Category: Lake Michigan

Autumn’s arrival

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The mood changes so fast here. Summer’s over, time to move on. There’s a melancholy (but not a bad melancholy, if that makes any sense at all). I welcome the fall air and these storms that roll across the lake, whipping the waves into a frenzy and sending me running up to the house as the huge droplets let loose from the clouds, almost a surprise.

I wrote a poem yesterday. Funny that for years I wrote poems and never showed a soul–now I’ve read two to an audience, shared them here, written more , and here is another one. There is a freedom that comes with my age and I will simply embrace it.

What have I got to lose? You will read or not read, like or not like, remember or forget. And we’ll all move on.

Autumn’s Arrival

Bring down the flags,
tuck up the beach chairs and the boats.
Shutter the windows and bolt the doors;
September has come.

She sends the summer people scurrying from lake cottages
back to big cities and dull suburbs,
where the sound of gentle lapping waves is replaced by
shrill alarms and maddening traffic.

We stay on the beach, undeservedly,
and wonder how we will fare here when the winds blow cold,
the days grow shorter and the nights clearer,
longer: more silent.

The weekenders will come before then; the color-seekers and apple-pickers
bringing city reminders and driving too fast.
We’re not like them anymore, and
we’ll say we can’t wait for them to leave.

The lake will chill by October, but I’ll still
walk the beach barefoot: either I won’t like to be confined by shoes
or the feel of the bone-cold sand will keep me grounded,
I won’t know which.

We’ll retreat when the wind finally overtakes our voices
and leaves us mute; when winter in earnest comes and the sky
is indistinguishable from the lake, the sand, the woods,
and all is a sullen and frosty gray.

I’ll keep sand in pockets and pebbles on night tables
in the city, in wait for the spring thaw and a fresh beach
scrubbed clean of last summer’s footprints.
It won’t be long.

That lake, she’s moody

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In a week where I’m reminded of the things that are no longer part of my everyday existence, I’m finding that some surprising feelings are bubbling up.

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Pre-storm, moody lake and sky, driftwood embedded in the sand

Here in Michigan, today was the first day of school for most public school kids and maybe even some private school kids. My kids are in college, and while I’m as aware as I can be about what they’re up to, they are on their own and have been for a while now. In their own spheres, their own apartments, making their own choices every single day. We orbit in our own spaces, only occasionally colliding. It was hard at first.

You don’t think about those things when you’re raising children, and suddenly they are adults and you’re confronted with it. You figure it out, of course, and it’s easier as the years go by. You move on, they need you less and less, you learn how to parent them in a totally different way.

And then you see pictures of your friend’s younger kids on their first day of school, and the memories flood back. The first day of kindergarten, the school uniforms, the front porch of the house that no longer stands. It’s all there threatening to erupt.

Like me, Lake Michigan was moody tonight as a storm rolled in from the north and lit up the sky as it steamrolled over the shoreline. Thunderous cracks and rolling bellows that shook the house and my eardrums, electrified fingers reaching out of the clouds and touching the earth, the lake, too close for comfort. But it was comforting, in a strange way. It’s been dry–we needed the rain. And the noise, the lightning; both cathartic.

Storms, like feelings, roil up, tap you (hard) on the shoulder, and then leave you be.

 

A good summer

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Summer, you’ve been good. I mean, seriously, full of good stuff. I ate all the cherries I possibly could, fresh-picked. Summer squash and zucchini? I’ve eaten tons. Hot, languorous days and steamy nights galore. Beach walks and sunsets–oh yes, yes, yes (although never enough). Friends visiting, time with my kids, good news, a really good cake recipe, cooking for new friends, old cars that are still running.

All very good things.

But there are rumors you’re moving on, summer. The sky is starting to say so, and a leaf or two is nodding in agreement. The corn and blueberries and peaches won’t be around too much longer, either (I’m freezing some, so I can pay homage to you when the winter chill arrives).

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a very fall-like leaf in the road
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corn field, goldenrod, sky
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a field of queen Anne’s lace

I love fall, though. I love scarves, sweaters, and rugged boots. Fall colors and threatening-looking skies, too, and bundled-up beach walks. It’s beautiful all the same. But I think there might be still a few weeks left for night swims, fresh peaches, tomatoes from the stand up the road.

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old shed, diamond window
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dune grass, gone to seed, Lake Michigan

I’m not counting summer out just yet. But I’ll welcome fall in all its colorful glory, when it decides to arrive.

Little things on a big beach

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I didn’t have high hopes for the beach recovering after such an awful spring, but like many things this summer, it surprised me.

Three weeks ago there was no beach to traverse. Well, not no beach at all, but the tiniest sliver of walkable beach existed and you could really walk it only when the lake was calm. Otherwise, you could walk if you didn’t mind getting battered by the waves, getting your feet tangled and scraped in the branches and grasses that twisted and matted on the shoreline like discarded rope.

