Turn, Turn, Turn

Not AI-generated! Completely unedited!

Peak Autumn Color

People kept asking if the turning fall leaves had reached peak color, and I kept saying, day after day, no, not quite yet. There was still a lot of green left. Late Saturday afternoon’s sunshine, though, invited me for a little drive after work, and Sunday’s rain, because it put the kibosh on dog park fun, tempted me farther afield in the car. You can see more of those Saturday and Sunday scenes on my photo blog, and take a look at the Lake Leelanau Narrows on Wednesday morning, while you’re there.

When did we turn the color corner? In Leelanau Township, I’d say it was overnight from Sunday to Monday. Monday! What a perfect fall day! On Tuesday came the rain and wind. Black walnuts thumped and clattered to ground, windblown leaves tossed restlessly, yellow popples shimmered and gleamed.

My stepdaughter (Artist’s oldest child) and her husband came up on Monday, and Tuesday evening we went to the Happy Hour for dinner. I kept saying that Tuesday felt like Saturday and asking why. “Because we’re here,” she said, “so it feels like a weekend.” Also, we agreed, because it just seems that peak color should land on a weekend for all those travelers and visitors hoping to catch it.

Re-reading

At least a couple times a month I pull an old favorite book off the shelf. As October races past, after having read for the first time Le premier homme, by Albert Camus, and Medicine Walk, by Richard Waganese, I turned once more to Elliot Paul’s The Last Time I Saw Paris, the closeup portrait of a Parisian neighborhood and its denizens and how they are storm-tossed by events in the larger world.

The years Paul lived in Paris were the fraught years between the two world wars when the wounds of France and Germany were still festering, both between the two countries and within their borders. My many readings of this book have made almost personal to me the anguish of that time, as the author shows growing tensions of people living on one small street of shops and residences in central Paris, but with every reading, also, something jumps out at me that hadn’t jumped out before. Elliot Paul’s portrayal of his years in France does not spare the corruption or “backwardness” of French politics or society, but he is also put to the test to explain his own country to the French, and never more so than when Sacco and Vanzetti are put to death, news that set off demonstrations across Paris by workers sympathetic to the condemned. 

 

It was no new thing to the French to have undesirables railroaded and executed on one flimsy pretext or another. But, somehow, they had hoped it was different in America, and so, in my innocence, had I.

 

-      Elliot Paul, The Last Time I Saw Paris (1942)

 

His neighbors, Paul reports, were kind to him on the sad occasion and did not hold him accountable for what they saw as his country’s miscarriage of justice.

Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker, age 32, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler, age 29, were immigrants from Italy and avowed anarchists. That much is fact. In 1921 they were tried and convicted of armed robbery and murder, numerous requests for appeal were refused, and they were put to death by electrocution on August 23, 1927, continuing to insist on their innocence.

Were Sacco and Vanzetti guilty? The court said they were. Some believed Sacco was guilty, Vanzetti innocent. In 1925, another prisoner in the same prison as Sacco, Celestino Madeiros, member of the Morelli gang of robbers, claimed in writing that it was he, not Sacco, who was guilty of the armed robbery and murder of the two payroll guards, and in 1927 Felix Frankfurter, later to become a Supreme Court justice, wrote that “every reasonable probability” pointed  to the Morelli gang and away from Sacco and Vanzetti. History, while not taking a definite stand on guilt or innocence, agrees that the defendants did not receive a fair trial, that they were condemned for their beliefs and their status as immigrants rather than for anything they had done or not done.

 

 

Another Four-Letter English Word

To HATE: to dislike intensely, passionately; to feel aversion or hostility toward. 

Most of us growing up in the U.S. in my generation were told as children that hating is wrong. We were even told often that we were mistaken about our own feeling. “You don’t hate your baby sister,” a parent would say patiently, if we were lucky. No, we were jealous, worried that the baby would take all our parents’ attention, etc. That wasn't hate. Later, did another child at school hate me? Or was that child jealous (for some reason) or even, if a member of the opposite sex, attracted but confused?

