let there be green things

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We planted plugs of dune grass at the bottom of our still-too-naked bluff last fall. A hopeful gesture to be sure, because there is no guarantee that the plugs will take or that they will not be buried by the shifting sands over the windy winter. Still, for the cost of $75 it wasn’t much of a risk. And, even buried they provide much needed stability to the bluff.

We weren’t at the cottage as much over this winter as we had been in the past few years. I’m not even certain why, as the winter was mild. Busy? Always. Tired? That too. But as I sit here today before I need to head home, and then ready myself for a week long work trip, there are undeniable signs of spring.

Spring comes later along the lake shore. But the neighbor’s daffodils along their drive are the first cheerful yellow here. The dune grasses—even those we planted, that did get nearly buried by drifting sand—have sent up fresh green shoots. The lilac bush that is uncontrollably wild and glorious and has taken over the space between our cottage and the neighbor’s is preparing its riotous blooms. I can’t wait to be back when they open, to bury my face in them, to sit on the side deck and watch (and hear!) the bees as they work to gather the nectar and pollen.

The bluff and the beach, which four years ago I worried relentlessly over, are beginning to stabilize. That’s how it works, I know, but the drama of it can be overwhelming. At the bottom of our stairs that we built last year there is a post that 1) marks the high water of 2020 and 2) I relentlessly complained about being too tall. I couldn’t reach high enough to put a towel on its top, or toss an inner tube over it. Today the top of the post barely reaches my waist. And this year there is a line of new dune grass sprouting up halfway between the bottom of the bluff and the water’s edge. This is how the foredunes develop.

I know that soon enough the bluff will be covered with grasses and plants. The foredune, forming now, will be covered and provide a haven for the snakes and spiders that make for interesting surprises as you’re walking back up to the house after a swim or paddle. I don’t remember paying attention to this process when last it happened, but now I am fully attuned.

But this is how it works. The landscape here is constantly changing. I hope to never experience what we did in 2020 and 2021, but there is no taming, or reasoning with, the nature of this lake. So for today I’ll just delight in the sunshine, the singing birds, the green shoots of dune grass before I head home.

mid-February and I’m procrastinating

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Maybe what’s required here is a simple mindset shift, but I can’t help but feel like January, February, and dare I say it March are the longest months of the year. Taken together they feel entirely too long, like a whole year on their own, and being smack in the middle of this chunk of what feels like extended time is making me think too much.

(Who am I kidding, I always think too much.)

Nonetheless, winter is all gray and bleached and lacking in color and it feels a bit rough right now. I want to jump ahead a few months to longer days, a hint of warmth.

neighbor’s beach stairs being swallowed by sand

It’s not just the weather and the lack of color, though. In January, the company I’ve worked for for nearly 10 years was bought. Not that I haven’t seen a rollercoaster of change in those 10 years already—I have. But this change is different. Suddenly we’re much bigger. I considered myself a medium-sized fish in a small but growing pond. Now, I’m a tiny fish in what feels like a large and unfamiliar pond. I’m not completely sure what’s next.

I don’t hate change, and I love to learn new things, but I’m still craving some familiarity, grasping at a little something that makes me feel like I’m still in my element. Maybe I’m being dramatic here (probably I’m being dramatic here). I still get to do what I love and am good at every day. Maybe that’s all the security anyone is entitled to in this ever-shifting environment of “work”? But this change has also made me think. Have I invested too much of my identity in what I do rather than who I am? Do I even know how to answer the question of who I am these days?

I keep saying I’ll devote time to things (art, writing, cooking, organizing, friendships) when I’m done with school, which thankfully is this summer. But, has school been a way to put off creating an identity for myself at this stage in my life? Um… maybe.

Anyway, I am on the lake for the weekend attempting to focus on a paper I need to write and turn in tomorrow, and my brain is having none of it. Instead, it’s roiling with ideas, all unrelated to the task at hand.

