Picture Perfect Garden

As a surprise on Monday, my husband drove me to the garden of Linda Schnell outside of Fremont.  Linda had posted some pictures of her garden on Facebook and Hack was sure I would love to see it. Her children were students of my husband's when he taught at Fremont High School. I am going to let the pictures do the talking on this post.  

Impression

Like a waterfall cascading down the hill

The white bells were drops of snow

Among the shiny emerald leaves

Lily of the Valley perfumed the air and

Engulfed me in the tides of spring

There was a scent in my discovery of

The tarnished spoon snuggled in a box with other

Treasures of the departed

Impressed deep in the metal were

Lily of the Valley cascading toward the bowl

A monogram on the back showed ownership

And a sense of a love for all things beautiful

I purchased the spoon knowing art

And nature are close companions

Winter will come of course but I can run my

Fingers over the silver flowers and

Visualize the white bells falling down the hill

Why Obsess?

It has occurred to me that in my life I have spent too much time obsessing about things.  What things you may ask?  I suppose most of it has to do with words that come out of my mouth or things I write and send into the atmosphere.  But sometimes it is remarks that are made to me out of the blue that get me thinking that someone doesn’t approve of me or how I live my life.  As I age these remarks should have less effect on me, but for some reason they don’t.  They often haunt me in the middle of the night.

After long conversations with friends one on one I often think of all the personal things I didn’t need to reveal.  I remember my mother always worrying about what people would think and maybe there is some residue of that in my mind.  She seemed to think that family business should not be spread around.  I do not tell everything I know to everyone I know, but there are certain friends I have where things slip out.

The interesting thing is that at the end of a long conversation with someone, I barely remember what they have said to me, only what I have revealed to them.   So I am hopeful that they have forgotten what I have said as well.  It’s all silliness but part of the human experience.

We can not live this life without getting our feelings hurt over sometimes small insignificant things.  But if we carry it into an obsessing mode then we are hurting ourselves more.  But letting things go is often easier said than done.  On a trip to Canada one year with my husband we were driving back home across Saskatchewan.  That province goes on and on with only wheat fields to see from the expressway.

I had a notebook and was writing furiously in it.  My husband blames that on my taking Ambien the night before and called it My Ambien Day. Ambien always made me feel depressed.   I hardly spoke to him the whole day.  But there were two things going on.  I was hungry.  I am not a nice person when I’m hungry and second I was reliving a slight by a group of friends that I couldn’t get over.  Once I had it all written down I felt better even though I was still hungry.  My husband had asked me if I wanted to stop and get something to eat, but I was so caught up in my feeling hurt that I just said no.  

Another example of dwelling on feeling hurt came when my brother and his family  did not come to our daughter’s wedding.  We had gotten an answer that he and his wife would be there, but when they hadn’t shown up by the time the wedding was supposed to start all kinds of accident scenarios went through my mind.   When confronted by my father on the phone several days after the wedding, my brother  said he had been at a barbershop quartet gathering  in another state.  When my father told him how upset I was, my brother listed all the slights he thought I had given him in the past and that seemed to be his defense.  

I always loved my brother deeply and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t let me know he would be out of the state.   When he called me a couple of months later to apologize I told him I had already forgiven him.  I can not carry a grudge for very long.  It hurts too much to do that.

Now that my brother is gone I think back to all the things we should have done to get together when our children were young. Other than major holidays, we seldom saw each other, always blaming the distance between us or the fact that we were too busy.  

But here I go blabbing family business.  However I will not obsess about telling the story.  Our lives are filled with family dynamics and there are bound to be hurt feelings now and again.  It is just not healthy to dwell on anything for too long as it becomes counter productive.    

I came across a quote by Doris Kearns Goodwin the other day that surprised me.  She is such a wonderful historian and I thought her life must be perfect.  But what she said struck me as so universal. 

 And as for the final sphere of love and friendship.  I can only say it gets harder once the natural communities of college and hometown are gone….It takes work and commitment, demands tolerations for human frailties, forgiveness for the inevitable disappointment and betrayals that come even with the best of relationships.  

It is so easy to dwell on the negative aspects of friends and family, yet it serves no purpose.  If I have not heard from a friend in a long time and I want to see them, I don’t concern myself with the fact that they haven’t called me in ages.  I just want their company and if they want mine they will accept my invitation to coffee or lunch.  They almost always oblige and our conversation starts where it left off the last time we met and all is good.  