In the Christian Gospel of Matthew, Jesus counsels against hate and sets a high bar for those claiming to follow a God of love: 

 

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor^’ and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

 

Last Saturday across the United States of America protestors demonstrated against the current administration in joyful, high-spirited pro-democracy rallies. The president and his Cabinet members insisted ahead of time and continued, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, to claim that these were “hate America” rallies, peopled by Marxists and other extremists, including “Antifa” (which the president thinks is an organization). It was also claimed, entirely without evidence—because it was a false claim—that George Soros and other “leftist billionaires” had funded the demonstrations, paying people to attend.

HA! They would like that to be true, but it is not.

I know those demonstrators, not only in Traverse City, but in Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Marquette, Chicago, Joliet, Seattle, New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. They were my friends and neighbors. They were my bookstore customers. They were my family. They carried hand-made signs. And yes, some of them made negative observations on the president, because “No Kings” was the theme of the day, everyone having decided ahead of time not to fragment the message with a variety of issues, because the bottom line is we do not want anyone in power running roughshod over freedoms guaranteed us in the U.S. Constitution.

Demonstrators were out on Saturday because they love this country! There were many American flags. The protests were peaceful. Counter-protestors were safe, too.

Republicans (I do not call them “conservatives” because they are not) who decry “hate” coming from the president’s opposition would be well advised to look to the president himself. “I hate my opponent! And I don’t want the best for them!” Words from the president of the United States. As for his king-in-the-plane social media cartoon, enough has been said about that. The image spoke for itself. 

Hate pours down from the top, coming from the same source since the campaign of 2016. It takes a lot of resolve not to respond to his words and actions with reciprocal hate but with determination and hope and resolve for a better future. Because there is, too, the image of the East Wing of the White House under demolition, after the president’s earlier assurances that the structural integrity of the building would be preserved. Now, it turns out, he never thought “much” of the building. It was “very small,” he says, way too small. Not the first time he’s promised one thing and done the opposite. All presidents have made changes, you say? Redecorating and even remodeling are not demolition. The demolition image is a metaphor, a friend said. Sadly, yes.

I attended Saturday’s rallies all over the country in spirit. In my bookstore, my colors were on display for everyone to see. 

Hostility, aversion, passionate dislike? Yes, I feel it. What do I hate? 

I hate the militarization of American cities, the setting aside of due process, the attempts to gag the free press and allow only government propaganda as “news.” I hate the storm trooper actions, under orders from the administration, that tear men, women, and children out of their beds and zip-tie them for hours before deciding that some of them have done nothing wrong and can be allowed to return to their ransacked apartments. 

I hate the lies. 

I hate the desecration of the White House, the attempted destruction of unions, and the executive demolition of long-established social safety nets and environmental protections. I hate the killing, by my country and therefore in my name, of unknown people from other countries in open waters with no evidence presented against them and no trial to determine guilt of any kind. I hate having my own government violating the First Amendment here at home.

I hate the lies. 

I hate the way Americans have been encouraged by a would-be dictator (“Vote for me, and you’ll never have to vote again”) to turn against each other and see their own neighbors and family members as enemies.

I hate the lies.

He would never have been put in the White House if he had told the truth all along. No one can support the current administration and the rule of law. To support one demands opposing the other. 

 

Did you mark your calendar yet?

The date is November 12. It’s a Wednesday. The time is 4 p.m., so it won’t interfere with any evening meetings or keep anyone away from dinner or up too late at night. We will have a special guest speaker, with a new book, in the gallery next to Dog Ears Books. I’ll tell you all about it when November arrives.... 

 

But first, Halloween!

A couple of young moms in Northport have been going around town to get those of us in the central part of the village on board for trick-or-treating. I’m on board. Whether or not I’ll be in costume is an open question, but I’ll be there at the bookstore door from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, October 31, and I hope Halloween 2025 will be as much fun as past Halloweens on Nagonaba Street years ago. Here are some trick-or-treaters from 2004. Yes, 21 years ago in Northport!

Hate and Happiness, Books, Dogs, Gardens

As Popeye always said, "I yam what I yam."

