Uncategorized – I dream of sumac and milkweed (and other wild things)

I like my hair better in Texas

May 9, 2019 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

and other pointless observations

I don’t have a picture of my hair in Texas. I’m not much for selfies, and no one is clamoring to snap any photos of me. But, I was in Austin spending time with my daughter and soaking up the muggy heat and ignoring my own life for just a few days and I gotta say, my hair looked poofy and full and not flat and static-y and I just liked it.

My hip flexor, which I tore and wrote about last post (in March, no less–I’m trying not to ignore this blog but it seems that’s what I’ve done) is 95% better. Sometimes I feel it a little but I’m not babying it anymore. The black and white film class I took at community college just finished a week ago today. I’ve got a bunch of negatives to scan and I’m not thrilled for that because I can’t seem to make a decent scan come out of my scanner. Plus, scanning is a royal pain in the ass.

The cottage window is fixed and the house survived the winter; the beach did not. The bluff in front of our cottage is in ruins, disarray; the pipes and tires we drove into the shoreline as protective jetties more than 30 years ago are now exposed, our stairs no longer usable, a high cliff from the bluff to the water. We know how it goes, but it still stings and it still gives me nightmares. We can only hope for the levels of the Great Lakes to go down, but I’d prefer to plan than leave things to hope or chance. I want to know what’s next, even if I’m not going to like it. I do better with that.

Still, it’s not like the cottage is about to fall off the bluff and into the lake (I don’t say this jokingly as there are cottages on these lakes that have done just that). We’re not in danger yet. The view is still spectacular, the wildflowers and the deer and the foxes and the eagles will still make appearances, the sun will still rise and set and make for appreciative conversation. Summer warmth will kiss our bare skin and make us feel better about the world.

Austin and film soaked in McClary Bros. thai basil drinking vinegar

Yeah, say that three times fast.

We went to a park in an Austin suburb and walked a trail there that wound through scrub and cacti and wildflowers and it was hot and sunny and wonderful. The leaves had only just unfurled here in Michigan and the earliest spring flowers are in bloom, but in Texas it was lush and green and fields of yellow and red and orange wildflowers were riotous and plentiful. Anyway, I shot a roll of film mostly in that park with the last few shots around my daughter’s neighborhood and on the rooftop deck of her apartment building.

The film is Lomography 100 ISO color film. The thai basil drinking vinegar I soaked it in a few months ago offered a pretty subtle effect, with no great streaks or bubbles of color, but some gentle color shifts mainly. I’m good with it.

hotel St. Cecilia, which I’m hoping some day I can afford to stay a night in because it’s so charming

Until next time, Texas. I might not come ’round in the summer because, well, you’re really hot, and I don’t mean that in a nice way. But you’ve grown on me, and I like to see my kid, so keep some beer in the cooler for me, will ya?

Happy new year

December 31, 2017 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

It’s the final hours of 2017 and I’m listening to the soft breathing of my husband and (not-so-soft breathing) dog as they snooze, competing for space on the couch.

We are all worn out. The dog got multiple walks in snow that balled up in between the pads of her feet. My husband rode his bike on snow-covered backroads and shoveled the long driveway at the cottage multiple times, ensuring we don’t get stuck here tomorrow when we go to leave. I got to use the snowshoes that replaced an old, broken pair last winter (but never got used because the snow stayed away), snow-shoeing for nearly three hours on a deserted lunar-landscape of a beach. I shot my last two rolls of film for the year–one 120mm slide film, something I’ve never shot before and an expired Ilford SFX 35mm, opting for a red filter and again, a risk as I haven’t explored that kind of film before.

It’s New Year’s Eve and we sure know how to party.

There’s a fire in the fireplace, my feet just inches away. I’ve binge-watched three episodes of Black Mirror, which is dark and fitting (I think, anyway) for a place like this, a stretch of beach that few inhabit in the winter. I can hear the wind and the waves, and the nearly-full moon made a short appearance before the clouds swallowed it up a few hours ago.

It is desolate here. When Lake Michigan tells you you’re not wanted, you best believe her. Tomorrow we’ll leave and the house will be winterized and I won’t see the ice buildup, the drifts that cover the doorways, the unpassable driveway. By spring it’ll be chillingly cold but the snow will have left no trace, other than a re-carved and freshly scrubbed beach. It’s how it works here, the seasons cycle and refresh. I hate to be away.

I am cherishing the quiet of these last few hours of 2017.

Ice pack on Lake Michigan shoreline

things I’m holding on to

December 30, 2017 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

I feel doubly responsible to consider each new year as a fresh start. For one, the calendar tells me there is a new year and for two, my birthday is just a week later. Two chances for a fresh start; two opportunities to consider what I’m holding on to that no longer serves me or makes me a better human, or that is impeding my relationships, my peace, my life.

Oh, am I holding on to some crap. Papers and books from college. Trinkets that won’t be used or displayed. Pots, pans, mugs and glassware that I don’t love and don’t use.

The catch-all places in my house are stuffed, and it is this I have to face in 2018. My office closet (disaster). The furnace room. Kitchen drawers. The pantry and spice cabinet. The storage space under the stairs. Bedrooms that hold the remnants of my children’s youth.

I know I’m not alone, and I know that what might feel insurmountable to me (like my office closet) might be nothing compared to someone else’s closet, garage, or studio that they are facing clearing out. Somehow that doesn’t make me feel much better when I open that closet door, reach in to begin, and then shut the door again in panic.

But I don’t know what to do with the stuff I don’t know what to do with. You know? Papers from my kid’s elementary schools. Old bits of mail. Boxes or receipts from electronics. Typewritten papers from college with notes I might want to read again (like the note from my poetry professor, who wrote encouragements like “Now you’re cooking!” and “yes! you got it!” in the margins of my poem analysis papers). What do people do with the stuff they might want to revisit but don’t need to use every day? Pack it away and deal with it later? Toss it and never look back?

I’m going to make a start, at least. Donate or sell the two cameras I have that aren’t working. Get into that closet. One kitchen drawer/cupboard, one basement shelf, at a time. Designate a space for the important papers from my children’s school years and toss the non-important ones, like those old field trip permission slips still jammed into kitchen drawers. I’d like to end 2018 feeling at least a little bit more organized than I’m beginning it.

Ah, outside

December 7, 2016 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

Sometimes it just takes a walk outside in the sunshine to set you straight again.

ldc_20161207_img_4534 — phragmites, bullrushes, marsh, sky

Even if it’s the kind of cold out that takes you a little bit by surprise, because after all you were just walking downtown a week ago without a hat or gloves or anything.

The kind of cold that on three hours of sleep doesn’t feel all that great and takes a little too long to recover from. That kind of cold.

But who’s complaining? The sun made a grand appearance today after what seemed weeks of grey. A cold wind blew, but look how majestic the grasses on the marsh look as they’re blowing?

I’ll take it.