An Old Note to Self, Found

Day Four:

My sister showed me her fancy cell phone last night. She can download her e-mail to it, play games, and write herself memos. I pulled out my little spiral-bound paper memo book to show her and flipped to the page where I wrote a poem last May, somewhere on the road to Kalamazoo:

“Road Kill”

No summer fun is coming
For the raccoon on the shoulder
Of the road.
If life were a cartoon,
Its eyes would be X’s.
If life were a cartoon,
A loud enough noise
Could re-animate the corpse,
And the raccoon,
Shaking its head dizzily,
A little stiff-legged,
Would amble down to the shore
And dip again for crayfish.

- P.J. Grath

First Three Days Away

Day One:

Leaving sunshine behind in Leelanau County, traveling under grey skies to Grand Rapids, where snow in the air and on the ground grew heavier and heavier, we made our way south as far as Benton Harbor. The highways were not cleared of snow, so travel was slow. Roads and parking lots were deep in snow, also, a foot having fallen in 24 hours. We found a dog-friendly motel, close to restaurants and shopping, and stopped to make camp. Our Steak and Shake waitress, Kimberly, made the evening memorable. With so little traffic moving on the roads, the dinner hour was very slow, so we had time to visit at length and hear all about her daughters, the birth of the younger, how she and the baby almost died, and much more. With all the challenges life has already handed her (at the age of 34), she is very much aware of the difference she can make in other people’s lives, in her waitress job, by letting them know that someone cares enough to try to brighten their day, and this awareness guides her in her work. She is happy that her older daughter attends the school she herself attended, the girl’s teacher this year one of Kimberly’s childhood teachers. She is giving her children the best foundation for life: love, education and the involvement of two parents. She spoke of her children being her gifts. “You’ve been our gift today,” I told her. Before we left, she and I were hugging each other, tears streaming down our faces. What a good, strong, lovely young woman!

Day Two:

The next day was sunny, the highways cleared of snow, and we had an easy drive to my mother’s house in Joliet. How good to arrive at last, safely! A young man who grew up next door long after I had gone away to Michigan was outdoors with his wife, launching his small children downhill on sleds in the vacant lot between the two houses, half of which my father sold to his father years ago. My sisters and I sledded down not only this hill but, with a good, strong start, further down another slope or two below it. Many things change and become almost unrecognizable, but some things don’t change.

My mother is moving gingerly on her bad knee, but if she has surgery (looking more likely all the time) it will not be, she is assured, a full joint replacement but only the reattachment of a detached piece of cartilage, so that’s not as bad as it might be. The three of us had all afternoon to relax and visit, with no real work to do, and later on my sister and brother-in-law brought dinner: homemade lasagna, red wine, green salad and a pan of brownies. Sarah drank more water than usual during the day (helping herself from the cats’ water dish), and that meant more times I had to take her outdoors in the snow, but overall she behaved well. Brother-in-law Ben, who grew up without ever having a pet, admitted he is now a convert to dog ownership and recalled his first meeting with Nikki, our old dog: “When I said ‘Sit!’ she sat! No dog had ever obeyed me before. She showed me that all dogs didn’t have to be obnoxious.” Nice to think that our old girl, providing a positive and pivotal experience like that for Ben, paved the way for Ben and Bettie’s adoption of Gracie, their black lab. My mother’s cats, on the other hand, as when I visited with Sarah in May, did not mingle with the family—with a dog around!--but stayed in the front bedroom, not venturing through to their basement litterbox until Sarah was behind a closed door.

My mother has been reading An Irish Country Christmas, by Patrick Taylor, M.D., whose books are set in northern Ireland, and A Good Yarn, by Debbie Macomber. There are so many books, I reflect, both fiction and nonfiction, written on the subject of knitting these days! What is it all about? Knitting is hardly a new phenomenon, but these books are, as far as I know.

Day Three:

It’s an hour earlier here in Illinois, and I wake up early, anyway, so it was about 5 a.m. when I brought my book out into the living room. Last night I’d read a bit from The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith, to David, but he was sleepy and couldn’t keep the characters straight, especially as I like to read the dialogue in what he persists in calling “dialect,” adding, “like an actress.” Well, I love African accents in general and these characters in particular, and all the names of towns and streets sound quite beautiful to me. This is the eighth book in the series. The story begins with Mma Ramotswe, the main character and founder of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, starting her day at home. “It is useful, people generally agree, for a wife to wake up before her husband.” Two pages later Mma Ramotswe is remembering her childhood, thinking of

…the view from the National School up on the hill; of the paths that wound through the bush this way and that but which had a destination known only to the small, scurrying animals that used them. These were things that would stay with her forever, she thought, and which would always be there, no matter how bustling and thriving Gabarone might become. This was the soul of her country; somewhere there, in that land of red earth, of green acacia, of cattle bells, was the soul of her country.