I was in full stall mode earlier this afternoon regarding the paper that’s due tomorrow, which made me think I should bundle up and take a walk on the beach, which I did, and while it may not have set me straight for getting to work on the paper I realize now it was exactly the thing I needed. And guess what I found? A cold and windy beach, yes, but something interesting, something I’ve never seen before.

lotus seed detritus on Lake Michigan beach
lotus seed pod, with seeds

I mean, I’ve seen lotus seed pods before. Over the last several years, they have been washing up on the shoreline, just a random one or two at a time. And I still today only saw a handful of the actual pods over the half mile stretch of beach I walked. But what is really unusual is that the shoreline is absolutely littered with the seeds from these pods. Where did they come from? Some inland lake, I imagine, as I don’t think lotus plants actually grow in Lake Michigan. So how did these they wash up here? It’s a mystery to me, and I want to know.

lotus flower seeds
empty seed pod

Aren’t they gorgeous, though? The stark black of the pod against the pale sand. The seeds that look like smooth, shiny pebbles until you pick one up and realize they’re smooshy in a way a pebble just isn’t.

I can’t say the walk or the seeds or the pods have inspired me to work on this paper, but I’m going to get to it, really. Just as soon as I can make myself stop procrastinating.

imposters, bears, deer, feathers

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Oh and a hospital and a hotel, too.

I meant to get back here sooner, really. But oh my, this school term, and this last month in particular. Sometimes I wonder if this is the right thing for me, being a student at this time in my life.

Just this week in one of the live classes my professor started class by first asking if we knew what “imposter syndrome” is (why yes) and if any of us ever feel it. I raised my hand, maybe too quickly, as did some others. It led to an enlightening discussion and the professor admitting that she also has felt like an imposter sometimes (brilliant human, many degrees, law professor, writer, speaker, mother). I see her as confident, brilliant, funny, prone to some most excellent tangents in class—the opposite of an imposter. She tried to set some of us straight but also called us out on our perfectionism. Double whammy.

This coming week I am wrapping up my fourth out of six terms in this masters program. I’m still swoony over the program in general, but would be lying if I said this term did not utterly kick my ass. It did. Add on top of it a health crisis for my father, and my own self-imposed perfection as I try to be a good employee and manager, parent to my adult kids, decent partner, caring daughter… well, I’m not doing any of it all that well at the moment.

After a long week sleeping in a hotel room and spending the day in a hospital with my brother hovering over our father, I’m back at the cottage for the weekend and trying to be gentle on myself. Letting my husband take care of me, trying to remember to tell him know how much I appreciate him during all of this.

deer prints on beach

A few years ago, a neighbor saw a bear on our community road, less than a half mile from our cottage. She had a photo to prove it, and the community was buzzing about this bear as it was seen and photographed in other places nearby. This week, a different neighbor thinks they saw two bears on the beach in front of their cottage. They posted a photo of what looks (to me) like human footprints, but what do I know? Bears are somewhat new around here, I think.

That said, I walked the beach tonight and last night on high alert for bears. I only saw clear evidence of humans, dogs, birds, and deer. More deer prints on the beach than I can recall in other years, which makes me think there is a healthy deer population around here right now. While I’m out for a dusk beach walk, I’ll much rather see a cascade of deer coming down the dune to drink from the lake than a pair of bears, thankyouverymuch.

cold beach, wave patterns

I also love feathers, which there is never any shortage of here on the beach. Mostly seagull feathers, which for some reason I love the feel of in hand on a walk, particularly if it’s windy. A seagull feather is strong and won’t let you hold it any old way in the wind. Just try to hold it against the wind… it pushes back until you turn it sideways. It feels like a feat of perfect engineering, a miracle of strength that’s literally light as a feather.

I saw these small feathers as I walked tonight, washed up from the water, some soaked and sandy and some mostly dry. I’m not sure what kind of bird these are from, but the shading was striking.

small feathers (anyone know what kind of bird?)

