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.