I am up before my good husband, as usual, and the first pot of coffee is brewed. Across the road from my mother’s house, the old fields that used to grow corn and soybeans (in alternate years), the fields across which I watched thunderstorms and sunsets and beyond which I imagined the Wild West, are now all given over to streets and houses and yards. As Mma Ramotswe sips her bush tea and remembers grazing cattle, my morning coffee heart returns to the woods and orchards of northern Michigan. Isn’t it strange? My childhood memories are of my childhood dreams of living in wide-open country spaces. I am nostalgic for my present life rather than my past.

Later—Sarah had her first visit to a dog park. Seven acres, about a dozen dogs running around when we arrived. She was somewhat overwhelmed at first but quickly regained her composure and had a wonderful time.

The "Middle of the Night!"

The MOTN is any dark hour when one’s partner finds it outrageous that one is not either asleep or actively courting sleep. (Can one “actively court sleep,” or does the very endeavor rule out success? Never mind.) When David is listening to the news through his earphones at 2 a.m., I might protest that it’s “the middle of the night!” On the other hand, when I awake at 4 a.m. and announce quietly—he’s awake, too, you see; why does he pretend otherwise?—that I’ve given up on the idea of getting back to sleep, his sensibilities rise up in astonishment: “It’s the middle of the night!” All I can say is that I might as well be up and doing instead of lying in bed worrying about all that needs to be done. Also, life will feel more manageable after a cup of coffee.

Some things can be done in the MOTN without disturbing the partner still sleeping or courting sleep. Those would be, of course, quiet things, such as reading, writing, drinking coffee, going over a bank statement, doing laundry at the other end of the house, checking e-mail, writing a blog posting or reading someone else’s blog. Since this is our long-awaited day of departure for points south and farther south, I hadn’t planned to post for a while, but then a comment came in from someone with a blog I enjoy so much I want to share it. From the House of Edward features both books and dogs, along with poetry and music and musings on nature. “Right up my alley!” as our Spencer likes to say. So while David and Sarah stretch out their downtime this morning (the pooch is never in a hurry to get up as long as one of us is still in bed), I’m relaxing with Edward and his family. A railroad family, too, just like mine! Have lived “in a fantasy world?” My title for the memoir I’ll probably never write is “Reality Commuter”! One big difference between the House of Edward and our house is that Edward’s is decorated very tastefully, while ours is a messy hodge-podge on the edge of chaos. Luckily, in the virtual world, that kind of difference can be easily put aside.

Soon the long day's travel will begin. Good-bye, hills and woods and orchards! Be well until we return to you!

Anticipation

Here’s Sarah, in the driver’s seat. Yes, the whole pack is looking forward to being on the road. It will be good to see my mother in Illinois, our first stop, and several hundred miles after that it will be good to get beyond the snow. Only yesterday, gazing at snowy cherry orchards, I remembered the gracious look of pecan plantations in Georgia, and that made me think of northern Florida’s live oaks, each one a kind of oasis of shade or island of refuge in the savannah. I will be watching impatiently for the first sighting of a roadside stand selling boiled peanuts. “Bolled” is how it sounds when they say it, and unappetizing as the notion is to the uninitiated, my first experience made me a convert. A non-crunchy snack but surprisingly addictive.

I’m looking forward to reading the books I’m taking for the trip: The Manor, by Isaac Bashevis Singer (I’m about halfway through it); The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith (one chapter in, but I may backtrack to read aloud to David in the car); A Corner in the Marais, by Alex Karmel (on loan from a friend); Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson (finally I’ll get around to this, chuckling inappropriately when I remember a friend saying, “Out stealing horses. Back soon”); and Bleak House, by Dickens (not one to begin on the road but to save for cheerful, sunny, Southern days). This is only the beginning of a stack that will grow—some future events are immune to doubt--as the trip progresses.

Also, it’s been three years since we’ve been to Florida and longer than that since we’ve seen some of our friends who will be there this year.

Strange as it may sound, however (since we have not yet left home), I am also already looking forward to coming back again. I anticipate the first curly shoots of chard in the garden, hunting for morels, the re-opening of my bookstore and reunions with friends. I’m eager for Sarah’s reunion with her new friend, Kate. Our party for Ed and Connie’s new book will be the first big Dog Ears Books event of the 2009 season, and I’m excited about it three months in advance, as it will not only be the perfect way to launch the bookstore year but also the perfect beginning to the spring wildflower season. And as far as the blog is concerned, it will be fun to explore and photograph a different environment for a while, but already I look forward to coming home to Michigan scenery and sharing it online.

