From the Fringes -- Grateful

At some point in the life of this blog – and I can’t tell you the exact date when it began – I began to refer to him as “the Artist” rather than as “my husband” or by name, following a kind of minor tradition among bloggers, who often use first-letter capitalized common nouns to stand in for the names of steady partners who play a part in their stories. My point today is that until he died in early March 2022, I was married to an artist whom I called the Artist, because in my life he was the one who counted.

 

His studio and gallery, in the same building as my bookstore, had a separate entrance, but a doorless doorway connected my bookstore to his space. Nevertheless, on busy summer days, with people coming and going for hours through our respective domains, both of us living days brimful of talk and laughter with friends and strangers, along with sales of books and paintings, we might not see each other until day’s end, when at last we had time to share accounts of what had transpired in our side-by-side but separate realms. Both in those physical spaces and in our lives beyond Waukazoo Street, his art world and my book world intersected and overlapped and enriched our life together year after year. In this bookstore blog I called him the Artist. His name was David Grath.

 

The late years of our winter life (“seasonal retirement”), from 2016 to 2021, were different from summers in a Michigan tourist region. In a small rental cabin in a ghost town in the mountains of southeast Arizona we lived, as he described it to friends, “joined at the hip,” or, “in each other’s pockets.” Each of us had a corner of the cabin for reading and writing and thinking. Beyond that, the kitchen area was pretty much mine to arrange and reign over, while he was guardian and ruler of the television (with an antenna on the roof, several stations came in clearly) and DVD player, their remote controls a complete mystery to me, but we were within physical reach of each other more often than not. 

Early days in Arizona ...

... when our spaces were yet spare.

Summers, we drove separate cars to work. Having me on hand next door to answer questions of visitors to his gallery, he was free to take leave whenever the spirit moved him – to visit artist friends in their studios; to take the slow “county cruises” he loved, soaking in the landscape for future work; to attend to little jobs that needed doing back at home. My summer days were spent on Waukazoo Street; his were there and elsewhere. 

Out on the town -- Willcox, AZ

Again, Arizona winters were different. With a single car between us, it was a rare day when one left the cabin without the other. Instead, almost always, after I returned from a long morning ramble on foot with one dog or the other (we only ever had one at a time, but two figured in those years of cabin life), he and I, usually with dog, would set out on the road, armed with water and snacks, books and notebooks and sketchpads. We might have a destination in mind when we left home base, but those days were always revisable, each one an improvisation. There were forays up to Tucson or into Santa Cruz County to see friends, as well as expeditions north to Safford on a favorite mountain road; the majority of our explorations, however, took place in Cochise County, our home base. The second year I worried that it would be old hat for the Artist, no longer an adventure, that he--not in love with Cochise County as I was--would find our surroundings boring. One winter after another went by, though, and we never exhausted the possibilities. Never got to Ramsey Canyon or King Ranch, for instance. Besides revisiting favorite places more than once (Faraway Ranch, for instance, in the Chiricahua National Monument; Turkey Creek Road; Whitewater Draw), we kept discovering unfamiliar and exciting places easily reached on day trips: a shortcut across the Sulphur Springs Valley or a back road to Bisbee, a new coffee house or junk shop or shady stretches of the San Pedro River that held running water.

Of course, our life together had not always been divided between Michigan and Arizona. Years earlier, before and following a spate of Florida winters (Weeki Wachee first, then Aripeka), we had stayed put, first in Leland, later in our old farmhouse between Leland and Northport. One year, snowed in for a week in Leland, we would walk “downtown” every day: Main Street, only two blocks from our house, had everything we needed--post office, bank, the Early Bird for coffee, the Merc for groceries, and the library on the other side of the bridge. Earlier still had been the Kalamazoo years. After we moved to the Leelanau Township farmhouse in 2001, winter was more challenging, but we still managed even when the power was out – once for four days. Our stove and fireplace worked on propane, and we had candles and oil lamps. “This is how old Joe and his wife lived,” he observed one of those cold, snowy evenings. Winters meant adventure at home.