I am reminding myself to breathe this weekend. To slow down, too. To not rush through everything just to get it done and behind me. To be patient with the things that aren’t mine to control. To drop a little of the perfectionism, too, and trust that I’m where I belong. I’m not entirely sure where the feathers and bears and deer come in here but maybe I should not be so worried about bears on the beach (but aware, of course) and remember to marvel in the beauty of feathers and watching deer come down to drink.

here we are, September

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September skies are different

Wow, August. You were a blur. A washout. A near total loss. I had high hopes for you! I had nearly a four-week break from classes and I had plans: a week with my kid and his partner, making peach and apple pies, a day-trip or two, long beach walks. Nope. I got Covid, or, more aptly, it got me. My first ever bout. Three and a half days off work (I should have taken more, but I’m stubborn), two nearly full weeks in bed (working), and five weeks later I still sound like I’m not quite right.

I’m just now getting back up to full throttle. Work is busy. My two classes are demanding. But the fog has cleared and I feel equipped to manage it all (mostly). But I completely missed the peaches, and I’m sad about it, because there’s not much better than a local peach that you’ve closed up in a paper bag to ripen, somehow protected it from the plethora of fruitflies that are the hallmark of a Michigan late summer, and then stood over the kitchen sink to eat while the drips run off your elbows.

Oh well. Next year, peaches. At least now there are apples! And hard squash! Oh, younger would me would be so shocked at my excitement over seasonal produce. There is a farm stand nearby that has the best honey crisp apples. I think I love honey crisp best… I buy them every year, but there are always new varieties to try. Whatever this apple seller has this year, I’ll branch out and try some other variety. Why not?

So, before the bout with Covid, I did get to spend a few days with my kid before I got sick (thankfully no one else caught it) just after that particularly spectacular lightning storm I wrote about in my last post. Those two days had their own magic. We laid under blankets on the deck watching the Perseid meteor shower at its peak, and the next day we anxiously checked, rechecked, then checked again so that we wouldn’t miss the monarch hatch from its chrysalis on our clothes line. Our vigilance paid off and we watched it push its way out of the chrysalis and unfurl its sloppy wings. What a show!

about a week before hatching
morning of hatching
wings dry, ready to go

So, okay, August wasn’t a total wash. While still recovering, that very last morning of August I woke up early for no good reason, alone in the cottage, and like most mornings looked out over the lake. But this morning the full moon (a blue moon, no less) was setting over a slightly hazy, purple-pinkish horizon. It’s always pretty amazing to catch the moonset over the lake but usually it’s under the cover of night.

August 31, morning moonset over Lake Michigan

Anyway, we’re past the halfway mark of September as I write this on a hazy, warm, quiet morning on the lake. Besides apples and squash, September has given us a few rainbows, and I’ve seen plenty of snakes on my walks (all garter, I think). The woods are loaded with fungi, too. Other surprises and delights so far this month: a few days with my brother (who I don’t get to see nearly enough), and while my dad was here last weekend he agreed to let us help him down (and back up) the 36 stairs to the beach! He’s 94, and I don’t think he’s made that trek in at least 15 years. We all celebrated.

Today I’m doing homework, taking a pause to read in a hammock, walking the beach, and making a soup from the tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, zucchini, onion and garlic I bought from a local market stand on Friday. I’ve been slowly shooting my way through a roll of Lomochrome turquoise in my Minolta X700. Maybe I’ll try to finish that roll off today on a wander and get that off to the lab this week.

I think it’s going to be a good day.

summer, storm

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Somehow, we’re nearing the middle of August. Is it true anymore that anyone thinks of summer as days meant for lazing, reading books, naps, cloud-gazing? It that a thing of the past? (Or, was it a construct in the first place?) In any case, I have had little in the way of lazy days this summer.

I did spend my fair share of entire days with my nose in a book or naming the shapes that form as the clouds move across the sky, but those were days in my youth. Before I had to work, or pay a mortgage, or make meals for people, or replace broken appliances, or fret about maintaining old houses. Now we read about the health benefits of doing nothing (but rarely do we do just that); then, you got called a dreamer or a book-nerd. No wonder we’re confused and busy ourselves with gadgets and devices (and yes, I realize that statement makes me sound old—I am old).

