Gratitude and Death

 

Table in my old farmhouse

I woke up thankful to be alive on Thanksgiving morning and thankful to have Sunny Juliet by my side, and very thankful she is no longer a puppy, that last a major cause for gratitude. We have made it, she and I, through what seemed like endless years of puppyhood, and I’m sure she was just as frustrated with me as I was with her on many occasions, but she will be four years old in December, and our home life together is much calmer these days.

Always ready for fun!

Thankful for family and friends, of course, and I don’t say “of course” as if reciting a formula. Thursday morning, punctuated by a dog walk in bitter cold wind off Lake Michigan, was also punctuated by texts with friends and family members all over the map. Some sent photos. All in the midst of holiday meal preparations, many already surrounded by family guests (or hosts), we found time to connect with others many miles away. 

We shared food and many memories.

My friend Laura arrived in the afternoon at my place. Our first Thanksgiving together was in 1971, and there were many other holiday dinners between then and now, in one place or another, often with a group of mixed family and friends. This year we collaborated on dinner, and I was very thankful to be able to share another T-Day with Laura and also, beforehand, to enjoy delicious cooking aromas in my old farmhouse while exchanging greetings with others farther afield.

 

And a fine, banal evening in shul it was. There were the usual jitters about the quorum. Pointing to the local Jewish newspaper on the table, one man said, “Maybe we should read the obituaries and see who the mourners are.” Where there’s death, there’s hope. Another man looked at him and asked: “Are you in trusts and estates?” We all agreed that the shul should not have to depend for its services on its mourners. Death is a poor foundation for community. (But it helps.) Eventually there were ten and I said amen.

 

-      Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish

 

The author of the excerpt quoted above wrote an entire book focused on his year of mourning for his father, detailing traditional Jewish mourning customs over the years. He had returned, after years away, to his Jewish tradition in order to fulfill his duty to his late father by saying the mourner’s kaddish in the company of nine other Jews for eleven months following his father’s death. I was struck by the passage I quote here, especially the words “Death is a poor foundation for community,” because—always reading more than one book at a time—another book I was reading regularly at the same time was The Dominion of Death, by Robert Pogue Harrison, and it is Harrison’s contention that human rituals surrounding death and burial are the very foundation of civilization, the foundation of our humanity itself, because to be “human,” Harrison argues, is something other than merely belonging to a species. “To be human means above all to bury.” And to bury properly. The towns and cities that make up human homes have always originated, he says, as cemeteries. 

 

I will not attempt to do justice to Harrison’s rich thesis here but want to skip to something (again, as with Wieseltier) near the end of the book:

 

Humanity means mortality. Mortality in turn means that we repossess ourselves only in giving ourselves. For even receiving help is a mode of self-giving, just as the refusal of help is, or can beam a failure of generosity [my emphasis added].

 

      - Robert Pogue Harrison, The Domain of the Dead 

 

If I was, as my mother told me, a selfish child (and I think she was right about that), it didn’t mean that I wanted others to wait on me or help me. I was selfish but not greedy or demanding. In fact, our parents had drummed into us that when we were at someone else’s house we were not to ask for things, and so when we were at Uncle Jim’s house and he offered something (I don’t remember what it was), it felt to me as if accepting would be asking for, and I could only mutter awkwardly (I was an awkward child, as well as a selfish one), “I don’t know,” to which my uncle sensibly replied, “Well, if you don’t know, I don’t know, either.” And so I didn’t get it.

 

Why couldn’t he just give me whatever it was (maybe lemonade?)? I couldn’t ask for it! And accepting was as difficult for me as giving.

Most memories of Uncle Jim were very happy ones!

It all seemed so unbelievably complicated that it took me longer—long into adulthood—to be comfortable with accepting help or gifts or favors than it did to learn how to give. Even saying “Thank you” seemed to acknowledge a debt, and how could I ever repay the debt? I found it easier to say “No, thank you.”

 

Was I a strange and inward child who thought too much and created difficulties where none needed to be? Guilty! But I got over it. Finally.

 

My friend Annie was a bigger help than she ever realized. In the last years of her life, Annie needed a lot of help, and she managed to ask for it gracefully and accept it graciously. No annoying demands, no brusque refusals. Finally, thanks to Annie, I saw how accepting help could be a gift, too. It was certainly a gift she gave me.

 

Friday morning. Only very light snow here so far, and no blizzard expected in the near future. Thankful for a warm house, I bring down a few ornaments from the cold upstairs to decorate my little bookshop tree in Northport and then go outdoors into the cold with my patient dog girl. Another day—and we are still alive!

On-leash (hunting season), there is still a lot to sniff.

