downhill from here on. Downhill in low gear, of course, careful not to slide on loose rock. 

The most extraordinary sight, however, appeared when I was a scant few miles from Portal, and it was one I did not capture with my camera. Imagine, if you will, seeing a turquoise swimming pool, like something out of a David Hockney painting, and a woman lazily stroking her way from one end to the other -- in a setting such as this!

 

Well, I shed many, many tears while crossing the mountains, thinking of how the Artist and I had talked of making this daring trip sometime and how he would have loved the long panoramic views and how precious it would have been to share the heart-stopping fears, as well as the soul-expanding thrills of the mountain road, with all its ups and downs and edges and startling sights. How can my own experiences ever again be fully real without him? 

And I thought as I wound my way up and down the mountains that grief is a mountain road: There is the abyss of utter loss, the chasms of loneliness, the heart-stopping fears of all that lies ahead. Will I be able to do this alone? For how long? There are also glimpses of beauty, both in memories and overflowing gratitude. But the road seems endless! And just when you think it’s leveling off, it becomes once again a narrow, rocky climb, and sometimes you need to stop and have a meltdown -- but then you must go forward again, because there is no turning back.

 

I don’t know if the mountain road of mourning has a destination, some spiritual version of Portal, with a welcoming café, cool beverages, and happy families on vacation. It would be lovely to think a reunion awaited at the end of the trail. Or maybe (and I think more likely) the spiritual road just keeps going as long as one lives but comes gradually down off the mountain and takes a gentler route, with only occasional blinding storms. Really, I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out. 

All I can say for certain is that I don’t envisage making the physical drive over the Chiricahua mountain range again, and it’s a foregone certitude that I will never again lose the love of my life. But my afternoon of despair did give way to a minor triumph of sorts. I crossed Onion Saddle and lived to tell the tale.

 

Taking paved roads home through New Mexico at sunset

Sometimes “Uneventful” is Good: The Trek Home

 

Does disaster await?

We were five days and four nights on the road coming back to Michigan from Arizona – easily twice as long as most people would take for the trip but a manageable pace for us. Our overnight stops were Santa Rosa, New Mexico; Great Bend, Kansas; Cameron, Missouri; and Monticello, Illinois. I’ve loved Santa Rosa since our first visit; Great Bend invites future visits with its wonderful wildlife areas; Cameron was very good to us, offering up an old-school mechanic and got us back on the road in an hour just when we feared losing several days and beaucoup bucks; and Monticello, a place we discovered many years ago, looked so good this time around that the Artist declared, “I could live here in a heartbeat!” Of course, we had been on the road a long time by then, and if we did live in Monticello we would have been home when he made that declaration, so I took it with a grain of salt.

 

Our first day on the road took us northeast through New Mexico. We veered off our highway (U.S. 54) long enough to explore half of Duran, New Mexico, saving the other side of the road (where the church is) for another time. Duran’s population in 2010 was 39. I wonder what the recent census will reveal.

I swear there was a diner in Vaughn the last time we went through! No longer. Want to buy a small town? This one might be available. The railroad station is gorgeous!

And it’s no news that the demise of Old Route 66 has brought hardship on many American towns, but we couldn’t help thinking that COVID-19 had made things worse for Tucumcari, NM. So many beautiful old buildings, though, including a stunning old train station (sorry I did not get a good photo of that), make me wonder why some group of retired Southwesterners (and retirees to the Southwest) weary of overdevelopment, crowding, and crazy traffic don’t move to one of these places and inaugurate a renaissance. All that’s needed is critical mass. Not every near-empty town can boast the beautiful wall art you will find in Tucumcari.

Tucumcari is filled with beautiful Doug Quarles murals

We followed the old Pony Express route through the northeast corner of Kansas but found in the town of Washington (I think it was) little decorated statues of squirrels in front of businesses everywhere. No doubt there is an explanation….

Then there was this intriguing business name, which made us laugh. We actually did quite a bit of laughing on the trip, which is a good sign (speaking of signs). 

Cannot omit an image of the mechanic's garage in Cameron, Missouri, where we were saved from disaster and back on the road in an hour! Did not have to get a horse and buy the old wagon displayed in the garage window to get ourselves back to Michigan!

And finally, on this whirlwind, cross-country photo-trek, I give you Monticello, Illinois, with not only a pretty old train station and lovely little garden park but a beautiful horse sculptor by an artist whose name was new to me, Anna Hyatt Huntington. The Artist and I were both happy too learn of her work.

So when I call our long trip home “uneventful,” I do so with deep gratitude in my heart. Before we left Arizona, I could not imagine how we would get all the boxes of books packed into the car and still have room for ourselves and my new dog. I could not imagine the dog being patient enough to ride in the backseat for five days and not be off his leash once! 

"You are not leaving me!"

And my little car is a 2002 Subaru, made back when the Forester was a very different, much smaller vehicle than the new models are today. Nineteen years old! I was telling the Artist (not for the first time) about my grandmother’s old Chrysler and how it was “probably the oldest car on the road,” and he commented that I was following in my grandmother’s footsteps. Or tire treads, I guess.

Michigan!

But we made it, and my bookstore will be open Friday and Saturday, May 21-22, and then again Tuesdays through Saturdays for the foreseeable future! Ah, the “foreseeable”! As if we can look past any given moment! “How do you know there will be a next winter?” the Artist asked me one day recently. “How do I know there will be a tomorrow?” I retorted. But we do plan, and today the summer almost upon us looks bright.

Grand Traverse Bay!