Here Now and Looking Ahead

Goldenrod, coneflowers, giant bluestem grass

September has come.

After the freshness of May and June, with all that new life springing greenly forth, September comes in as another of my favorite months, but I can’t even rank-order them, as each is my favorite when it’s upon me, just as each flower of garden and woods and meadow is my favorite when it’s in bloom. Life for the non-retired country dweller, of course, has chores in every season, and the transition from summer to fall is no exception. As business slows down and takes a deep breath, nuts and berries and seeds and all manner of fruits ripen and demand attention, but it’s all good on the home front, busy as we are.

My apples look good this year.

Another new morning --

Tree Guy has been at work!

I had wakened at a little after 1 a.m. on Wednesday and gone out to read on the porch so my reading light would not disturb Tree Guy’s well-earned sleep. Naturally, I fell asleep over Chinese Lives and woke again at 6 a.m. with 45 minutes of leisure to make coffee and read the first chapter of Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon collection before it was time to drive garbage out to the highway for pickup. Oh, Adam Gopnik, you wonderful writer! How jealous I am of a friend’s sister who can count you among her friends!

Someone I knew years ago said of the French that they had an “ambivalent attitude” toward capitalism. Well, like most European countries, the French have a mixed economy, part-capitalism, part-socialism. Gopnik notes an interesting attitude—is it only American, or do the French share this illusion?

We surf the waves of capitalism, from crest to trough and back again, but the funny thing is that no matter how often we ride the wave, nobody notices that it’s wet. When we are on the crest, we believe that we have climbed a mountain through our own virtuous efforts, and when we are in the trough, we believe that we have fallen into a pit through our own vice. 

    - Adam Gopnik, Paris to the Moon 

Economics aside, like Gopnik, I had visions of Paris in my head for years before I ever reached the real earthly city. My father had been there in 1945, following the Liberation, and had seen and heard Piaf in a little club and there, also, over drinks, had discussed Racine with Frenchmen, relying on his high school French, and I later learned French phrases from my father long before studying the language myself in high school, so, as Gopnik puts it:

My head was filled with pictures of Paris, mostly black and white, and I wanted to be in them.

And so on Wednesday morning, driving out to the highway to place two bags of garbage carefully at the side of the road for pickup (two because I hadn’t put out any for three or four weeks), I smiled both at the crowing of the rooster across the road (remembering a rooster across the street when we lived in Leland in the 1990s and the same sound at my maternal grandparents’ Ohio country home in the 1950s) and at the thought, as the pre-sunrise sky painted itself gold and vividly coral and crimson, that it was already afternoon in Paris. I was happy, smiling at the crowing of a rooster and the beautiful predawn sky and my memories of being in Paris and my good fortune, now, of living where I live, with a man who suits me so well and a dog, as the man notes, “even luckier than we are,” with absolutely no worries and “two people who adore her!” 

The pensive look is just her patient face.

The promised new book has arrived!

I have both hardcover and paperback copies of Beyond the National Parks In All 50 States, by Ren Brabanec and Joel Anderson, a production of the Anderson Design Group. Ren, the son of Leelanau’s own organic orchardists John and Julia Brabanec (both now gone and very much missed) came by the shop to show me a copy of the book, and I've been eager to have it here for my customers. Copies arrived on Tuesday, the first day of September. What a good way to begin one of my favorite months!

hardcover or paperback are equally beautiful.

Beyond the National Parks introduces readers to parks that may have been under their radar before. Here in Leelanau we all know about Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore (doesn’t the whole country know about it by now, with all the publicity it has gotten from coast to coast?), but if you’ve not yet been to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula you might not know about the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore or the Keweenaw National Historical Park. And how about southeast Michigan’s River Raisin National Battlefield Park? I didn't know about that one.

(The River Raisin mention makes me wonder yet again why neither the Raisin nor the St. Joseph River were included in the justly famous “Rivers of America” series, which includes no Michigan rivers! But I digress….)

