Spring Water Reverie

I rode my bike to the spring

Backpack filled with

Paper, pen and book.

Billy Collins is the poet I am

Reading now to see how he

Puts his lines together.

I am reclining on a wooden swing

Made by the old German

Who once farmed this land.

Water seeps from the hillside,

Forms a creek,

And gushes over a log.

The sound of the splashing

Mesmerizes me.

I listen and then I do not.

Billy Collins often writes his

Stanzas in three line sets.

Ordinary events of ordinary days.

My verses often go much longer.

Not as consistent as Billy's

But then he has written books of the stuff.

My output would be a very slim volume

Compared to his, but maybe to some

No less important.

 Sunlight on Water

Blinding spots of light

Blinked on the morning channel

As ducks swam toward the big lake

Sail boats skimmed by

Forcing the ducks to retreat to the wall

Waiting for a bit of calm

Their backs toward the light

Beaks toward open water

Cautious but unafraid

Bright light and dark shadows

Seem to motivate living creatures

To take the chance of moving forward

Give a little...Get a little

The guy who works at the local car wash was spraying my tires when I noticed the little boy with the dirty face standing in the open door of the office.  He was using his arms to tell me I should honk my horn. I smiled at him and mouthed the word, "No."

It was obvious that he and his older sister were there because there was no one at home to watch them.  The little girl had long brown hair and a cast on her arm.  She was dancing around her little brother while he continued to pantomime the signal children use when they want a truck driver to blow his air horn.  

On an impulse I reached into my purse and pulled out a dollar and a quarter for each child. I motioned for the little boy to come to the car and he said, "No, my mother won't let me."  I told him to wait until the young man was done spraying the dirt off my tires.

When all the prep work was finished, the little boy came to my window and I gave him the money.  His sister joined him and she received the same. Their eyes lit up and their mother, who was close by, told them to say thank you, but they already had.

The little girl said, "No one has ever given us anything before.  We're going to buy a big bouncy ball."

I asked the little boy if he had put the money in his pocket.  He patted his pants and said, "Yup."

I honked my horn before driving into the car wash and the startled little boy jumped from the noise and laughed.  I chuckled and knew the brief happy moment was just as much mine as theirs.  

Class of '64

When a person reaches 50 years of having graduated from high school, there is a strange feeling of WHAT THE HECK?  A week before my class reunion, I took a good look at myself in the mirror and pondered over my face now and then. My eyelids were drooping. I checked to see what hairs should be plucked. I convinced myself the gray could pass for blonde so I didn’t schedule a tint. I knew the dark shadows under my eyes could be somewhat covered but my once full lips were like two straight lines across my face.  There were a few brown spots and a strange protrusion on my cheek that my dermatologist said wasn’t cancer.

As far as my body was concerned….well that is somewhat the same story.  I had planned to lose weight before my reunion even though in promising myself to do so, I knew I wouldn’t.  I probably was about 110 pounds in 1964. Take out the nine now and you get the picture.  I bought an outfit to try to camouflage the outstanding flaws.  I had a fresh pedicure and figured I couldn’t improve anything in a week’s time.  I should have scheduled an eyelid lift a year ago and maybe a tummy tuck.  

Class reunions are a reminder of how much I loved high school, but I know not everyone had a great high school experience. My class contained 80 students and I knew everyone.  I had attended kindergarten through twelfth grade with about 25 of them.  We probably knew each other too well.  I wasn’t the most popular girl in the class but I had a good circle of friends and tried to be nice to everyone.

I was in just about any activity the school offered from the drama club to Future Homemakers of America.  I played clarinet in the band and was a cheerleader all except my junior year when the band director said we had to choose between band and cheer leading.  When he moved on my twelfth grade year, I tried out for cheer leading again and was successful.  But even with a new director, at football games I had to run into the school and change into my band uniform in order to march in the half time show and then change again to cheer the second half of the game.  

