Looking and Looking and Looking!

 

Morning comes to Suttons Bay

Collecting Mornings

 

Day was at hand. … The blue darkness lay long in the glade where I had so sweetly slumbered; but soon there was a broad streak of orange melting into gold…. A solemn glee possessed my mind at this gradual and lovely coming in of day. 

 

-      Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey

 

My “travels” are with a dog, but lately I too have been collecting early mornings, saving them up against the weeks of darker dawns to come. One day last week an appointment in Suttons Bay took me in that direction, and I went earlier than necessary to make a stop for coffee and donut, giving Sunny and me a chance to watch daylight come over the water. The very next morning I had to get garbage out to the highway for pickup by 7 a.m. and decided, because I needed bread, to keep going to 9 Bean Rows. I'm not quite sure how I ended up in Omena to watch darkness fade away, but it was another “lovely coming in of day,” to quote RLS. 

Another day begins in Omena

But whenever rain doesn’t interfere and I have no business or errands elsewhere, Sunny and I begin our days outdoors more simply, with about an hour-long walk from our front door and back home again. So much to see! And for her, I’m sure, so much to smell! 

Sky one morning closer to home

Then there are Sundays and Mondays, too, my days off from bookselling, so again, if rain or other business does not conflict, after our early morning walk, Sunny and I can go to the dog park to meet friends! – a word Sunny recognizes, although I think she interprets its meaning as “fun.” 

On the way to the dog park via Mill Street in Northport

Coming back the same beautiful way

With the last of October’s leaves still clinging to the trees, as well as blowing in the wind, I took long routes back home on both Sunday and Monday. 

View from high on Onomonee Road

Winding along Gills Pier Road

These are my “travels,” then: walks and drives with my dog in the near vicinity of our home, as I tell her frequently how lucky we are to have a home and to live in a beautiful place.

 

Doggie Digression

 

I’ve said that Sunny thinks ‘friends’ means ‘fun,’ so what does she think it means when I say, ‘Momma has to go to work’? What is ‘work’? What she knows is the routine that accompanies the words—her water dish filled, treats sprinkled on the bed, the momma leaving the house, and Sunny staying home. 

Then there is ‘Go for a ride?’ and ‘Go for a ride, go for a walk?’ Those phrases mean we head for the car together. 

‘Bring it!’ encourages her to bring back that tennis ball she chased and caught. Sometimes she starts back without it and needs to be reminded with ‘Get it!’ and 

‘Bring it!’ 

I haven’t stressed the word ‘car’ to her, but ‘house’ is one all my dogs have learned. It means we’re going indoors now, and Sunny knows that word, too. Will there be food involved? I’m sure that’s uppermost in her mind. Maybe that's what ‘house’ means to her?

 

Past, Present, Future

 

Pascal’s wager is so uninteresting. Like all bets, it lives in the future. It is just another presentiment, just another theology of postponement, in which the present is disowned. 

 

-      Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish

 

 

Solitude intensifies the ache of beautiful autumn days for me, the excitement of panoramic color in sunshine as unsharable as the closed-in feeling of a day of rain, and so, hungry to share, I crowd images into my blog posts. But we were not, you and I, gazing at these scenes together in the same moments, and my sweet dog was, I’m sure, more intent on watching for squirrels or deer or turkeys than she was delighting in scenery. Still, I cannot disown the beauty of the present, even as I long for the sharing times of autumns past.

 

I used to think the worst part of dying would be leaving the story in the middle and not knowing “how it turned out,” but of course there is no “turning out,” no end to the story, as long as the human race manages to avoid extinction, and do I really want to know “how it turns out,” anyway? Either the final end of our species or the nearer, intermediate results and consequences of present events? Henri Bergson, one of history’s most optimistic philosophers, died during the Nazi Occupation of Paris, not living to see the Liberation. But then, was the Liberation “the end”? Could anyone celebrating the end of World War II in 1945 have foreseen the resurgence of Nazism—and in the U.S.A., of all places? 

 

Recently, in a box of deacquisitioned books from a private library, come to inhabit my bookshop until they find new homes, I found a fascinating little paperback published in 1945, just after the end of the war. The Constitution of the United States: Its Sources and Its Application, by Thomas James Norton, contains more than the bare text of our Constitution. Line by line, Norton gives background and explanation for phrases and statements, and his explanatory commentary is illuminating, to put it mildly. 

