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. 

My Own Personal “Song of the Open Road”

A windy day in New Mexico

One of my Arizona neighbors suggested that I could listen to podcasts and/or audiobooks all the way across the country. I told her I usually have the radio off on long trips, but that sometimes I sing as I drive along. One of the songs from “The King and I” was in my head all across New Mexico, finally ceding place to an old pop song or two. And then came “The Red, Red Robin,” which I like to perform (mostly to myself, in solitude) in a slow, plaintive, bluesy rendition. Often, though, the songs were playing only in my head, over and over, and anyone seeing me at the wheel would have noted nothing more than silent stoicism or perhaps a few escaping tears, because everything the Artist and I had seen before triggered memories, and I missed him every minute, every mile. This trip was, for me, a kind of pilgrimage but not to one particular destination: the entire length of the journey was its point.

Sunny was seeing this picturesque ruin for the first time.

Vaughn, NM: Position still not filled? I could do that!

My route on Day One took me east on I-10 from Willcox to Las Cruces, 70 through the San Augustin Pass to Alamagordo, and then U.S. 54 to Tularosa and on to Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The stretch from Tularosa to Santa Rosa became a favorite road for the Artist and me, starting with the first time we traveled it (top photo of this post is from that stretch), and since Santa Rosa was also a favorite New Mexico town, it made sense to stop there for my first night.

Evening in beautiful Santa Rosa, NM

Little Sunny Juliet and I covered over 450 miles that first day and 515 miles the second day, finishing up Day Two with a visit to a big, beautiful dog park in Winfield, Kansas. 

And if the name “Kansas” brings to your mind a flat, empty, boring landscape, you don’t know Kansas at all. I left U.S. 54 at Meade and dropped down to U.S. 160, a very narrow two-lane road but very light on traffic and heavy on gorgeous scenery. Often the road ran straight ahead of me to the distant horizon, but it had many deep, rolling dips and rises that it reminded me of ribbon taffy. The vistas off to either side were monumental and breathtaking, too; unfortunately, without any road shoulder, pulling off to photograph the land was close to impossible. Just think for a moment about all the hill regions of Kansas: Red Hills, Flint Hills, Sand Hills, Gypsum Hills – and those are only the ones I know. There are more.

 

The morning of Day Three began well – but then! – well --! 

Getting a tow

At Duke's Alignment & Tire, Winfield, KS

Well, the good news was that (1) I carry AAA road service; (2) I was still in Winfield, a town large enough to have towing and tire services; and (3) though I had bought four new tires in Arizona before leaving (and was not happy to have ruined one of them so soon!), I had also given car room to one of the old tires so I would have a real spare in case I needed it. So while I lost three hours of travel time that morning, the situation could have been much, much worse, and I was grateful to Cole, the young guy who handle the big towing rig so easily, and to Duke, the guy who got me in and out with my spare mounted as quickly as he could. And as I've said, Sunny and I had visited a fabulous dog park in Winfield on Monday evening, and we made it there again before the tire incident, so we were pretty well pleased with Winfield overall, and I had no regrets about my chosen route.

Winfield was very, very good to us.

Tuesday afternoon did not see us covering us a lot of ground, either, what with construction stops and detours, but this is how it goes sometimes on the road, and once I gave up the idea of making any kind of distance record for the day, I found myself stopping over and over with my camera. Because, why not? (And bear in mind that the photographs I take with my camera are only a small fraction of the ones I see to be taken but drive right by.) For instance, when I stopped to text my sister that I was finally in Moline, Kansas, she texted back that the oldest swinging suspension bridge in the country was there. I looked up and saw a sign on the other side of the road directing me down a side street to the bridge, and here it is. The road itself was originally a Cherokee trail. It seemed well worth the time to make that little detour.

What town was I passing through when this cabin caught my eye? Surely I made a note of it in my road atlas....

Right across the street from the old log cabin was this very photogenic old truck. 

And who wouldn't have stopped for a picture like this?

Eventually, of course, despite the tire problem, road construction stops, detours, and numerous photo opps, the puppy and I made our way across Kansas to and across Missouri. Redbud trees in bloom against spectacular rocky road cuts, and U.S. 54 rolled for many miles as a limited access in Missouri, divided highway rather than two-lane, making for easy cruising; however, I didn’t mind at all the twisting, curving two-lane stretches that preceded and followed the easier divided road. Day Four would be an easy distance: El Dorado Springs, Missouri to Springfield, Illinois, and so, reaching Louisiana, Missouri, by noon and knowing I was only about an hour and a half from Springfield, I decided to explore the town of Louisiana. I had an ulterior purpose. Because --.