 

But life with the Artist had always been an adventure. Short on money in Kalamazoo (“I’m tired of being poor,” my son complained, and my husband told him, “We’re not poor, we’re just broke”), we visited flea markets and thrift shops and had wonderful, far-ranging conversations over endless cups of coffee, our untethered imaginations reaching far beyond our physical surroundings. For every day of life constrained by finances, we had years of dream lives in which we created a combination tea shop and bookstore in Kalamazoo; raised shallots and rabbits in Leelanau County; lived part-time in Montreal; and furnished a pied-à-terre in Paris with finds from the Marché aux Puces de St.-Ouen. We never stayed in the cheapest U.P. or Wisconsin motel room without redesigning and refurnishing it in our combined imaginations, in case we were ever “on the lam” (don’t ask me for what!) and had to live in that one room. We “wrote” screenplays during car trips or, again, over coffee – that is, talked our way through the films as we invented them, committing nothing to paper but having a wonderful time envisioning the development of our stories on the big screen.

 

The artist’s life is not an easy one, nor is the bookseller’s life a road to riches, but the two of us were never in it for the money. For years I carried in my purse a tiny strip of paper from a fortune cookie (opened in spring of 1987) that read, “Your path is arduous but will be amply rewarded.” A forecast fulfilled: My path has been amply rewarded. (And yes, there were also arduous times.) My love and I made a rich life together, and my life alone continues to be enriched by what he brought to it, as chance encounters reveal more and more memorable stories people share with me about conversations they remember having with David. He had a gift for making memorable moments and hours.

 

Harlan Hubbard wrote of his life with Anna that they lived “on the fringe of society.” While Grath life cannot be compared to Hubbard life, in many ways ours also was lived on the fringes. Michigan, after all, is not either Coast. (“By the time an idea gets here from one of the Coasts, it’s worn so thin you can see right through it.” Someone I know quoted that to me. I have no idea who said it first.) My artist husband was not shy about saying that he wanted to create beautiful work. (To make art that shocked was never his aim.) I have written no books but have been faithful to this modest blog since fall of 2007. Far from the world’s power centers of art and commerce, we pursued work that felt valuable to us.

 

Well, now comes an unexpected postscript to the Artist’s life: The French translator of Jim Harrison’s work has unearthed two screenplay treatments, written in 1977, by David Grath & Jim Harrison, and the English pages have been translated and will appear in a new “omnibus” edition of Jim’s work from an imprint of Éditions Gallimard in Paris, the tentative release date November 2024. How thrilled the Artist would be! He had such a good time writing those treatments with Jim (neither ever sold, let alone produced), and to think they will be in a book published in Paris – he would be over the moon!

 

So that’s my news from Northport today. – No, one more piece of news, this one very local: Not only on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but every Saturday in December, from 3 to 6 p.m., there will be horse-drawn wagon rides through the village. The horses are Clydesdales, the wagon bright red and festively decorated, so December Saturdays in Northport will be wonderful days for residents and visitors alike.

 

And yet one more (last?) note. I’ve been writing Books in Northport since September 2007. If you enjoyed this post and have friends who might appreciate it, also, please share a link. Comments here are always welcome, too. Thank you for your support – for my blog and for my bookstore!

 

And Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Window on Waukazoo Street

Still Keeping Up at the Three-Quarters Mark

 

This first image is not where we began our hike on Saturday (my 75th birthday), and it was far, far below where Therese and I had begun last April (on her birthday). It wasn’t even last year’s beginning spot. No, this “beginning” is where three of us branched off on Saturday in a direction new to Kathy, Sunny, Yogi, and me, after we'd climbed already considerably.... But let’s backtrack a little.

You’re not seeing the 25-mile drive from Dos Cabezas to the Chiricahua Monument, nor the more than seven miles of very rutted road to the place we left our cars. Therese and I had parked higher up last year, but this year, with two cars, we decided to do more of the climb on foot – which turned out to be a fortuitous choice in more ways than one, as our last year’s “parking place” was flooded, providing our first encounter on foot that day with flowing water, which the dogs loved as much as the humans. (We had no idea then how many more watery thrills awaited us.) But I anticipate again, because before we got to that first flowing water, we had a long uphill climb, mostly in sun, along a boulder-lined – and sometimes boulder-strewn – road.

Therese and Kathy look down over the steep edge.

Is this mudstone? Are these fossils of ancient trees?