For the most part we were a good group of kids.  We had a lot of dances in those days. Usually after games I would be with my friends at the Shelby Pavilion where dances were held every Friday night. Shelby kids were on one side and Hart kids on the other and anyone from Pentwater and elsewhere usually stood at the end by the door. Have to say I can’t remember mingling too much with kids from other schools although we knew kids from Hart and often dated their boys and our boys dated Hart girls.  

I think most people approach their class reunions with a bit of trepidation. Maybe I enjoyed this one so much because not much matters anymore about looks or status.  We are who we are and most of my classmates are now retired.  I saw some classmates that hadn’t been to a reunion in years or ever. Those who were quiet in high school and were at the edges of my life have some of the most interesting stories.  

Reunions take us back to share memories of the good, bad and ugly. There was a lot of laughter and Jack and Ann Cheever were wonderful hosts who shared their house and beautiful lawn for our 45th and now our 50th.  

We lost a classmate our senior year, Don Cole, in an auto accident. Since graduation we have lost many more classmates.  A slide show devised by our class president, Jean Wilson Naramore, showed snapshots of what we looked like back in our high school days. Such babies really. The senior pictures of those we have lost were also shown.  

Who will be there when our 55th comes around is anyone’s guess.  I heard someone say, “But we’re not 70 yet.”  It’s so wonderful to think we are still young.  I really believe that reunions keep us that way. Reconnecting with the past reminds me of who I was then and how far I’ve come.  I plan to be around for the next class reunion in order to share  memories of that sweet short period of time in my life when we were all so innocent and full of hope.  

Then....1964

Last September in Norway.

Class of '64 fifty years later.

August Angst

The summer has been a bit cool for swimming if you are my age.  The grandkids had no problem going into the pool, but I didn’t submerge my whole body until the last weekend of July. The flowers in our flower boxes seem out of balance for this time of year.  They are starting to grow a bit wild, like the end of something is coming.  

The month of August is upon us and maybe this is only because I was a teacher and am the mother of teachers that August fills me with angst.  It was always the month to tie up loose ends and try to get everything finished before it was time to head back to the classroom.

There is a sense of unforgiveness, that what is not finished, may never be finished.  August is the month to try to get one last summer visit in with friends, get the canning done, make sure the wood is cut and stacked for the winter (my husband’s job), and get clothes ready  for the autumn season.

Since this summer has often felt a little like fall, August is the month to hope for a few warm days yet, remembering last winter and its brutality. There is an unsettling feeling to the month and a bit of anxiety creeping around the corner.  

In this month I often think of time and what eludes me as life streams by. There is a need to slow down the days so the future can stretch into a longer phase.  I don’t obsess about what the future might bring, but try to enjoy the days as they come.

But having said all of that, there is something about the month of August that troubles me. Unlike the seasons of our lives, for me August is neither summer nor fall.  It is a limbo of too much to do and not enough time.  I consider myself at this point of my life, an autumn traveler, but I know that winter is coming and I can not stop it.  August may seem like a move to Florida, but in reality even Florida can not stop the inevitable.  

The flowers will be pulled out of the flower boxes after the first freeze even though they don’t look all that good right now.  The pool will be shut down when school starts.  The afternoons will become quiet as the grandchildren spend their days in the classroom.  There will be quiet walks and traveling to England in September and when the winds of November start to howl, I will wish for the days of August that give me so much angst now.  It is becoming part of who I am, looking backward and remembering rather than looking forward and anticipating.  I may never admit when I am actually in the winter season of my life.  However I can probably reach out and touch it.  

Beyond the Beach Part II

It was impossible to get all my photos in one post so I am continuing the journey in Part II.  I hope you are still with me as I wander a bit more in the Lake Michigan town of Pentwater.

Sailing through the channel on a summer day.

A garden gate on a house that faces the channel.

The flowers hanging on the porch of this old house pick up the bright colors the owners decided to paint what looks to be an old Victorian.    

The remnants of an 
old boat house

Beyond the Beach

It struck me as a beautiful scene for a photo that would show the texture of the brick.  The pink hollyhocks blooming in a corner on the back side of Silver Hills Antiques in Pentwater set my mind in motion. If there was this beautiful vignette right off of main street and away from the beach, what else could I find in this small Lake Michigan town?  