The cover of the new book notes that it includes “original poster art by Anderson Design Group,” and I must say the art is nothing short of spectacular. Full-page color illustrations introducing each state’s featured parks, reminiscent of classic 1930s travel poster style, are gorgeous! So come in, pick up a copy for your cottage or downstate (or even out-of-state) home, and fuel your travel dreams.

Showcasing a few older books, too --

Possibly "new" to you, eh?

Usually I have only new books on the front tables but decided on Wednesday to give the round table over to used books for a change. After all, previously owned and loved titles are still the bulk of my inventory, and they deserve a turn up front. 

One life is not enough! We can read others!

The cart by the front window also holds used books, from Cat-Who and Alexander McCall Smith cozy mysteries to lots of rock-’n’-roll from the Sixties forward.

Cart of gently used books

Film crew in bookshop!

Thursday, September 3, was a little different at Dog Ears Books. A crew arrived and set up to film a short scene for an independent film being made largely in Leelanau County. One of the producers is the son of an author friend, which is how my shop became a small part of the larger project. 

It was fascinating to watch the process—to see how many people were involved, how much equipment, how much time, for what I judged to be less than a minute of footage! The same crew was at the farmers market this morning, and people have mentioned spotting them along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Here are a few more of my amateur shots of the scene on Waukazoo Street.

Setting up

In process

The wrap

Losses noted this week

Wendell Berry of Port Royal, Kentucky

Gloria Steinem of New York, New York

Hugh Willey of Northport, Michigan

Rest in peace. You will be sorely missed!

Longer break coming up --

I’ll be gone next week, heading north again for—how long? Not more than a week, I’m guessing, and to make up in advance for being gone at all, I’ll be open most of Labor Day Monday, for those pausing on their way home or arriving to begin their September vacation.

"But you're already up north!" "I go farther north!"

Michigan Winter-Spring

Wednesday there was ice. Freezing rain, sleet, call it what you will, it wore no body armor, nor did it carry lethal weapons! It was but a reminder to slow down and exercise caution. And after all, it is March in Michigan. By bedtime and the next morning, ground that had been briefly bare was again covered with snow. The bad news is that we have a blizzard warning for Sunday; however, the good news is that Thursday dawned clear and sunny, and the snowy, ice-covered world sparkled. Better than diamonds! No mining necessary! Ephemeral beauty is the best kind, isn’t it? “Everything is temporary!”

Yes, everything is temporary, grief is the price of love, and death is the price of life. 

    “It’s the bargain we made. No, we didn’t make it.” 

    “Someone else signed us up.”

True, I’m glad they did. I wouldn't have wanted to miss it. Because in this often sorrowful world, there is also joy. The world—life—is everything all at once, though our tiny minds can only focus on a small sliver at a time. 

Here’s some good news: Bonnie Jo Campbell has a new book coming out in October and has more or less promised to make another visit to Northport.

Here’s more good news: I have Fleda Brown’s new book of poems in stock NOW! It’s what you need, I assure you. I know I do.

        I am over the hump of the buying demographic.

I can drive my old car off the ends of the earth for all

anyone cares. The young are removing me from their

sight as if they were the first humans, inventing fire.

- Fleda Brown, “This Week,” in The End of the Clockwork Universe

The young cannot remember being old, as we old ones remember (so well!) being young. It doesn’t matter. The astonishing thing is how young the old can still feel—when glances meet, hands touch, the sun shines, winter aconites bloom, and a breeze lifts a thin lock of grey hair as if it were a girl’s raven-black bangs.

The other evening I thought I would read George Elliot’s The Mill on the Floss but somehow couldn’t open the book and picked up instead Michael Zadoorian’s The Leisure Seeker, a road trip story featuring an old woman and an old man, she with cancer and he with dementia. Does that sound depressing? It isn’t. There are moments of aching sweetness throughout the book, humor, suspense, and a tone of resolute determination that runs through the wife’s narration.

When does the last road trip come? How often do people know at the time that it’s their last ? 