Today, there is plenty of beach to roam, to throw a ball for the dog, to run barefoot. Lovely, big stretches of it.

Why would I be surprised? I know this lake and these sands and the constant drifting and redepositing of shoreline.

Last evening in long shadows just before the sun slipped into the shrouded, cloudy horizon above the lake I walked the beach with my camera in search of the things that get overlooked.

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small feather from gull, pebble, drift marks in the sand
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oak leaf, blown in from the woods
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pebble, indentation, lines from the waves

I still tuck the gull feathers into my ponytail or behind my ear or into a cap.

I still fill my pockets with pretty stones.

I still gaze at the patterns the waves make on the shore–I think they look like mountain ranges.

I still chase the leaves and small feathers and dead bugs down the beach as they travel with the wind.

I still pluck the struggling butterflies and bumblebees out of the water.

Why shouldn’t I?

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fossil, under just a bit of water
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same fossil, post-wave
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mountain range
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lines from the waves moving the sand around

 

Ancient Mariner

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Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

—The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I’ve watched this boat just up the beach for years sit lonely and unused tucked into the grasses on the bluff in front of a cottage, which I can only guess has also been lonely and unused, as it has a for sale sign perched near the steps leading up to it.

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captured on 35mm film last fall as she rested

From the boat’s name, I surmise both the boat and the cottage owner to be one of the beach’s older residents, white haired, probably bearded, a seasoned sailor, maybe at a transition in his life where the boat was too much to handle on his own anymore, bringing it up and down from the dwinding beach, rigging the sail, fixing the ropes.

Today as I walked the beach I saw two men rigging her, about to test her in bitter waters and little wind. I asked about the boat and learned that one of them, the owner of a neighboring house, had just bought her and this was about to be his maiden voyage with her.

I didn’t ask, but I wondered if the new owner was going to change her name, as he is definitely not ancient (I don’t know about his mariner status), and may have no connection to the poem. I’m not sure why this makes me so happy, a new owner of this boat and its use after a long rest, but it does–even if the name gets changed. The bluff between the beach and cottages here is dotted with mostly unused small sailboats, Sunfishes and Lasers and Hobies that stand as sentinel to a time before jet skis and kayaks and paddle boards, and most recently, kite boards. The sails are starting to stir again, though.

Things come around.

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and the Mariner today

 

Sky drama

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I’m a sucker for a dramatic sky. There is no shortage of this on the shores of Lake Michigan, which is fortunate for me. I cannot get enough.

I was in the water, and then lying on the beach in the sun, watching this interesting cloud formation as it moved toward the shore. You can see it in the lower right of this photo just hovering above the lake.

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It looked like a long finger of a cloud, but with smaller tendrils shooting off of it. It changed shape as it moved and ended up diffusing. The cooler air this little system brought in eventually forced me up to the cottage.

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I have to leave here next week, which is always bittersweet. Of course there are things in the city I want to do, but the longer I stay here the more I think about what it would be to give that up. Could I live here year-round? I think I could.

It’s just simpler here.

COLEaboration, part one

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I had an idea. Or, more of a spark of an idea. A vision, maybe.

I am near Silver Lake State Park, which is a section of land that separates an inland lake from the big lake (Lake Michigan). Legend is that after the Great Chicago Fire, this piece of land was deforested to provide lumber to rebuild the city. Now, I don’t know for sure if this is true, but what I do know is it a vast, open landscape of moving, shifting, shape-changing, tree-swallowing, rolling, blowing, lunar landscape-looking, absolutely stunning sand dunes that I find infinitely compelling to photograph.

Twenty some years ago I met a dancer in a geology class in college and we were instant friends. I had never even heard of modern dance, let alone seen it performed, until I met Margi and she opened my eyes to it. We lost touch after college (pre-Internet days) and got back in touch in recent years via Facebook. She teaches dance and has a 20-year-old dance company (The Dance COLEctive), which I’ve seen perform several times and have always left these performances a bit shaken up–awed and inspired and full and just wowed. So many beautiful and talented dancers and creative voices.

I had a vision of photographing Margi on the dunes.

Movement, dance, shapes, shadows, sand, the driftwood as architectural element, human and stark nature. I don’t generally photograph people unless they are incidental to an image, but I’m trying to get more comfortable with it (directing people is not my strong suit). And this vision persisted, so I asked. Not only was she willing, she brought up the word “collaborate.” That felt safer–it wouldn’t be just me experimenting photographically with a willing participant, but it would now be two people creating something artistic, an experience, planting a seed. So we finalized a date.