Does somebody out there hate me? Really?

 

Even good friends sometimes forget that I moderate comments on my blog, and they can be frustrated when what they wrote does not appear immediately. I remind them that their comment will show as soon as I hit that little ‘publish’ command. 

 

What does not get my thumbs up is spam in comment disguise, such as, “Gee, this content is really interesting,” with a link to whatever business the spammer (probably a bot rather than a person most of the time) is trying to promote, which can be anything from crypto-“currency” to Caribbean vacations to—well, you get the point. 

 

The other day, though, something really weird showed up. It came from “Anonymous,” who is a frequent commenter, but this time the comment consisted of a single repeated word, in full caps—“DIE DIE DIE,” etc., repeated over two dozen times per line for twenty lines. Such is the strangeness of our world today that I wasn’t even shocked or upset. Way too many scarier things to worry about these days. I am, however, mildly curious. 

 

Did a real person leave this message? If so, was it someone who knows me? A stranger? A regular reader of Books in Northport? Someone who has been in my shop? Or was it not a person at all?

 

Long story shortened here: I marked it as spam and deleted it, and unless I get a confession from a verified human being, I'm going to believe that it was spam—from a IA bot!

"Don't chew on it, Mom." "I won't, Sunny."

 

Happier stuff

But Wednesday was a happy day for me at Dog Ears Books. Although the weather had turned cold again, my heart was warmed by the arrival of the first half of my latest new book order, which included a stack of Lynne Rae Perkins’s latest title. Hooray!!! The publisher (Greenwillow) says At Home in a Faraway Place is for ages 8 to 12, or children in grades 4 through 6, but my personal opinion, as a reader and a bookseller, is that this book, as is true of all books from LRP, is for all ages. I would certainly not want to miss the story myself, though I passed my 12^th birthday—let's just say, a while ago. 

"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” I chortle in my joy.

The box delivered on Wednesday by Ted the UPS man also contained a happy assortment for little ones just being introduced to the wonderful world of books, and the sun even broke through as I was arranging them for a group photo. 

And with MICHIGAN THEMES!!!

Other than that—

 

Sunny takes a little break now and then. 

So does the dog mom.

My life has been the usual round of bookshop, reading, and dog play, with unaccustomed bits of housework (floor scrubbing) and seasonal yard tasks (raking and moving plants to make way for a hardscape renovation, i.e., new boardwalk entrance path to house.

No, I am not doing this work myself!

We had a few days that felt like spring, a short power outage (see previous post), and now the forecast holds the probability of snow again for the first day of spring. But it is, I repeat, a spring snow, not the return of winter, as we transition from snow and ice to mud, mudlicious mud!

 

 

And now, spring break

 

Northport School will be on spring break next week, March 24 to 28; however, after 48 hours spent considering a cross-country trip, I decided there is too much that needs doing at home and in my shop, so Dog Ears Books will be open next week. I may adjust my hours, say, from noon to 4 p.m., but I will be here Wednesday through Saturday, as usual.

P.S. I LOVE Lynne Rae's new book!!!

And HAPPY SPRING, everyone!!!

Please forgive me for going on and on about this.

Call this a spoonful of sugar.
 

Someone who read my previous blog post said that current political conflicts are nothing new and that they are “nothing that a simple healing patch of behavior can end.” Whoever suggested the divisions in our country could be ended with a Bandaid? Not I. There is no magic pill or, God forbid, silver bullet, either.

 

The hate-filled divisions are real and heartbreaking. The cruelty is heartbreaking. And yes, the seeds of division and hate have always been there, from the beginning of our history, and – let’s admit it – there is no way for all Americans to come together completely and permanently. 

Storm clouds!

Where does that leave us, though? Having faced that reality, what are our choices? What do we do now? 

 

- Continue to scream at each other and escalate the domestic arms race – until what happens? 

 

- Or give up and retreat into bitterness, each of us, for the rest of our lives? 

 

Please forgive me if I reject those as viable options. 