A cousin and his family, kids and grandkids, love it here on Lake Michigan as much as I do and so they rented a large house just down the beach and spent two weeks doing the things they like to do, away from their normal lives in Pittsburgh. A friend and her family rented the house nextdoor for the past week, navigating life with two college girls and allowing me to be part of the fray in the evenings, where I weighed in on college and relationships and offered life experience where I could, and when asked.

storm, in distance
distant storm, Friday evening

A storm came across the lake last night, taking its time, just after the sunset. The lightning appeared first just lighting up the clouds, and then as the storm got closer the bolts sent short, electric ribbons from cloud to cloud. No big bolts, nothing shooting across the sky or down to lake or land, no loud thunder claps—just a near constant flashing, with ribbony shoots of light between the clouds, and a low growl that was easily drown out by the sound of the lake. It took its time coming across and then over our houses, before it dumped a hard but short rain at the back end, moving south and inland. Frightening, and magical. This morning I spent a few minutes capturing stills of the lightning from the video I took last night.

lightning as the storm moved over

This morning the lake is storm-wild. The seagulls are alternately fishing and soaring on the wind gusts. A family of eagles is gliding among the gulls, too. Giant white and gray clouds dot the sky. This is a town day, or at least a day where you have a sweatshirt handy to walk the beach, if you venture down.

My cousin and my neighbor are both going through the rituals of packing up this morning, their vacations over. I am the recipient, so far, of a small basil plant (will use it in the lasagna I’m making later today), some heavy whipping cream, a handful of potatoes and onions from a home garden. I know the pain of leaving, but I’m lucky enough to not have to do it very often. I really do know how lucky I am, and I’m going to try to do a little nothing today, watch the gulls soar and just listen to the shouty lake. Or disappear into a book, find jackrabbits chasing dinosaurs in the clouds, ignore all the grown-up things at least for a bit.

Saturday morning clouds and lake

Portland, October

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I feel differently now, I guess partly after taking a little break from film photography, or maybe partly because I’m older, or probably partly because it feels in that time like everything has changed. I mean, it hasn’t all changed, but the world feels different to me.

I was (cautiously?) optimistic about three rolls of film I sent to the lab this week, hopeful for a few shots I could swoon over, but really nothing came out all that exciting. Nothing “good” in the sense of what anyone else might consider good. But then I remembered that it’s more about evoking a feeling, or bringing me back to a place. And there I was in Portland back in October again, running before work on the path by the river and carrying a little Kodak Ektar H35 half frame camera I bought just after it was released a year or two ago, but hadn’t used yet.

It’s kind of a perfect camera for just that thing, a work trip to a city you don’t know. It’s light, pocketable, easy to use, and you get double the number of photos on a 35mm roll of film. Crappy weather? It’s plastic, no batteries or fancy knobs. Bumping around in a pocket? It can take it. Expired film? Meet imprecise lens.

Usually I get my half-frame rolls scanned with two images per frame, but the lab couldn’t do it this time. While I like some of these images as singles, I do want to see what the natural pairings look like. I really need to get to developing and scanning my own film, but the scans never quite come out the way I like.

This is Portlandia. I’d venture to say she is a goddess, reaching down from a section of a building in downtown Portland. I had to gaze at her for a while as I stood under her, her hand offering (what… welcome? respite? elevation?) something unsaid, beyond reach. I like her in this photo.

And another Portland building, all lines and boldness. I forgot how much I like photographing buildings.

It was cloudy most of the week, and I remember now that I had to time my morning runs so as not to head out in the dark (you know, safety and not knowing the lay of the land) but to go at such a time that I’d be able to still get coffee, shower, make myself look like I haven’t just worked at home by myself for the last 25 years, and get to the office on time for all-day meetings. Simple-ish.

When I was little, we spent many holidays in Pittsburgh with my dad’s family, and when we took the occasional trip into downtown Pittsburgh, I fell deeply in love with the bridges there. Portland felt a little like a dream about Pittsburgh, and not just because of its bridges.

random evening musings

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I drove into town yesterday to mail three rolls of film to the lab back in the city. It took so long to finish the last roll I don’t remember where or when I started it, or what might be on any of them save for the last dozen shots I finished on the beach and on the blooming things around the cottage.