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deshantzcook_20160617_IMG_7869We spent the weekend catching up, laughing, drinking, taking photos, and comparing vision as I started the editing process. I found she was drawn to some of the images I might have dismissed, and I was drawn to some she would have overlooked. In general, though, we gasped at the same images as I uploaded them, which I took as a very good sign that we had some stuff we were both happy with.

color, or…
…black and white?

I think we have some of the same sensibilities, and while she has the artist’s vocabulary to describe these things, I am still working on developing that language, those senses. In these few days I learned just a little of this language as well as a new way of looking at movement that is more organic and artistic. What a weekend of inspiration, of rekindling an old friendship, of creating. I feel full. And again wowed.

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This is just a little of what we ended up with. I am having trouble moving away from black and white edits for these dune images, but I’ll sit on them a while and let the ideas percolate.

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There’s much more, but I’m still processing (photos as well as the whole collaboration process). I’ll follow up with another post.

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Summer, sweet summer

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I’m in the place on this earth that I love best. The place my dad dreamed of, scrimped and saved for, and plopped down a shell of a house in 1972 that has been evolving ever since.

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the view

I know how lucky I am to have this legacy handed down to me, to be the caretaker–with my husband–of this sacred place. I know how lucky I am to have a career that has evolved so that I can live and work here. I am lucky, grateful, honored to care for and live in a cottage on Lake Michigan for a good chunk of the year.

And like the shores of this lake, which ebb and flow and deposit (or demolish, as is the case this year) sandy beaches, treasures of driftwood and perfect skipping stones, my experiences here change. This summer, after two years of learning to live with no kids in my home, said (grown) kids are here with me for the month.

There is a music festival not far from here that happens in a few more weeks. My kids are working to build the experience for the 40,000 or so people who will hopefully attend this four-day festival safely. My kids wake up to coffee here and spend the day onsite at the festival grounds, then come back to the cottage tired and hungry and not always cheerful (but mostly they are). It’s hard work, and they’re good at it. I am the coffee supplier, the occasional breakfast maker, the baker of brownies and cookies. The goodbye-er and hello-er and the hearer of stories after long days. It’s a little like it was before they left, but different because they are adults. We navigate the sometimes tricky path of communicating in a different way.

I am different here, too. It’s a stripped down way of life, different from the city both physically and emotionally. The days are longer on the lake and the distractions are fewer. I have said it before: I am most myself with sand in my hair, the lake water in my pores. And like the changing relationship with my kids, and the ebb and flow of this shoreline, I am navigating a changing relationship with myself. More acceptance, less chatter, nicer words, less worry. I’m working on these things, anyway.

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oh, hi.

Here’s another thing I’m working on. Or working with. It’s one of the first generation Olympus PEN half-frame cameras. This one is probably from 1960 or ’61. The whole half frame thing intrigues me… You get an image on half of a frame of 35mm film, which means you get double the shots per roll. Who doesn’t like that? I spent the week trying it out and will send my test roll for processing on Monday morning. I’ve got my fingers crossed, because wow, this little thing is fun to shoot. Hopefully I’ll have something to show for it next week.

So that’s where I am. In my favorite place, working, enjoying my kids, trying out a new camera. A divine start to summer.

St. Joseph, again

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I’m back in St. Joseph again for the weekend, a visit with my dad. While the weather isn’t as magical as it was last Saturday, it’s warm enough for an early spring and the snow is very nearly gone. It’s no secret how much I love the west side of this state, but geez, St. Joseph is just so sweet. I spent the morning walking to the beach and around downtown, enjoying a cappuccino at Tosi’s, saying “hi” or “good morning” to pretty much everyone I passed (they’re friendly here, Karen Thomas, you’d like it!), smooching a 10-year-old golden retriever as I talked with her owner about the joys (ahem) of old dogs. There are crocuses coming up here. I saw some green sprouts. Spring is coming!

The sky didn’t cooperate so much for photos today, but is it ever a bad time to photograph the lighthouse pier? I don’t think so. Well, maybe it isn’t the best time right now as it is still under construction. Didn’t stop me, though.

pier, railing, catwalk, lighthouse in distance
catwalk
inner lighthouse
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from the end of the pier, the outer lighthouse

I thought the pier was closed because of the construction, but as I parked I saw a woman walking across the dune from the big homes on the shore. I asked her if the pier was open and we ended up talking for a bit as we made our way across the parking lot together. She had an accent (German, maybe?), a bright smile and twinkling eyes. She walked with a cane and told me she lives right over there (pointing to the big homes), and that she is 87 and walks this pier twice a day. We chatted a bit more and I learned she used to love to drive, would drive to visit friends in Chicago and Detroit. I thanked her as she ushered me ahead so she could rest a minute before continuing her own walk.

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on the beach, just starting to drizzle

I like you, St. Joe. Let’s get to know each other a little better.