For example, the reasoning behind counting each enslaved black African as 3/5 of a person was a compromise between North and South having to do with direct taxes, the North contending that the South would be undertaxed if slaves were not counted, Southern states arguing that they would be overtaxed if slaves were counted. It had nothing to do with recognizing personhood of enslaved peoples, nothing to do with envisioning the end of slavery, and everything to do with taxes. Only after the compromise was reached was the counting method applied to determining how many representatives each state would have in Congress, and there it is interesting to note that while not counting the enslaved population at all would have benefitted the South in terms of taxation, counting every five enslaved person as three state residents worked to the advantage of those states in the House of Representatives.

 

What I’m really excited about is that this Thomas James Norton title is still in print and currently available through my national book distributor, so I should have copies here in the shop by the end of the week! Of course, if I need to order more, I’ll be happy to do that, too. As Americans, we all need to educate ourselves on the background of current debated issues.

 

 

Taking It (All?) In

 

My hero Brown Dog usually lives in borrowed deer cabins. I’m aware that he’s almost become a survival mechanism when I’m at desperate ends. My life at my cabin when I’m not working bears similarities. I might wake early and take a walk while my mind is still empty which allows me to see the landscape more vividly and, at rare times, holographically with the additional illusion that you can see all sides of a tree or a hill at once, the slightest filaments of time herself flutter in the air. 

 

-      Jim Harrison, Off to the Side

 

 

The landscape around me is vivid in autumn, so how could I see it otherwise? But seeing all sides of a tree or a hill at once is something I have never managed to do, and though I do sense time’s filaments fluttering nervously, even when the air is still, when I stop to think about it all I wonder what is there that I’m not seeing. All the hidden elements and workings of nature and man. 

Impossible not to see this!

But what happened here?

And what is going on in this corner, hidden under the leaves?

The other day I had a discussion with someone who blamed “migrants” for rising medical costs. When I asked for clarification, she said she didn’t mean only immigrants, with or without documents, but apparently food stamp recipients and people on unemployment, all of whom she saw as contributing to costs borne by others, including herself. She is intelligent and hardworking and has often worked two jobs in order to meet expenses, so after she described a couple of scenarios, I finally saw part of the problem. 

 

People in an ER waiting room or using food stamps at a grocery store are visible. CEOs and high-stakes investors in private equity companies, the companies buying up medical practices, dental practices, hospitals, nursing homes, even veterinary clinics—those people are not visible! You don’t see billionaires in the ER or at the grocery store or pumping their own gas or anywhere you and I usually encounter our fellow Americans. 

 

Two years ago I had no clue about private equity companies, either. Didn’t know what they were or how they operated. No idea. They were not visible to me. Learning about them was a shock.

 

How often do we see our United States representatives and senators in person? We certainly never see them being entertained by high-stakes lobbyists! Those scenes form no part of our daily lives.

 

Add to the visible/invisible divide all the media machines that concentrate on and exaggerate the visible poor (priced out of so many aspects of the market economy), while ignoring, except for glamor or sex scandals, the invisible ultra-wealthy who profit from that same market, reaping higher and higher dividends from our rising costs without being taxed accordingly, thanks to their connections to power.

 

As a bookseller, my responsibility is to select books I think people already want but also, as the fictional bookseller Roger Mifflin put it, those they don’t know they want. Want. Besides meaning desire, ‘want’ can also mean a lack or unfulfilled need. “It wants salt,” the Artist used to say.

 

And then sometimes—often?—after cramming my head full of economics and history, I want a light-hearted murder mystery, maybe one narrated by a dog, so believe me, I understand that, too, and no one has to be embarrassed by asking for what they want in my bookshop!

Recent binge!

 

Chuck Collins will be here next week!

 

Despite the title and cover illustration of his latest book, Burned by Billionaires, Chuck Collins is a calm, personable, mild-mannered, approachable human being with both feet on the ground and a mind open to questioning, so please come hear him speak next Wednesday, November 12, at 4 p.m. Bring your own open, questioning mind and please feel welcome to join a discussion following his presentation. I have some questions of my own, and we will have a stimulating time, I’m sure! I even have an idea for a very, very modest and (I hope) somewhat amusing door prize....

Don't forget our world's beauty!