The rest of the pack? David says he misses our house already and will be happy to get back to it again, as well as to touch base with friends and visit familiar haunts. Sarah has never been to Florida before, but I know she will be happy to see her old neighborhood friends here again in the spring. They certainly have fun together!



Here and now, snow is falling and wind blowing. The winter coats of horses hold snow..

Feeling Unsettled

Where is the charger for my cell phone? The largest of the three lidded saucepans? My camera’s lens cap? Despite lists, despite progress, everything feels topsy-turvy and impossible. Besides that, the sun shone on Saturday, Monday and all day today. Do we really want to pack up and go away? We look around our messy little nest and feel homesick in advance. So from time to time, like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand (do they really do that?), I retreat into the pages of Between Gardens, by Carol Graham Chudley and Dorothy Field. The book’s subtitle, Observations on Gardening, Friendship and Disability, includes a reference to Carol’s struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but the only text dealing with CFS are her journal entries. The letters between the two women focus on their gardens, early childhood memories of nature, the idiosyncratic approach each takes to cultivating the soil and nurturing plants, and the passing of the seasons. Beautiful close-up photographs by Dorothy Field of plants in her garden, often set against her own hand-made papers, make the book a visual as well as a literary delight, and the writing of both women bristles with intelligence, sensitivity and creativity that neither time constraints nor illness can defeat. It is a triumph of spirit. Lost in their written garden thoughts, I rush forward mentally, into the spring and the joy of working again in my own worm-rich soil.

A Correction and Some Old Oddities, on the Last Bookstore Day of the Season

I stand corrected--specifically, on my spelling of a wine grape name from yesterday’s post, corrected by an anonymous commenter. (Susan, was that you?) I found two spellings online but should have known better than to trust the Internet, where errors proliferate and where I have now been responsible for spreading this one. How far the former spelling champion has fallen! The correction, however, sent me to Tom Maresca’s book, Mastering Wine, where I am somewhat comforted to read that pinot grigio is not known for a “big aroma.” At least I didn’t get that part wrong. Maybe I need to buy a case in the spring, sear the correct spelling into my brain, and explore the subtlety of the bouquet.

Last night I added books to my Librarything listings (see link at right). Adding only a few at a time, slowly, as the spirit moves me, I find it interesting to see which of my books are shared with other members. So far I have a little disappointment that no one else has listed Memoirs of an Unrepentant Field Geologist; Reading the Landscape; or The Rural Efficiency Guide. I had hoped to find other fans of those wonderful old books, but the titles in my library that have the largest number of other members listing them are better-known books: Wind in the Willows; The Borrowers; Walter Mosley titles; Harlan Hubbard books; The Art of Simple Food, by Alice Waters. This is fine, of course, but has no one else discovered the less-known old oddities?

Here’s one such that came into my hands the other day, Three Tony’s Scrap Books, by Tony Wons, a radio personality during the Great Depression. The books are compilations of “scraps” he collected and that his listeners clipped and mailed in, and I’m especially interested, given the time period, to see if there’s any wisdom there for our current crisis. Here’s something about finances from that old expert, Anonymous:

I once had money and a friend;
On both I set great store.
I loaned my money to my friend,
And took his note therefore.
I asked my money of my friend,
And naught but words I got.
I lost my money and my friend,
For sue him I would not.
If I had money and a friend,
As I had once before,
I’d keep my money and my friend
And play the fool no more.

And here’s a thought articulated by Lord Avebury, who I’m guessing and hoping would be the Lord Avebury also known as Sir John Lubbock, friend of Charles Darwin and author of one of the books in my library, but no citation is given beyond “Lord Avebury” in the book. The thought is:

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

That punctuation is not what I would have used, but I fully endorse the sentiment.

It’s the last day in the bookstore, and the Christmas tree has to come down today, but I’ll wait until later in the afternoon to undecorated it, leaving the lights on until the last. In fact, maybe I’ll leave the lights on a few more days, since we’re not leaving town until other tasks are completed, and, as I always maintain, holiday lights in windows or outdoors are very cheery at this time of year. Although at this moment, early afternoon, the sun is shining in Northport!!!