For Sunny, it's simply -- Big rock!!!

As I say, the road climbed. The sun was hot. As we went around the mountain, however, we were met with a cool, refreshing breeze. Ah, that was more like it....

Dog buddies on the trail

Old formations from prehistoric volcano

Below you see the water that had flooded an open pace, crossed the road, and taken water’s general downhill habit. Observe the happy dogs. Note the cool shade. And only a little way farther up the rocky road, back in the sun, we spied a congregation of spiny lizards, which I found very exciting.

A confusing sign, but we got the message.

Is it a mountain spiny lizard? That would be Sceloporus jarrovi.

The Chiricahua Monument itself is the official “wonderland of rocks,” but for me the entire mountain range is a wonderland of awe-inspiring formations. Therese was particularly captivated by manzanita in bloom, and look at the size of this single plant! I had her stand in front of it to illustrate the scale. 

Gigantic manzanita!

And now, water again. It never gets old. The sight and sound of it, the way it makes the colors of rocks sing, the way it calls to us --

Yogi (left) flees after being surprised by a deep pool.

Sunny is crossing cautiously, so as not to drop a bone she found, while Yogi hopes the bone will drop.

Oh, the heavenly scent of pine trees! And the towering majesty of the Ponderosa pines! After our usual diet of dusty desert walks, the tree-shaded creek canyon -- with water, too! -- feels and smells like paradise.

Along this minimally maintained mountain road were many boulders, deep ruts, and at one point it was clear that someone had very recently cleared away a fallen tree. 

No speeding here!

And now, at probably our fourth or fifth encounter with the creek (not counting walking a road that roughly paralleled the creek below most of the way), we decided it was time for our picnic. And the perfect place, despite the noise of rushing water. 

Maybe if you zoom in on the image of the (yet another) big rock below, you’ll be able to see the patterns that drew my eye and set me to dreaming of its distant past. 

The far side of the creek. We did not go across here.

What has this tree been through?!

What forces twisted these rocks? But life finds room to cling.

And it isn’t only rocks and trees that have history. The road itself speaks mutely of what it used to be. 

Here almost half the road has crumbled into the creek.

Bedrock exposed on the road

Now we have climbed up away from the creek and back into the sun. This might be close to our highest elevation of the day, 6,365 feet above sea level. Or maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t really keep track, but bear in mind that our ghost town is somewhat less than a mile high. 

This is close to our highest elevation of the day.

But even this high, snowmelt has sent flowing water across our road, on its way downhill to reach the creek. 

Ah, shade!

What do you see here? What can you imagine or speculate?

We had left our ghost town at 9 a.m., and when I got back it was 3:30, so I’ll say we hiked for about five hours. And it was a glorious way to celebrate reaching my three-quarters-of-a-century mark, 75 years of age! Congenial company, vigorous exercise, exciting vistas, the thrill of flowing water, and the always amusing antics of our canine companions – I couldn’t have asked for more. And yet there was more, because another neighbor had us over for dinner that evening! Can you believe it? In short, I had another birthday, am halfway through my eighth decade of life, and despite losses along the way I am surviving. 

 

Of all the photographs in this post, which one is your favorite? Or how about top three? I know at least two that would make the cut for me, but I’ve not scrimped in presenting our adventure, because three images would not have been nearly enough. I’ll close with a funny one, though – at least, funny if I give you the story that goes with it. At 9 a.m., Sunny and I were in the car at the bottom of the driveway, down by the highway, waiting for Therese and Kathy to drive by so we could convoy to Pinery Canyon, Sunny with her most alert expression…. And then their car went by, and Sunny knew it was Therese, and she knew Yogi was in that car, so she sat forward, eyes fixed on that vehicle for over 30 miles, not about to lose sight of her friends and miss any fun! And of course, as you have seen, she certainly did not. Happy ending!

Always up for adventure!

The High Way was rocky. It is not an expressway.

 

“Do you want to drive up the road a way this morning and then hike?” “Sure!” For such a day we'll have with (and on) us water and snacks and extra outerwear that we’ll end up shedding and carrying -- snacks because energy expended needs to be replaced along the way, and extra outerwear because when the temperature is 30ºF and part of your way lies in the shade, you need those extra layers. Taking the car partway up the road once in a while spares us a repetitious beginning to a new adventure.