My travels may be more modest from now on, but they are not over. My memory is not gone, either, and I am still making new, happy memories. Occasionally happiness feels selfish and self-indulgent, given all the tragedy in today’s world, but more often I feel that it is part of gratitude, an acknowledgement of the abundant gifts I have received, and I have many reasons to be grateful for my life, here in its eighth decade.

And do I want another spring? Am I impatient for its arrival? Oh, my friends, does a bear shit in the woods, and is the pope Catholic?!

P.S. Beautiful end to the sunny day here. 

How Do You View It?

Weeds are looking weedier. This is chicory.

The Artist liked to call August “the rotten heart of summer.” It's the time when much of what was bright and blooming starts to look tired, tattered and seedy. The atmosphere reeks of pollen, especially that of Queen Anne's lace, rank smell belying regal name.

The more common name for late summer is “dog days,” the name coming from the Dog Star, Sirius, appearing in the sky close to sunrise. (“What is the brightest star in the sky?” my parents would ask little toddler P.J., and I would respond on cue with the answer they had taught me, “Sirius, the Dog Star!” Did I lisp the name?) Hot, humid, dense, thick, and heavy lies the air in northern Michigan during the dog days. 

The angle of the light seems changed (and probably is).

A time of thunderstorms and frequently the most uncomfortable stretch of summer, the dog days are also, paradoxically, a popular time for family vacations. My birth family—father, mother, three girls—always vacationed in August. The reasoning was that lakes were still cold in June, and if we put off vacation until just before school we could look forward to it for weeks. It was our summer's dessert. 

Sunny takes the seasons and their changes in stride.

When I look at the etymology for "dog days," I find the familiar story of Sirius but also learn that Swedes and Finns call this time the “rot month,” warmer weather making infections and food spoilage more likely. It seems the Artist was not alone in his thinking.

In France, traditionally, all family vacations were taken in August, which made it beastly hard on foreign tourists. All over the City of Light, shops were closed up tight. Where to obtain the daily baguette? Finally Parisians got wise and began staggering annual closures within each neighborhood so that every quartier had at least one bakery, one grocer, one cafe, etc. open that month. 

Restaurant workers and retail clerks in Michigan tourist towns are worked pretty hard by the time the dog days roll around. Many schools also begin before Labor Day, leaving many businesses short-handed without their seasonal student help. 

And yet also in August come many regular annual customers. For me, many are dear friends I look forward to seeing every year. Kids grow taller, graduate from high school and then college, get married, have children of their own. Grandkids arrive! And we older ones grab the opportunity to catch up on each other’s lives and wish each other healthy winters until another summer rolls around. For now, we’re still here! We’re still here!

More Friendship!

My friend Juleen and I RELAXED together!

Sunny and I had more company! A friend of mine from decades-ago Kalamazoo days, Juleen has made her home in Tucson, Arizona, for such a long time now that lush, jungly, green and humid Michigan was a visit to her past in more ways than one. Before coming up to see me in Leelanau, she reunited with old friends she had worked with years ago at a camp down in Arcadia, Michigan, and after our time together she turned back south again to Kalamazoo, where more friends awaited. While she was here, we enjoyed two leisurely evenings and two mornings together, and I shared with her some of my "wild nearby." She remarked on the look of so many Michigan gardens, with little to no space between plants: In Arizona desert landscapes, plenty of open space is left between plants to eliminate hiding places for rattlesnakes!

Sunny has become more gregarious this summer with each successive visit. She is finally starting to see visitors as playmates rather than as intruders. She was positively a pest at times, wanting Juleen to play, play, play with her all the time, but that was better than nervous, hostile barking, and by the second morning Juleen caught on to giving firm commands when she wanted a break. I was very happy that my dear friend and my dear dog got along so well!

"Come play with me!" Sunny kept saying.

Naturally, my friend spent time with me in my bookshop, also, where neighbor Clare obligingly photographed us together. The image immediately below is the only one that was slightly blurred, but I am using it, anyway, because I love its liveliness. 