What I found was only a fraction of what there must be to photograph. There are small and large houses, each with their own ambience and style.  Those that exist along the channel are big homes with lovely flower gardens.  Those that are older I envision as being there since the 1800’s.  The closeness of the older houses to one another gives a feeling of protection against a gale coming off the big lake.

Flowers are a big part of the scenery and they often grow willy nilly in unexpected spots, like around a life saving ring near the channel.  I walked and found doors that seemed welcoming and signs of old weathered wood.

Further out from the village on Pentwater Lake I stopped when I saw an old boat house that had seen better days. Yet it was the old wood that I found beautiful and the oar attached was the perfect touch.    

Take a journey with me to these unexpected places beyond the beach and think about all the little spots that are right in our own back yards that can give pleasure if we just stop to look.

A burst of color under the eaves just seems unexpected.  

A pop of color gives the eye a sense of delight.

Bikes on a side street ready to rent...

Some people know how to accent their door....a happy look.

I have photographed this house several times over the years.  The  yellow siding plus the forest green front door gives me a feeling of coziness. I would love to be invited inside.
   
The whimsical look of Queen Anne's Lace coming through a life saving ring and a funny sign in a garden.

                   

Trials of Twelve

Twelve isn’t an age for the faint hearted. Having a grandson and a granddaughter that age around the house this week took me back  to a time long long ago when I was their age.  I was  twelve when I attended 4-H camp at Stony Lake.  My mother saw that I was developing and bought my first bras to wear at camp.  

The girls at camp slept in a big open room with bunk beds and we had to dress and undress in front of each other.  I wasn’t used to a bra and how it felt.  I so wanted my cotton t-shirt with the little ribbon at the neckline.  I tried to get into my shortie pajamas at night and dressed in the morning as privately as I could.  I was uncomfortable with the young woman I was becoming and missing the little girl who was slipping away.

Twelve is awkward.  Twelve is uncertain.  Twelve is the last step of childhood which some kids aren’t ready to leave behind.  For girls, twelve is discovering changes to mind and body and discovering that boys can be both interesting and intolerable.  

Seventh grade was an uncomfortable year for me.  There was only one class of 7th graders at my school and we must have gotten out of hand daily because Mr. Thomas, one of our teachers who later became the principal, on a regular basis gave us a lecture on citizenship and being good people.  

I spent 7th grade and age twelve with crooked teeth, knowing that the braces I was soon to get would only make me uglier.  I was conscious of the clothes I was wearing and wished I had more than what hung in my closet.  

I read an article this past year that said childhood nowadays ends closer to ten than twelve.  I watched my grandson Jay with his cousin Adrianna this week.  They were born a day apart in May of 2002.  They like to discuss their world of school and friends, but I noticed they weren’t as chatty with each other as they have been in the past.

On the 4th of July they were playing a game in the yard and got in a tiff over how the game should be played.  Jay got sharp with Adrianna and she sat at a distance and cried.  I took her for a little ride in our golf cart and she told me how Jay had hurt her feelings.  Forgiveness comes easily though and later when they were sitting together for a picture, Adrianna leaned over and gave Jay a kiss on the cheek.  

The look on his face was captured in a photo I took and tells me what it is like to be a boy of twelve.  Yet the simple time of childhood is past for both Jay and Adrianna.  The days when they played together for hours is gone. Their relationship is changing and even though they chased each other around the yard the last night they could be together, next summer at age thirteen I'm sure things will be different yet. Then there will come a time when Adrianna doesn't come to spend a week at Grandpa and Grandma's.

After Adrianna and Bella left to go home to Novi, Jay came back in the house with me and said, “I didn’t know I would feel so bad when they left.  I’m probably going sit in my room and think about how fast the week went.”  I remember so vividly in my teen years sitting for hours in my room contemplating the world. How does time go so quickly?

Jay's look after Adrianna kissed him on the cheek.  

Adrianna at twelve

Jay at twelve