 

Because the general neighborhood is a familiar one. From this morning’s trailhead we could have re-experienced either the Dives Mine ruins we explored on February 18 or our narrow rocky canyon expedition a month later. (I've figured out now that we were not in Walnut Canyon, after all, but would have reached Walnut Springs had we gone on -- confusing!) Both were hikes we’d enjoyed on other days, but today we agreed we’d rather hike in the sun. It was a cold morning. 

 

As usual, the dogs wasted no time in finding a bone. And when they tired of it, Therese took a turn at play.

Our way down the wash lay mostly in shade, without any fast, easy way to get quickly from shade to sunshine, but exploring a new and unfamiliar section of wash is always a pleasure. This one was very deep – wide and gravelly for long stretches, and in at least one place narrowing to pass through bedrock.

The road is above on left, which explains our long detour to get here.

 

Dogs are excellent hiking companions1

The force of nature -- rushing, flooding water -- embedded rocks in this old tree.

Bedrock prevents widening of the wash here. 

Rock fall. Sunshine.

Coming into the sunshine at last, we sighed at the beauty of an alluring rocky promontory high above us. “Shall we try it?” “Yes!” Instead of going back into the landscape, as we had done in this vicinity on previous occasions, this time we would go up!

A cow path between two deep ravines on the steep slope made the climb seem almost civilized at first, but that didn’t last long. (It never does.) Stopping to investigate flowering plants and cacti along the way, though, is as important as climbing, and there is something exhilarating about being above treetops and watching birds from above rather than from below.

Looking down and back

Pincushion cacti

Desert verbena -- there will be much more soon.

Finding a government survey stake from 1938 was exciting to me, as it brought back the memory of the bearing tree I found in the U.P. one September day and how I told the Artist he could sprinkle my ashes there if I were to die first. Perhaps strangely, that northern Michigan memory made an Arizona marker more meaningful to me.

But onward and upward we go -- after another look down, remembering another day.

Footing was treacherous. This was a very steep incline, with many, many loose rocks at every step of the way. Every single step we took had to be carefully considered. Our four-footed companions were show-offs, running and leaping and gamboling like goats, while we two-leggeds went slowly and cautiously and stopped more than once to appreciate the views. Okay, I stopped most often....

All those little gullies would carry water down to the big wash during monsoon rain.

Reaching the high, exposed rocks at last was immensely satisfying! My hiking partner spotted three deer far, far below (far enough below that the dogs never realized what they had missed, which was a good thing), and the quiet and stillness of a blue sky mountain morning, blessedly free of recent winds plaguing the ghost town, added to our pleasure.

We might have continued to linger and bask in sunlight and accomplishment, except that Therese, exploring among the boulders, found large animal scat. “Bear?” I asked. “No, but maybe a big cat. We’d better go down.” And so we left that magic place. But we were there! We did it!

 

Down, on a serious slope, especially one covered with loose rock, is even more challenging than up. Regardless of my appearance in the image here below, with floppy hat askew, I am not drunk, only shading my eyes from the sun without having the hat sit too tightly on my head. I’m also taking the smallest old lady steps possible, stopping frequently to consider the ground ahead and below me before taking the next little old lady step. You don’t hustle straight up or down on terrain like this: a zig-zagging diagonal is best, though one also has to consider vegetation and often take an extra zip or zag around something spiny or prickly or thorny. The dogs descend with much more grace and agility.

Not drunk, just looking that way

Yogi!

What a hike! Almost a climb, really. We set out with no real plan, nothing more than a starting point, and  stopped several times along the way to consider our options, and it worked out great, though my legs were really feeling it by the time we reached the car again. And back at the cabin, Sunny settled in for some serious resting. 

Tired dog, spoiled dog!

To put things in perspective, I offer an image from our canyon day and another from this morning.

Today's summit from another day's canyon --

-- and the other day's canyon from our way to this morning's summit.

Thanks for coming along with Sunny and me on another Cochise County, Arizona, adventure. 

 

When I despair at the state of things, rocks always offer some comfort. I see gneisses and limestones and granites, greenstones and blueschists and red beds, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world. 

 

-      Marcia Bjornerud, Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth

Wonderful world!