I will still chafe at a slight or comment or worry that I have said something out of turn, but in the end I will get over it.  I always do.  I hope you do too.

Lilac Thief

I was on my way to deliver a gift when I passed the old school house turned house and gasped. The house had been empty for quite some time and the real estate sign was gone so I wondered if it had been sold. I decided I would stop to take a look on my way back home.

That I did.  I pulled over into a driveway that was fading and looked at the overgrown lawn.  The front door was very close to the road so I peeked in the window to see if the place was truly empty.  

O.K. good...no one to ask if I could pick some lilacs that were leaning over and touching the front door.  The road going past the house was not a busy one, but still I felt a little guilty if anyone saw me.  

The reason I had gasped when I first saw the lilacs was because of the colors.  The lilac bush closest to the house was a dark vibrant purple, not a color frequently seen.  The bush next to the purple one was a beautiful bluish shade of lavender, not the pale color that is so frequent along roadsides.  The last bush contained double white blooms which seemed rare to me as well.  

I started breaking off the dark purple stems and heard a car coming.  I ducked my head into the bush as the car passed.  My problem is I have never taken anything except flowers without asking permission but even so I didn’t want anyone to recognize me.  

In order to get to the lavender lilacs I had to step in a ditch and it was deeper than I thought.  After picking the lavender blue lilacs, I walked along to the double whites and another car drove past me.  I then walked in the small ravine toward my car.  Before I got out of the ditch I had brushed against something that stung my feet which were only in sandals.  I guess it would be my punishment for taking without asking if I got poison ivy.  

Van Winkle School turned house, place of the lilac thievery, was one of many schools my father attended when he was a boy.  He told me how he would walk to school and some Russian boys would steal his lunch.  He was small for his age.  He finished the 8th grade at Van Winkle.  I wonder if there were lilacs growing there when he was a child.

The purple, lavender, and white bouquet was a picture to behold and I don’t regret my transgression.  When I think of lilacs I always think of Walt Whitman’s poetic tribute to Abraham Lincoln.  The poem contains sixteen stanzas, but three gives one a taste of the whole.  

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

1

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d.

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’d and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming, perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

2

O powerful western fallen star!

O shades of night - O moody, tearful night!

O great star disappear’d - O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless - O helpless soul of me!

O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.

.

3

In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,

Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,

With every leaf a miracle-and from this bush in the dooryard,

With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

A sprig with its flower I break.

Reflection

Several years ago

I took the grandchildren

to show them graveyard

history while we planted

pink geraniums and  

read the markers

I explained that once a year

we put flowers on graves

to honor parents, grandparents

and little brothers

who were babies

when they left

this world

Thinking a four year old

might not understand what

is beneath the ground

and why a large stone

sits on top I quietly said

we come to this place

to remember those we loved

who have left our lives

Little minds often understand

more than we think as

later when the youngest saw

a cemetery he remarked

“That’s a place to take

flowers to remember

your mother who died

a long time ago.”

My maternal grandparents:  Anna (1892-1995) and Michael (1884-1925) Babinec

Not competent

The poem that won the contest

was long and involved

with unfamiliar phrases

linked together

like prose

A photo of the author

showed a twenty something

with her blonde hair gleaming

in a halo of light

and youthfulness

It had seemed important

to submit my one good poem

but reading last year's winner

caused me to climb down from my pedestal

and retreat into obscurity from where I had come

Lakes and Peninsulas

I am not one who travels over water very comfortably so I made sure I had taken a motion sickness pill before we got on the Lake Express to travel to Wisconsin in early May.  It was only the second day of the 2014 season that the Express was running from Muskegon to Milwaukee and even though it was a gloomy day, the lake was fairly calm. The waves were not super high like my last boat trip to watch whales off Monterey, California where I ended up in a fetal position on the deck.  

However once the boat got beyond the channel I felt the boat rocking a bit and I decided maybe I should take a second pill.  If one works well, than two must work better.  WRONG! One probably would have kept me comfortable, but two put me in a catatonic  state.  I didn’t totally wake up until we got to Fish Creek in the late afternoon..