For the last two days, all I can smell is fire. The sun makes vague appearances through the day, turns an odd fluorescent orange as it begins its decent toward the horizon, and then disappears into the thicker haze that comes every evening over the lake. A pre-sunset sunset above the horizon. Poof, a quick vanish.

Inland was worse yesterday, the little town whose post office I like best choked with smoke. It’s strange, and while I can’t speak for a whole state, I’d venture to say we’re not used to this in Michigan. I walked the beach last evening in a wind so stiff it hurt my ears, but the air a bit fresher; cleared my mind a little.

Today was still haze-filled, but the smell of smoke has abated at least some here on the beach, where the horizon melted into the silvery lake just about all day. It’s disorienting to not see the horizon when you’re accustomed to it, but it didn’t matter much as work was busy today.

I’m in the living room as my husband cooks dinner, about to go down for a short walk, this time a windless beach, nearly flat lake. I need to feel the sand on my soles for at least a few minutes today.

toad crossing?

We have a small brown sparrow of some type who’s nested in a round cable housing on the back of the cottage. We’ve gotten used to her chatter, and she is loud, as she chides us for going in and out of our shed or doing projects on the back deck too near her babies. She’s working hard to keep them fed, and we are attempting to be respectful. But yesterday I didn’t hear the babies all day and it put me in a funk. Each time I went back there, mama bird appeared with some food for the babies but she never went in, just sat on the roof or the shed or deck and chattered at me. Finally, by evening, I saw her go in and heard the babies respond (relief). I’m not sure how many there are, but at least two.

In any case, I’ll have photos to review in a few days and I’m excited, as they’ll be a surprise. And I got to spend last weekend with one of my kids; the other will come this weekend. And there’s a holiday coming up, so a few days off. I’m going to bake a little, too.

Lastly, and not in relation to a single thing. When I was little I pretended that the lines the waves left on the shore were mountain ranges. I don’t pretend this anymore, but I still think the lines look like mountain ranges. Don’t you?

happy to see you, Friday

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Do you know those weeks where you’re just ticking off all the things on your to-do list, everything is falling into place at work, you’re ahead of schedule on things, nothing has slipped off your radar, and you’re just crushing your responsibilities?

This week has been just about the opposite of that. I’ve made mistakes at work. Steered a coworker wrong. Answered emails and chats (many, in fact) without reading the whole question, or even misinterpreting the question. Didn’t do prep work for a meeting. Dropped lots of work balls. Logged in to my live class on Tuesday night, after a total marathon of a day, only to realize I had the date wrong.

But it’s Friday morning now and I’m easing into my work day, doors and windows open while listening to the music of the birds and the crickets, and I’m pretty sure it’s mostly going to be okay. This semi-crappy week did have bright spots. I facilitated a group in one meeting and not only didn’t crumble from anxiety, but actually enjoyed myself. I owned my mistakes and apologized to the coworker I steered wrong. There is a pair of deer that keeps showing up on the beach in the evenings, and they have been a delight to watch. One of the resident eagles soared in front of the cottage during my Wednesday night class and landed briefly on the beach in front of me, while we were discussing employment at-will and how employees can or can’t be terminated in other countries.

Nobody gets it all right all the time, no matter what they say, and it’s too hard an ideal to live up to. I’m still working on learning my limits, knowing what to say no to, when to delegate, when to push, when to step back. I’m not afraid to be wrong, or to not know everything.

In that Wednesday night class, our professor encouraged us to engage in self-care this summer, despite our busyness and our commitments. This weekend, aside from catching up on homework and professional reading, I’m hoping to spend some time cleaning and taking care of the cottage I so love and appreciate. I have some poetry books I want to dig in to, and a short novel. I want to paint a little, just for fun, with no expectations. I want to nap in one of the hammocks behind the house, under the pines.

the calm serene

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Late spring, before the summer vacationers, when the sun warms the sand and skin just enough to barefoot walk the beach at near sunset. I’d say it’s my favorite time of year, but if you’ve read any of my posts over the years, you know how fickle I am. Every season, when I’m in it, is my favorite on Lake Michigan.