We laughed a lot.

We laughed about all kinds of things!

And here is a photo that didn't make into a previous post:

My sisters and my dog!

Author! Author!

People who came to hear Tim Mulherin speak on Wednesday evening were glad they had made the time. His presentation was informative, sensitive, and entertaining (he has a subtle and wry sense of humor), and the audience was attentive and engaged, several people staying afterward to talk with him further. I was only sorry I didn't have twice as many people on hand to appreciate (and reward him for) his good work. I do, however, have signed copies of his book for those who missed meeting him and hearing him speak.

Other Books

Every American should read Robert Reich’s new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America. Every American, from yellow dog Democrats to MAGA Republicans—and also all Independents and disaffected voting dropouts. Every American. Much more than a memoir, the book is American political history from postwar 1950s to the present day. Not from someone running for office or married to a political party or in bed with large corporate interests, either! Robert Reich may be smarter than you and me (he’s certain smarter than I am), but his head is not in the clouds. I have the hardcover book in my shop, and the audiobook is available through libro.fm. If your library doesn’t have it, they need to get it. Read the book! Then share your thoughts with me, please, whatever those thoughts may be.

I also want to plug a couple new nonfiction books with special regional interest. The first is The Vacation: A Teenage Migrant Farmworker’s Experience Picking Cherries in Michigan, by Robert "Carlos" Fuentes, a happy Lake Leelanau story. 

The second, very different book, is Prison: The Inside Story — Transforming Lives as an Officer and an Educator, by Jack Myette, the story of his 25 years in Michigan prison work, which I only received and am beginning to read today ( Thursday, 8/14). 

Agricultural work and prison life are two very different aspects of American life, common only in that many Americans never experience either one. That’s one reason I am recommending these books. Another is that both titles come from Michigan authors. And the third is that I believe both can help us, in important ways, when we are considering and making choices about the kind of Michigan and the kind of United States we want to shape for the future—a message that was part of what Tim Mulherin (section above) said in the conclusions of his prepared remarks on Wednesday evening. 

What's ahead? Who knows?

There is no stopping change, but we can at least try to guide it away from treacherous shoals and into safer water if we are clear about what changes we can accept and which we absolutely don't want. Farm workers, like all who live and labor, deserve safe working conditions and decent treatment, the kind Carlos and his family enjoyed. And when people who have committed crimes must pay the price by losing their freedom, they should not also lose their humanity. (Prisons should not be "monster factories.") I'll get back to you with more on Myette's book when I've had a chance to read it. 

Goldenrod is exploding everywhere like silent fireworks.

Is summer almost over?

Don’t cry! Summer’s ending is autumn's beginning, a cooling-off and slowing-down in tourist trade (though teachers and others are gearing up, I know), and then before we know it we will have beautiful fall colors and a tide of new fall books.

Black-eyed Susans have not all gone to seed yet.

 

A Lot Has Been Happening Around Here

From across Waukazoo Street (in my doorway) --

If you haven’t been to Northport in a while, you’ll notice some changes the next time you visit. The “big store,” current home of the Northport Inn, the restaurant called Faro, and a stylish new antique shop that goes by the name of Pernette’s, is getting an exterior makeover. Everyone is eager to see their new look.

Back of the building houses Pernette's.

The new look at Barb’s Bakery on Mill Street is already here. Pink! Also new at Barb’s is frozen custard, a very welcome treat on some of the hot days we’ve had recently. 

 

Does this color make you think of ice cream? At Barb's, it's frozen custard!

The New Bohemian Café folks have expanded their hours and are now open until 5 p.m. Good news! And while artist Deborah Ebbers, one of my neighbors here at 106, is away from her studio for a few days (gone to explore further the exciting world of carving sculpture from marble), she will be back early in July, never fear. Over on Mill Street, the Wright Gallery is open for the season on Wednesday through Saturday, 10 to 5, Sundays by chance.