Auspicious Beginning

It was the next-to-last day of the Dog Ears Books season, and I’ve extended my December sale through Saturday, January 3, but after Saturday the bookstore will be closed until April. [This post would have been up earlier in the day, but things got too busy. Sorry!] Fischer’s Happy Hour Tavern is already on vacation for the month of January. The Eat Spot is closed for the season. Barb of Barb’s Bakery hasn’t said exactly when they’ll lock up for the winter but probably in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, Stubb’s Sweetwater Grill and the Treasure Chest soldier on, along with Tom’s Grocery and The Filling Station, abd Sally Coohon will welcome sewers and knitters and quilters and other hobbyists and crafters at Dolls and More all winter, offering warmth and lessons and camaraderie along with goods for sale. In business and the rest of human life, as in nature at large, endings and beginnings overlap, woven together by continuity.

[Spelling has now been corrected in the following section.]

New Year’s Day saw the opening of a new winery in Leelanau County, and since we know the owners and had been fortunate enough to sample one of the new wines before the opening, David and I ventured over the township line to Circa Estate Winery on Horn Road. Margaret Bell is vintner there, her husband David the grower, and anyone acquainted with these two will bring high expectations to Circa. No one will be disappointed. Everything about Circa is top of the line, from gleaming vats in the cellar to a long, sweeping, dark wood bar, grand piano and gracious appointments in the tasting room. All of this, however, is in service to the wine, which, as it should, holds center stage.

Fine wine begins in the vineyard, with grower, vintner and workers nurturing the vines and fruit at every step of their growth. Only half the grape clusters that form are left to mature on the vines, and it is advisable to cut away some of the leaves to let the sun’s warmth reach the grapes, but this must be done carefully and the results closely monitored, because too much light would scald the fruit. Later on the clusters that do not mature must be pruned away. Michigan law permits addition of imported wine or juice, but Margaret Bell will have none of that: every drop of Circa wine is produced from Leelanau County grapes, most of them grown on David Bell’s vines.

So David delivers harvested grapes to Margaret, and she and her winery staff take over from there. Most wineries de-stem and crush in one operation, but Margaret Bell uses separate operations, and between the de-stemming and crushing, grapes are hand-sorted to insure that no errant stem, twig, leaf or substandard grape is pressed. The press seen above is usually outside but was brought indoors for the opening tour. Behind it, through a tall archway, stainless steel fermentation tanks from Italy gleam. Margaret does not believe in aging white wines in oak—only red. “Do you really want to chew through white wine like a beaver?” is the way she phrases the matter. I would not know how to answer that question except that I have tasted Margaret’s pinot grigio, and the result speaks for itself.












The complicated bottling line itself takes three or four workers to keep things moving along.




So now let me tell about my first experience with Circa wine. We were at the home of friends, where the Bells were also guests and had brought a bottle of their pinot grigio for us to enjoy and evaluate. For all their knowledge and expertise and high standards, the Bells are as far from being wine snobs as anyone you would want to meet, which is good because neither David nor I could pass ourselves off as wine experts. (When anyone asks, I say that my three grades of wine are Undrinkable, Drinkable, and Really Good.) But what’s important to Margaret Bell is that people be encouraged to taste wine and describe it in their own words, not words put into their mouths by anyone else. Passionate about wine (as about music), she finds joy in sharing her passion and seeks to draw others into the fold, not to exclude anyone.

The bouquet eluded me. Was it too subtle for my untrained nose, or did I not sufficiently warm the glass with my hands to release it? I’ll take more time with that in future. But my first sip more than made up for anything I missed in aroma. It was only the smallest sip, and it was the most interesting, most complex wine experience of my life, modulating ceaselessly on my tongue, claiming my full attention as wine never had before. I was reminded of the first time I saw the modern dance group, Wellspring, perform in Kalamazoo. Here was something that captivated me utterly and took me to places I had never been before but for which I had no vocabulary. How does one talk about dance? It is not literature or philosophy or even painting. (I say “even” painting because anything I have to say about painting is from the heart and with bits I have gleaned through life from David and artist friends, not from formal study.) How does one describe the taste of wine? Margaret did not disdain my inarticulate appreciation. It is part of her nature to encourage novices.


Back to that first of glass. Never have I taken so long to drink a single glass of wine. It wasn’t only the first sip that had so much to say—in a language I am now, because of it, eager to learn to translate—but each successive sip. And I did sip that entire glass, very slowly, falling away from the general conversation to focus on the discoveries my mouth was making. This, finally, is my story: one in which words fail me. But really, what difference would it make if I could produce dozens of adjectives? Words would not give any reader my experience. So now I look forward to the visitors we will have in the spring and summer and fall, because we can take a few of my beloved back roads over to this new winery, where they will have for themselves an experience they will never forget.