The weekend was a get together in Door County with some old friends, Lee and Karen Lewis.  When we planned the trip I visualized cherry blossoms and nothing cooler than sweater weather.  What was amazing was that although Lake Michigan was clear of ice, there were ice chunks on Green Bay which is on the sunset side of Door County.  There were no cherry blossoms yet and it was jacket weather, but sunny.

Our friends Lee and Karen Lewis

Our destination was The White Gull Inn in the town of Fish Creek. Karen and I liked the pictures online showing cozy rooms with gas fireplaces and small sitting rooms.  Our room opened up on a long front porch with wicker furniture on the second floor of the Inn. Lee and Karen’s room opened up on a heated closed in porch at the back of the Inn.

On Friday night we had reservations  for one of  the famous Door County fish boils that was cooked behind the Inn.  It was a chilly night, but after the water boiled over, the fish and potatoes were cooked.  It was then time to go into the dining room to feast on the potatoes, fish and coleslaw with cherry pie and ice cream for dessert. These fish boils are so popular that the restaurant at the Inn was full and there was a second boil at 7:00 p.m. that Friday night.  In the summer they have the fish boils four nights a week.  

Door County is much like Old Mission Peninsula north of Traverse City.  There are wineries and small villages.  Like the Traverse City area,the main crop is cherries.  However another highlight of Door is their lighthouses.  We drove to the Cana Island Lighthouse near Bailey’s Harbor on the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula. We were able to see the living quarters and the beauty of the old buildings.  There are eleven lighthouses on the peninsula and surrounding islands.  A lighthouse festival in June attracts people to some of the less accessible lights on the islands.  

Once a year the shipyard is opened in Sturgeon Bay for people to tour where ships are made and mended.  We happened to hit the right weekend.  One company makes only yachts and there was one in the water with craftsmen working on the interior.   The men took the tour and were fascinated by the number of jobs created by this industry. One has to be very wealthy to own a yacht like the one at the dock.  The men were told it will cost the buyer around 50 million and was going to someone in the Mediterranean.  

While the men were learning something new, Karen and I were shopping.  We drove a few miles south of Fish Creek to the tiny town of Egg Harbor.  Little specialty  shops were the norm in Egg Harbor as well as Fish Creek.  

After bidding a fond farewell to Lee and Karen on Sunday, Hack and I  headed to the Upper Peninsula and saw that Lake Superior was still frozen.  We managed to get out snow covered roads to Pictured Rocks and see some roaring waterfalls.  At Grand Marais, a small town on Lake Superior, we stopped at the Sportsman’s Restaurant and had a great hamburger. We were able to pick up some colorful rocks on the beach at Grand Marais for our grandson Carter who has a collection.   May is not the optimum time to visit the UP, but I find that in traveling, there are always some adventures to be had no matter what time of year it is.  

Simple beauty on the shores of Lake Superior

The drive on U.S. Route 2 along the northern side of Lake Michigan is very picturesque and the first view of the majestic Mackinac Bridge is always a thrill.  I liked the sign at the entrance unto the bridge that said Lower Peninsula.  For us it is a four hour drive from the bridge to home.  After a stop for dinner in Gaylord at my favorite restaurant there, The Bearded Dog, it was good to push the next three hours for home and sleep in our own bed.  Traveling always energizes my life, but coming home also fills me with a deep sense of satisfaction in the familiar and the memories added from another road trip.

Photographic Journey of Lakes and Peninsulas

Fish Creek, Wisconsin

Drink cart beside Inn for fish boils.

White Gull Inn and sign.

Adding potatoes to boiling water and the boil over when both fish and potatoes
are cooked.

Porch on second floor of Inn

Cute gate and light just down the road from the Inn..

Ice chunks on Green Bay just a short walk from the White Gull  Inn.

Cana Island Lighthouse

Even though it is called an island light house, Cana Lighthouse is accessible by walking on a dirt road with water on both sides.  

The period living quarters of the lighthouse......

Privy on lighthouse grounds.

Sites in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

My partner in life and on the road.

Sable Falls near  Pictured Rocks

Boat at Grand Marais

Inside the funky Sportsman's Restaurant in Grand Marais.

Beautiful sign on an old building in Grand Marais.

A view of the Mighty Mac....the bridge to home.