Reflections of window letters with painting as backdrop --

In the nearby unincorporated village of Lake Leelanau, NJ's Grocery (since 1912!) remains closed at present while owners and crew clean up after a fire. No one was injured, and they hope to be back in business in about a month. I hope so! I miss my morning trips to NJ's.

Hope NJ's can re-open before too long!

What was happening at my bookshop on Tuesday was a visit from Kalamazoo poet Jennifer Clark, and, as is always the case with Jennifer, we had a great time and a lot of laughs. Those who do not associate either poetry or saints with happy hoots need to make the acquaintance of Jennifer Clark. I had her sign extra copies of her latest collection of poems, Intercede: Saints for Concerning Occasions, and will be stocking her volume of memoir essays next week when I do another new book order. Kissing the World Goodbye might not sound like a humorous title, but I was laughing out loud reading it. What a delight!

Jennifer Clark is a wonderful bookstore guest! 

To satisfy popular demand, I have restocked Mary Kay Zuravleff’s American Ending (I wrote about it here) and also have a new Michigan novel, My Pirate Summer, by C. J. Hagstrom of Traverse City. Hagstrom’s story, from the old days of the “tall ships,” was inspired by the “nefarious activities” of Captain Seavey, a name familiar to Great Lakes history readers.

 

Here's more new fiction from Michigan writers:

 

Viola Shipman, you ask? Yes, several titles from Viola Shipman, nom de plume of Michigan writer Wade Rouse, who writes gentle romance stories under his grandmother’s name. 

If mysteries are your thing, I have books by Leelanau author Aaron Stander (he calls our home ground “Cedar County”), U.P. mysteries from Joseph Heywood and Steve Hamilton, and exciting stories featuring fictional Sheriff Jules Clement of Blue Deer, Montana, by Michigan-native-gone-to-Montana Jamie Harrison. Karen Mulvahill’s historical fiction novel, The Lost Woman, continues to leap off the table, along with Marilyn Zimmerman’s legal suspense novel, In Defense of Good Women (review here). 

 

Under new nonfiction offerings, This Magnetic North: Candid Conversations on a Changing Northern Michigan is guaranteed to start many more conversations since it seems that everyone wants to be here! Climate change, migration, and tourism (I would add growing world population) are affecting places Up North, as they have elsewhere. Is northern Michigan’s tourism industry “too robust”? Poet Michael Delp, co-editor emeritus of the Made in Michigan Writers Series, calls this book “essential reading for anyone who claims to love northern Michigan for its beauty.”

What changes will we see in years to come?

Also for locals and visitors alike,“Perfect Omena Day!”: Selections from the Summer Diaries of Rebecca L. Richmond, 1907-1920 is going to be a sure-fire winner. What was daily life in Omena like over 100 years ago? Marsha Buehler, Omena's Putnam-Cloud Tower House Museum Director, calls the diary entries Christine Byron chose and transcribed “gentle lessons in cultural anthropology blended with a bit of archeology.” The book is also generously illustrated with old photographs and postcards – a perfect recipe for summer dreaming and time travel.

Sometimes it's comforting to look backward, isn't it?

Field guides to birds, board books for pre-readers, 100 Things to Do in Michigan [and in the Upper Peninsula] Before You Die (always, I think, the best time to do anything), and other books you didn’t know you needed until you saw them in Dog Ears Books – all are here for your summer reading pleasure, along with, always, an ever-changing inventory of used books, some quite recent and others from very long ago.

There are always lots of pre-loved volumes on my shelves.

The summer solstice has come and gone, St. John’s Eve has come and gone, and the 4^th of July is coming at us fast. Along the roadsides and in the meadows, milkweed prepares to bloom, and St. Johnswort is just getting underway. It is also the week of the strawberry – and strawberry pie – and strawberry-rhubarb pie – and maybe rhubarb chutney, if I can squeeze in that project….

Milkweed

Cinquefoil

St. Johnswort

Goatsbeard

"Can I help, momma?" (I just couldn't leave her out entirely!)