This Saturday evening it is David and Margaret’s daughter, Gillian Bell, who will take center stage at the Suttons Bay Congregational Church, 7:30 p.m. Gillian now lives and works in New York City but came home for the holidays (and the winery opening) and will present the annual recital so many of us count on as part of beginning each new year. No tickets are necessary. Don’t miss this!

Well, things were lively in Lake Leelanau on New Year’s Day, with NJ’s open and busy, and in Leland, where the Bluebird and the Merc were drawing big crowds, but back where the old sheriff’s department, jail and courthouse used to stand in Leland the music had died. All these county operations are housed off M-204 now, and the old sign for the designated smoking area, next to a snow-covered picnic table, was finding no takers. When we lived next door, I loved the lights on the Christmas tree outside the courthouse building this time of year. Now there is nothing but rubble.






To everything there is a season, and in every season both beginnings and endings are found.

I am currently reading Timbuktu, by Paul Auster, and The Manor, by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Last Day of the Year

…After the snowfall, the temperature had fallen and everything had frozen. The branches of the trees resembled crystal menorahs. Candles were ignited in them by the setting sun and then extinguished. The blue snow sparkled with diamonds. Early stars twinkled in the sky. Somewhere, a dog bayed.

From The Manor, by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Snow falls, melts, vanishes, returns. We pass this way but once. What will we leave behind to say we were here?

In, Not Off

This is one of my favorite spots along M-22, different every day, beautiful in every season.

I was on the fence last night about whether or not to come to Northport today or to take my customary Monday off, after a festive dinner out at the home of friends, where the Hanukkah candles burned cheerfully for the close of the long holiday, but since we’ll be closed for three months, and since the days remaining are fast diminishing, and since so many people have come home Up North for the holidays, I thought I’d come in for at least a little while, and the decision has worked out well.

First, I zipped up the blinds in the front window to see Jon and Tegan gazing plaintively at the CLOSED sign! I flipped it around to OPEN, and they came right in for a good browse and a couple of Christmas cookies and a book for Jon. Their visit got the day off to a great start.

Next, since the first of the 2009 seed catalogs had arrived in the mail and opened with a brief welcome letter that began “Poet Celia Thaxter’s An Island Garden has been my enduring gardening inspiration,” I hurried to the garden section to see if I had that book. No, it wasn’t there, but Bill McKibben’s Hope, Human and Wild (St. Paul, MN: Hungry Mind Press, 1995) jumped into my hand and held me captive for about an hour. The story of the city of Curitiba in Brazil, a city I’d never before heard of, is mesmerizing, itself an inspiration for urban planners, architects and people around the world who care about making and keeping living environments livable. Just that was worth having come to my own bookstore! I may have put every book on the shelf, but I can be as surprised and delighted as any browsing customer by what I find here, and that’s one of the joys of having a bookstore.

Then our poet friend Al Bona stopped in, and he and I turned to the new issue of the new Dunes Review to compare impressions, both of us very impressed by and admiring of the poem “A Waltz for the Lovelorn,” by Todd Boss. The poem’s rhythm and internal rhymes and word choices are masterful. We turned to read Michael Callaghan’s interview with Boss and found more quotable lines to share, e.g., “A poem should be greased like a dream.” Al was so excited that before leaving he purchased a copy of Yellowrocket, the poet’s first book.

Later: It's been a busy, lively, very enjoyable day, with lots of books sold and many good conversations with friends. I made coffee three times, which is a good measure of foot traffic. In keeping with the holiday losing-track-of-what-day-it-is, this Monday felt like a Saturday.

The plan for the rest of the week is: Tuesday, 10-4; Wednesday (New Year's Eve, 10-???; Thursday (New Year's Day) CLOSED; Friday and Saturday (Jan. 2-3), 10-4. December sale prices will remain in effect through Saturday, Jan. 3, but after that don't count on dropping in again until April. During our winter vacation, I will be working on my -tween novel, aiming to have a complete 21-chapter draft by the end of March, but I'll continue to post to the blog roughly once a week.

In the Woods Again, At Last

Rose leaves command little attention in the summer, but against the snow they are impossible to ignore. So much snow has melted that Sarah and were able today to take a long overland hike. The world was full of wonder.

The beauty of a nearby wooded hill is an everyday sight but one I never take for granted. It never looks quite the same two days in a row, either.


Inside the woods, sheltered from the wind and surrounded by trees of all sizes and ages, one cannot help slowing down to look longer and more closely. Giant beech trees tower overhead, but miraculous fungi the size of a fingernail are just as alive.


I feel more alive myself for having spent half an hour here, climbing over logs and stumps and spying an occasional clump of moss, bright green against the snow. And Sarah? Oh, my, yes!