 

The Artist and I crossed the Mississippi River together many times. We crossed often at St. Louis, which I always considered a “nightmare,” due to very heavy traffic and all the converging and intersecting expressways at that point, a true crossroads of a very busy country, all of whom seem to be on the move when you are threading your way through that maze. My preference was to cross at Hannibal. The river town famous as the birthplace of Samuel Clemens draws heavily on that history for its tourist business, but it’s still a small town, and the last time we came through there we explored around a bit and had lunch rather than simply rushing through.

 

Louisiana was a different story. 

 

The only time we crossed the Mississippi at Louisiana, Missouri, we were on our way east. I was at the wheel, and when I saw that very old, very narrow, old iron bridge ahead, all I could fixate on was getting safely across it! The Artist said, too late, that he would have liked to see something of the town. “Do you want me to go back?” “No, we’ll save it for another time.” But “another time” never came, and so this time I would see Louisiana for both of us.

 

…Comes into my mind now another song, “The Water Is Wide,” an old Celtic folk song. Ah, my love and I! Our love never waxed cold, never faded away....

 

What do I do in the car besides sing, silently or aloud? On this trip, I shed many tears. Not only for shared memories that are now mine alone, but for sights my love and I thought we would have time to see but never did see together. How he would have loved this river town, too! As my emotions ran a rollercoaster gamut, over and over, from excitement to pangs of grief, I kept turning corners in Louisiana, Missouri, and going around blocks and exploring farther and farther from my designated route, jumping out of the car over and over to photograph scenes I wanted so much to share with my beloved partner, the Artist. -- So many scenes that I am going to put them in a separate post and leave this one with an image of dogwood in blossom in the soft Illinois prairie rain. Good night for now.

Dogwood blossoming in the prairie rain....

Another Season and a Different Kind of Pilgrimage

The book friends I’ve referred to in the past, collectively, as our intrepid Ulysses reading group have now designated us a reading circle. I’m unclear on whether or not Ulysses is still part of its title (if it ever was), and it doesn’t matter, really, what we call ourselves. Getting together and challenging ourselves and reading and discussing important works in a supportive environment is our raison d’être.

From Don Quixote last spring, we eased our way through Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Hemingway’s Nick Adams Stories in recent, busier months, and now that fall is here and schedules a bit freer, we agreed that our project for November would be Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It seems like a good follow-up to Dante (an earlier winter’s reading) and Cervantes, though because I’ve been reading a couple other books (Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, and Nineteen + Conversations with Jazz Musicians, by Garth W. Caylor, Jr.) I have not yet made it past Chaucer’s Prologue, but already I've been musing on the notion of seasonal pilgrimage.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote 

The droughte of Marche hath perced to the rote, 

And bathed every veyne in swich licour... 

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages....

Up North spring road cathedral

Spring, the season that found Chaucer’s pilgrims on the road to Canterbury, is said to be appropriate for such travels because the earth’s annual renewal calls human beings to a spiritual renewal, also. That strikes me as a very lofty view. I can’t help suspecting that here in northern Michigan, at least, cabin fever is as much a factor as spiritual renewal: We’ve been stuck indoors all winter! Let us out!

But the itch for the open road strikes in the fall, too, perhaps in anticipation of impending cabin fever. Once summer is over, many summer residents start packing for winters in Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, California or (old) Mexico, and we know people from Northport who go as far away as Hawaii or Istanbul. Seasonal migration has always been a feature of human life on earth. David and Sarah and I certainly enjoyed our winter away last year. Was it a pilgrimage we made to the Southwest? It was a long cross-country trek!

This year it looks as if we’ll be sticking it out in the old farmhouse, as we’ve done many times before. Still, we did make it to the U.P. for a little getaway a couple weeks ago, and after four decades of making the trip, it does begin to feel like a pilgrimage, as (in addition to exploring new roads and places) we revisit scenes sacred to memory and friends (and traces of friends departed) who have iconic status in our lives. So, winter elsewhere, short autumn getaway – those are two solutions to the Up North longing for the road that comes over Northerners at this time of year.

Another is simpler and involves nothing more than short trips around our pleasant peninsula, blazing with color before the scenery is reduced to a more restricted winter palette. Day trips are very good, when they can be arranged, but so are glorious stolen hours before the start of a regular work day. Sarah and I have been finding much joy recently in our outdoor mornings, finding new places to walk in addition to our old, favorite roads.

Do my morning wanderings count as pilgrimages? Not, I guess, if a pilgrimage must be long. But “sacred place” and “act of devotion” certainly fit my pantheist sensibility. This beautiful world! The obligation I feel to pay attention to it is especially strong in the autumn of the year, as the air and water grow colder and days shorter.

Lovers of Leelanau County who live elsewhere have been making pilgrimages of their own during the past few weeks. Like squirrels hiding nuts away, we are all harvesting these last bright, sunny days and storing beautiful memories – spiritual riches -- for the winter ahead.