Comfort in Many Places

Hilltop trees jump to life in morning light.

Can you identify the trees?

Books come to me in many ways, and just yesterday I received one in the mail from acquaintances in Traverse City, lovely people I don’t know very well but met back when I had my bookstore on Union Street for a couple of years. The book they sent me is called Ink Trails: Michigan’s Famous and Forgotten Writers, by brothers Dave and Jack Dempsey. Among the famous are my beloved Bruce Catton and my equally beloved Liberty Hyde Bailey. Among the forgotten I read about Maritta Wolff and resolve to read some of her books. It was a comfort to receive this unexpected gift in the mail when I was feeling sad.

There are poets, too, in the book. One of them is Jane Kenyon, included by virtue of time she spent in Ann Arbor at, of course, the University of Michigan. And in her brief poem, “Notes from the Other Side,” I find further comfort:

I divested myself of despair and fear when I came here. 

 Now there is no more catching one’s own eye in the mirror, 

 there are no more bad books, no plastic, no insurance premiums, and of course, 

no illness. Contrition does not exist, nor gnashing 

 of teeth. No one howls as the first clod of earth hits the casket.  

The poor we no longer have with us. Our calm hearts strike only the hour, 

 and God, as promised, proves to be mercy clothed in light.

Our friend’s graveside service was held this morning at the little country cemetery on Horn Road, in the neighborhood (there is no town) unofficially known as “East Leland,” under a cloudy sky but with bright fall colors and loving hearts all around. Along with traditional Jewish prayers, there was Woody Guthrie music and this poem, "The Peace of Wild Things," by Wendell Berry:

When despair for the world grows in me  

and I wake in the night at the least sound  

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,  

I go and lie down where the wood drake  

rests in his beauty on the water,  

and the great heron feeds.  

I come into the peace of wild things  

who do not tax their lives with forethought  

of grief. I come into the presence of still water  

and I feel above me the day-blind stars 

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Good poetry comforts without misrepresenting either life or the world. A poem about death, Kenyon’s “Notes from the Other Side” is, in fact, a litany of some of the large troubles and small, troubling anxieties the poet faced toward the end of her life. The “first clod of earth [that] hits the casket,” hard as it is to see and hear, is the ushering out of all those woes. Wendell Berry seeks peace and beauty in nature to counter his middle-of-the-night despair and anxiety, knowing – don’t we all realize it as we read this poem? – that he will have to go again and again to the wild things for comfort. I love his use of the personal pronoun ‘who’ at the beginning of the line explaining why the wild things are so peaceful.

In times of grief, it is often the small, unexpected phrase or image that clutches at the heart. At the request of one of the daughters, as mourners were taking turns dropping shovels-full of dirt on the lowered casket, the rabbi began to sing “This Land is Our Land,” and, quietly, many of the mourners joined in, smiling. I was taken by surprise by the line about the “No Trespassing” sign. It jolted me because of a sudden, vivid association with the last walk I’d taken with my friend. We were on one of my favorite back roads, walking by the roadside as it runs along private posted land, my dog on her leash, and my friend suggested we walk out into the field. “I don’t think anyone would mind, do you?” she asked me with a smile, eyes twinkling, adding, “under the circumstances.” The circumstances were her imminent death and what turned out to be our last country walk together, but yes, the memory is comforting.

Our dog, my constant companion, is always a comfort to David and me.

Sarah is so patient! And much cuter than my poor drawing of her.

Last hawkweed?

As it was for my departed friend and is for Wendell Berry, nature is a comfort for me, too. Colors are bright even under cloudy skies, and there is color in small dabs as well as in panoramic scenes. Not only trees but also leaves of asters and goldenrod and forsythia give color to warm us before winter's cold arrives.

Surprise fall color radiates from neighbor's forsythia.

A close look shows goldenrod foliage turning, too.

Even without color, lines are fascinating.

Teapot

I find peace and comfort in my drawing class, in the practice of drawing, and in homework for the class, even when the assignment is to draw an old shoe. The instructor selected a shoe for each student. We had to take the shoe home Wednesday night to finish the drawings and will return with drawings and shoes next week.

Athletic shoe (my drawing, but not my shoe)

Adored husband, dear family and friends, familiar and lovely surroundings we never take for granted – another day of love and beauty, the value of these blessings is only underscored by difficulty and loss.