The giant, blooming lilac bush between our cottage and the neighbor’s is humming with life, bumblebees loud as tiny drones busy collecting pollen, honey bees, too, and yesterday an early monarch. Oh how I love the sounds and the smells coming from this bush! I could watch this microcosm all day.

Right now there are wildfires in Canada, and so the sunrises and sunsets create an odd haze, orange creamsicle orb rising behind the cottage and fading into the haze well before it reaches the horizon over the lake. Even the sliver, waxing moon and Venus are a soft, hazy orange.

The beach was quiet last night as we walked until we heard—well before we saw—this low-flying flock heading north over the lake. We stopped to watch and listen, falling quiet to fully take in the language of the geese. Are they shouting directions at each other? Comments, like in a group of cyclists where leaders point out road scrabble, bumps, holes? Is it encouragement, I wonder?

And then it was quiet again.

I finished a roll of film after work yesterday, something I think I’ve only done twice in the past several years, using busyness and lack of inspiration as excuses. I brought cameras with me, too; I have a dozen or more rolls of film just humming with potential. The world is heavy and beautiful, but hasn’t it always been heavy and beautiful? Isn’t there a defiance in celebrating the beauty in the midst of the heaviness? I might try that on for a bit.

itching for change

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Does anyone else feel like this right now? I feel so itchy. I want a change of some sort. I’m at the start of a new term, and classwork isn’t heavy yet. It’s spring—a weird in-between that currently is bringing greenery but not enough sun and warmth. It’s raining and grey, and I want to be outside. Work is busy, of course, but not hectic. Is it weird that I kind of like hectic? I love a long to-do list, even when I can’t tick everything off. Maybe especially when I can’t tick everything off.

I’m trying to be more mindful of money and stuff, what I do and don’t do with those things, how I respond to stressors by using those things. Wanting change makes me want to buy something to make it all feel better. “I need a new set of paints!” I tell myself, when the paints I have are sitting on my non-work desk, waiting for me to use them. “That handmade paper will make my painting so much better!” my brain shouts, when I’ve got a box of paper waiting to be used. “I need a new book!” when I’ve already got multiple books in progress. Oh, and I start perusing the internet for cameras that I don’t need (I’m barely using the ones I have). Art supplies. Online classes. A new hobby. Clothes. A haircut.

I don’t love that I look to outside sources to fill these holes, but I do, and I don’t think I’m alone. I think it stems from my youth, when money was so tight and those little extras were rare (but always celebrated and appreciated). I sometimes feel like I deserve them now, these little treats. But amassing more stuff while not using what I have? That’s not what I want. I used to marvel at people who said they felt bored. But, here I am, bored with my very existence and wanting change.

Last summer, in a small burst of creativity, I used a bunch of Cokin filters with a roll of color film, mostly taking photos on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Bold color filters and a super-speed filter (a chunky prism-looking thing that distorts half the frame, evoking movement). I love the muted colors in this image and the bright line created by the sun.

What I can do, I think, to appease this itch and make use of this weird energy:

  • Read the books I have
  • Make art with the supplies I have (I do not need more!)
  • Unsubscribe from emails to retailers that keep offering discounts on things I don’t need (I can always resubscribe later)
  • Use the cameras and film I have (and experiment more with the filters I have, because… fun)
  • Write a list every day and put the little, non-work things on it (make one postcard, read one poem or chapter, do this one self-care thing, etc.)
  • Declutter and offer things I’m not using to others who want or need them
  • Explore this feeling in writing (hello, ignored blog)
  • Cook more (and no, I don’t need any new pans or baking dishes or serving bowls thankyouverymuch)

These things sound fair, and doable, and smart if I do say so myself. And, since I drafted this post early yesterday, I even took a lunchtime paint break and made myself bookmarks for my class reading. I also used my favorite dutch oven, a pretty green Staub, to cook dinner—a one-pot cheesy lemon-ricotta pasta dish my daughter turned me on to.

So, do you feel like this right now, too? Are you exploring or ignoring that feeling? What are you doing to work with it?