 

Let’s me make the question personal for myself. Who am I going to be for the remainder of my life on earth? Do I want, while alive, to add to the world’s storehouse of love or to its arsenal of hate? Will I be grateful for my life or choose to be miserable and blame my misery on evolution and world history? Take the most selfish view possible, if you like: As far as I see, it points in the same direction as altruism. 

Both sides now --

This morning (still dark, these long mornings of autumn’s waning daylight, and I am in the autumn of my life, too, my time growing ever shorter), it occurred to me that America’s present crisis is deepened, if not entirely driven, by grief. We have all experienced loss, and it hurts, and we don’t know what to do with that pain. Readers of this blog, as well as my close friends, know that personal grief has been with me for a while now. Grief. Shock. Paralysis. Disbelief. Mourning. Life torn apart, never again to be a shining whole, the companion of my days and nights forever gone. 

“He was my North, my South, my East and West,” wrote the poet Auden in his own grief. He ends his poem with, “For nothing now can ever come to any good.” Is that what you feel about your country? The world? Your life? 

 

(Had Auden been wrong, as he writes in this poem, to think that love would last forever? What do you think?)

 

For myself, I can’t afford to let myself feel that “nothing now can ever come to any good.” Two seven-year-old boys, great-grandsons of the man I loved, are at the beginning of their lives, as are so many little children whose lives are only now beginning. It’s too big a job, yes – I can’t control the course of the future, true – but I can’t give up and crawl into a hole and die, either.

I live in a beautiful place.

I realize that I am a lucky woman, spared the anger that many people suffer in the throes of grief. My husband was 85 years old and had followed his passion and found success as an artist. The beauty of his work lives on. The two of us had a second chance to make a rich life together, to make our dreams come true, even (priceless gift!) to grow old together. And at the end, we had time to say goodbye. So Fate spared me anger and resentment and gave me gratitude, and I am grateful to have had that through the grief his death brought. 

 

But despair? Heavens, yes! Grief goes on and on, and despair, while it doesn’t fill every hour, lurks around every corner, ready always (especially in those first, early, dark hours of morning) to jeer sarcastically, “What’s the point? Why bother? He is never coming back!” And that, my friends, is hard.

 

Like a wounded animal, I needed to be alone before I could face the world again, and I still need time alone even now, but already in those first weeks a demanding puppy did not allow me to stay in bed with my head under the covers, and once back in Michigan there was my bookstore to open, David’s gallery to arrange, grass to mow, the puppy to exercise and train. Looking back at May 2022 from October 2023, I see now that it was good for me not to have available the escape of total isolation.

 

Anger. Despair. Pain. What about exhaustion? Grief is exhausting. So much of life can be exhausting! The ongoing crisis mode of American politics is exhausting. So yes, we all need to take time out when we need to, when we can. 

 

And then? What?

Even under cloudy skies, with winter coming --

Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes not to give up, to keep living. Whatever it takes not to be cruel, not to be mean, not to seek revenge. A cat to feed, a dog to walk. Grass to mow, books to sell. Books and poems to read and write. Flowers and trees to plant and tend. Other people with their own griefs, who need an understanding listener as they struggle. Whatever it takes. One day, sometimes one hour at a time – which is the only way we ever truly live, anyway.

 

Not simple. Not easy. Often – let me say a challenge. (Let me say challenge rather than a struggle. Though either word is descriptive, I seek strength in choosing my words.) 

 

In every era, certain words get overused and lose their power in daily speech, but consider – amazing, awesome. The gift of life is one none of us had to earn. Human beings did not invent or build this glorious planet. Who, reflecting on the gift of life, can see it as anything less than amazing? Who, looking at the beauty and force and age of the universe, can see it as otherwise than awesome?

Unquenchable life!

Let me end today with an idea from my most-beloved philosopher, Henri Bergson. (Here is an interesting take on Bergson that I hadn’t read before but found congenial.) One of Bergson’s most basic and important insights was this: 

 

The “road ahead” (the future) is not there. 

We build our road as we travel through life.

 

My images today are from the world around me. Thanks for reading.

Always renewing.