From Northport to Marrakech

Weather was perfect on Friday for Music in the Park; the three-man band, a group called Looking Forward, played a Crosby, Stills, and Nash Tribute; and David and I were this week’s sponsors. What memories that music evoked! One particularly happy CSN song, of course, was “Marrakech Express.” Here are the originals doing that number, but the band in Northport did a rousing rendition of their own.

Music in the Park has been a Northport tradition for many years. (I forget how many, but I’m sure someone can remind me.) Lisa Drummond has not been the organizer since the beginning, but she has been an enthusiastic emcee for quite a while now. Even Lisa’s enthusiasm had not, however, prepared me to hear myself and my husband described as “local icons.” Wow! David, the artist, is used to being called an icon, but it’s something new to this little old bookseller. I decided I can live with the label.

Someone who has been with Music in the Park since the very beginning -- every single show -- never missed a single one -- is sound man Kent Holton. Now that is someone I call a local icon! Please, a big round of applause for Kent on sound!

Such a relaxed, colorful evening! My roving camera eye caught all kinds of what I might call “iconic” sights -- those features that are part of every Music in the Park event and have been for years -- starting with the fact that so many of us settle into the shade of the old willows of Marina Park. The willows are monumental but natural, and it wouldn't be Music in the Park without a few kids climbing up to perch on large branches above the crowd.

Local color? New marina buildings are definitely bright in day’s late, slanting light.

Little kids running back and forth across the grass and sometimes stopping to dance a bit in front of the band are a happy sight, and a while later grownups got up to dance, too.

Over nearer the boat launch parking lot, the American flag was mostly still on this mostly windless evening,

while from on top of the gazebo (with the band playing underneath) a dove surveyed the scene below.

Friends circulated, greeting one another, before the music started and during the intermission.

All in all, it was a beautiful, peaceful, happy, completely Northport scene, and we tore ourselves away before it was over only because we needed to get ready for the arrival of more visitors.

Twenty Years (20) of Dog Parades in Northport (or is it 21?)

Ho-hum. Another day in the bookstore....

What's this? Dogs going by?

While kids look at books, Sarah checks out sidewalk traffic.

Whose car is this? Cool plate!

Anticipation....

Then, somehow, I missed the very beginning of the parade! Missed the dog parade banner coming down the street! Did it mention "20 Years"? I don't know. I'm still working on the calculation myself, starting with the age of my bookstore (22), subtracting the three summers it was in Traverse City (19), adding back the two dog parades I know we missed (2) -- 21 years? I'm confused. Who's got the count?

Never mind. Here come dogs! This year's theme, "Woofstock," was truly inspired -- and inspiring.

Not all of my pictures turned out great, but I'm including a couple fuzzy ones nonetheless, because they are important parts of village life.

Northport Promise

Northport Wildcats!!!

Along the way, with dogs, dogs, dogs, were people marching with a Coming Attraction, the Leelanau UnCaged street fair the last Saturday in September.

The street fair is as much fun as the dog parade -- maybe more, in that it lasts all day long. But right now it's still August, and today was the day Northport went to the dogs. Beneficiaries of this year's parade fees were the Cherryland Humane Society, Black Sheep Crossing, and Silver Muzzle Cottage.

Sarah had a good time watching the parade, especially when she saw dogs she knows, like Laddie and Nessie.

Laddie

Nessie

We were also excited and pleasantly surprised to see Sarah's former groomer, Jamie. She is only Sarah's "former" groomer because she, Jamie, moved down to Grand Rapids. We miss her!

It's Jamie!!!

Omena has a big doggie presence. (Their mayor is a dog.)

And the dogs and hippies just kept comin'

Our librarian and her entourage and the Friends of the Library in the Stanley Steamer took the prize for bending Sixties slogans to their own agenda, and since it's an agenda I share, I loved their signs. 

Big dog makes big shadow!

It isn't a parade without a band

Neighbors and neighbor dogs

I hope someone counted all the dogs in this year's parade -- and then, too, all the dogs like Sarah along the parade route, enjoying the scene from the sidelines. 

Then the parade was over for another year, leaving behind smiles and memories. What a wonderful tradition! In Northport, we love our town, and we love our dogs.

Kirk in t- and bandana

Does Spending Money on Gifts Corrupt the Giving?

Shall we ask Sarah? No, not the kind of question that perks up her ears. I'll just tell you what I think and how I feel, and I'm interested in your thoughts and feelings on the subject, too. 

For me, giving a holiday gift is akin to writing a letter because, whether giving or writing, I take a lot of personal pleasure in the process. I’ve been thinking about gift-giving lately, in this season of holiday shopping and preparation, and wondering where my pleasure in buying and giving comes from. As with most questions involving holiday traditions, my answer can be traced back to childhood.

My parents were not big shoppers, in general, so our at-home family Christmas was hardly an orgy of materialist excess. Gifts were modest. The thing is, my mother and father were not routinely buying things for us twelve months of the year. We usually got a few new school clothes in September, along with school supplies, and there was always a cake and a special gift for each girl’s birthday, but we were not continuously showered with new clothes, toys, games, records, or even books. We were not deprived, but neither were we overindulged by any measure, and I think this is why gifts at Christmas were so special.

When we were little, the “Santa Claus” presents appeared unwrapped under the tree to greet us on Christmas morning, while presents officially from our parents and grandparents were wrapped in colorful paper. We could get at the Santa Claus gifts right away but had to wait for our parents to join us in the living room (all of us in pajamas and robes) to open wrapped gifts. And when we started unwrapping, it wasn’t a free-for-all. We sat around the living room – no hurry to get breakfast that morning! – and one person opened one present at a time. We all paid attention and enjoyed the opening, no matter who was doing it. As I’ve said, we didn’t have presents and treats every day of the year. Neither was the dining room sideboard all year long laden with cookies and fudge and divinity and a sugar-cube cottage and bowls of oranges and nuts in their shells with nutcrackers laid carefully on top. The holiday was a special time, and part of what made it special was presents, things we’d been wanting for months and were now to be given. 

One gift I’ll never forget, one of my very favorites, was a new hardcover copy of Marguerite Henry’s Black Gold, a story – yes, about a horse! -- that still gives me shivers just thinking of it. I remember one grandmother giving me my own first alarm clock, too, a windup Baby Ben, and the other grandparents sending a long-playing record, an anthology called “Great Hits on Dot.” All these gifts had been bought, rather than homemade, but they were precious to me. I say “but” because there seems to be a feeling in some quarters that gifts purchased with money don’t come from as deep in the heart as something the giver has made by hand, and that doesn’t fit with my experience. I’m not saying that purchased gifts are better. I just don’t think they must be seen as inferior.

Let me come at this from another angle. Even as children, we were encouraged by our parents to give as well as receive. Without a lot of spending money, again, our gifts to each other were modest, but each one was chosen with the recipient in mind, and my sisters and I were proud to choose, buy, wrap and give presents to each other and to our parents.

One year as a young adult, barely able to afford the trip back to my parents’ home for the holiday, the gifts I gave were all homemade. There was a jar of spinach noodles for each relative and a poem written for all to share. It was all I could do.

For several years more recently, I fixated on the idea that no one in my family “needed” anything, and I coerced them (there is no more accurate word) into giving donations to charity in each other’s names and calling those “gifts.” Don’t get me wrong. My family is not “needy,” and plenty of people in the world are, and charitable giving, whether for the holidays or any other time, is important. But I’ve gone back to giving my family simple gifts, things in packages to be opened on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, depending on the tradition of the individual nuclear family involved, because I like doing it, and so do they.

Certain people are easier to buy for than others, but when inspiration strikes for hard-to-buy-for relatives, I am overjoyed. Yes! “Do you want gift boxes?” Yes! “Do you want us to gift-wrap them for you?” No! I want to do that myself!!!

(There are no pictures here of gifts I’ve sent off to family or squirreled away for David (some wrapped in reusable cloth, others in new or even re-used paper), because the former lot have gone out in the mail, and the latter are not yet wrapped, and anyway, they are surprises, and they are just for the people getting them, not for my blog readers. Yes, some of the gifts are books, but by no means all. Some presents are practical, some inspirational, and some are edible, either homemade -- those mostly to local friends -- or gourmet treats my relatives would not buy for themselves.)

Here’s another thing. We don’t travel on holidays. In the past, I spent many white-knuckled hours on dangerously ice-covered roads, praying I wouldn’t join the jack-knifed semi-trailer trucks in the median ditch. Weather is always a possible issue. Days are short in December, too. Driving expressways in the dark? No, thank you! Then there is the expense of travel, a sure thing, and add to those negatives my wanting to be in my bookstore open the day before and after Christmas, the last time people will be coming “home” to Northport until their summer vacations. It all adds up to staying home. Our kids and grandkids have busy lives downstate and in Minnesota, as do my sisters and mother in Illinois. The upshot of all this is that we don’t hop planes or hit the road in December. Instead we call and talk to each other on the phone. We also send presents. It’s yet another way of “being together” across the miles, and it means a lot to all of us, as I’ve come to realize more and more.

No one in this country is obligated to observe any holiday, and every one of us is free to celebrate or not in whatever way we choose. The day may come -- may it be far, far in the future! -- when I can no longer shop for holiday presents, but while I can I am going to enjoy it! And I must say, if my family has one-quarter as much fun opening their presents as I had buying and wrapping and sending them, I will have my pleasure all over again in theirs. Clearly, there is an aspect of self-indulgence here. Is that a bad thing? All I can say is, I feel very, very good about it.