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June 20th, 2007, Wednesday
Just got back from driving around Berrien Springs, St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, and Millburg. Me and Dad went to the Berrien County Youth Fair Office to return the trophy I won for Champion Fruit Pie last year. Then we went to DQ and then returned books from the St. Joe library and then visited the Benton Harbor Airport to check on a grounded airplane (a Skyhawk with a bad al-something).
Isabel, Cara, David, and Ashley are going to see The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I think I’ll go also, if Laura is able to. We may be able to pick her up from working at the shop. I hope so. Going to the movie theater terrifies me, but it would be fun. Besides, there could be some good previews.
June 29th, 2007, Friday
We went driving yesterday evening, away over the back roads. I didn’t know this country was as beautiful as it is. Fields of corn and beans and vegetables, green forests and huge oak trees besides old farmhouses. The sunset was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen this summer. Scarlet and orange deepening into rose and purple over the woods.
When we got home I sat on the hill by the barn, looking out at the fireflies shimming amongst the tree branches under the moon. Everything was peaceful, just the sound of the frogs by the pond and the faint roar of traffic on the highway.
June 18th, 2008, Wednesday
Yesterday was a lot of fun: Mom took us girls swimming in the morning while Dad went to the airport. Then we all went tramping through Mackinac City in the rain, buying umbrellas and hats and chocolate and candy (chocolate just isn’t candy, if you know what I mean). I bought malted milk balls – superb!
We ate supper in St. Ignace at the Mackinac Grill – garlic, beef, and cheddar melt, brown, salty french fries, and a few bites of Mackinac Island Fudge cake with vanilla ice cream – glorious!
Us older girls played pea-nuckle (I know that’s not how you spell it) with Mom – me and Annie managed to pull off a win against all odds – Mom’s wicked at pea-nuckle.
We’re going to the Island today – as soon as it can be arranged. Can’t wait for the boat ride.
June 21st, 2008, Saturday
I’m with Dad in the AVSAT hanger at the Benton Harbor airport. Not exactly with Dad – he’s behind the counters, washing dishes, I think.
The airport is alive with people – spectators and members of the local EAA chapter and the Lest We Forget volunteers and vehicles and airplanes. The sky’s a jumble of dark and silvery clouds within the blue as I sit here and listen to the sizzling of brats and hamburgers and the music of Glen Miller blending with the rumbling of many voices, talking and laughing.
There’s a helicopter coming in to land, and a great, many-propellered plane – and there’s another one, preparing to take off I do believe, unless they’ve just come in, which I doubt. You see, what’s happening here isn’t the half of it.
Not far away, on Tiscornia Beach, hundreds of Lest We Forget volunteers are reenacting the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France. They must have begun by this time – what a sight it must be. Dad and me would go if he didn’t have to help out. But I’m glad I came instead of riding home with the neighbors from Countryside Academy. This is worth it. Oh, excuse me, but I’ve got to get out and look around.
June 28th, 2008, Saturday
It is summertime. I don’t think I quite realized that until yesterday . . . . It is not only summertime, but summertime again. Already.
The time of lightning bugs and bright woods and flowers and thunderstorms and dryness and jubilant skies and hot winds and creaking swings and family get-togethers and bugs and panting cats and dirty barns and wet dogs and late bedtimes and shopwork and movies and always good books and rough writing, is here.
July 6th, 2008, Sunday
This day is so beautiful – blue sky, soaring clouds, warm air, little wind. I did chores this morning, and let the goats outside to romp while I settled Sally in the paddock. As I filled the water trough, I leaned against the fence and surveyed the sea of corn, shimming in the sun, and the tall forests beyond, green and blue and silver, waving and whispering deep and soft. A Wood has such a presence – a presence of great things speaking of old stories.
July 9th, 2009, Thursday
Back from a leisurely bike ride beside Isabel while she ran a 5K. Drinking in the summer evening. The sunlight spilled over the grey realm onto the greenland below, brightening the crowns of hills and the shallow dips of the bean fields spreading out on either side of the road, and throwing the forests scattered between hill and valley into black-green shadow. Along the pavement grew Black-eyed Susan and Queen Anne’s Lace and Tiger Lilies curled up for the night, and little cedars choked with wild grapevine.
The fragrance of spearmint rising from crushed leaves, and the smell of mown grass warm with sun wafting through the stillness. God made us such a wonderful world.
August 18th, 2009, Tuesday
Lovely, bright day this afternoon. Mom’s at work, the house is mostly clean, and I’m taking a bit of time to journal. Been upstairs dusting our room, getting my affairs in order. Oh, it feels a bit like dying, going away. Less than two weeks – and these two weeks are to be so full. We’re going to the fair with the BeeFrazees tomorrow (Laura’s going to drive us), and then I’m driving us down on Friday, to rendezvous with the BeeFrazees and Vanessa. Saturday is the HPA Beach Party at Lion’s Park in St. Joe. Monday – auditions!
Our farm is so beautiful this time of year. The garden is lush and overflowing – no corn or tomatoes, yet, but the beans, carrots, zucchini, and peppers can be harvested. Grandpa has been giving us early apples. I’m going to miss our apples, and our grapes, and the first HPA practices of the season, and Ashley’s birthday party, and being able to take walks up the lane where I can watch the drifting of summer into Autumn. I’m so used to the familiar, that it’s impossible to imagine the new.
July 7th, 2010, Wednesday
It is almost noon and already roasting hot beneath a glaring sun in a pure open sky – I’ve worked at donut-making, gotten home on time, changed as soon as I got here, gave Sally a bath with Sarah’s help, and then cleaned up the barn for the first time in several days, also with Sarah’s help. She’s a good sport. Anyway, I’ve been up and running since 6:09 AM and this is the first time I’ve sat down to relax and suddenly I feel very much like dozing off – dropping off – or whatever.
July 9th, 2010, Friday
Our garden needs weeding, but it still looks lovely. We’ve been eating plenty of fresh zucchini these past days – they taste like summertime. And freshly mown grass smells like summertime. And insects hissing and humming in the tall brown weeds sounds like summertime. And sweat trickling down your hot skin feels like summertime. And the cloud mountains sailing across the eastern horizon to the distant south looks like summertime – all blazing white against the blue sky.
July 24th, 2010, Saturday
So . . .
It’s a summer evening. The family has just finished a relatively late supper of corn-on-the-cob, fresh tomatoes, vinegar pickles, and deep-fried cheese and bacon. A salutatory kiss to my fingertips – I LOVE summertime! Beyond the parlor windows, the farm is cooling in the wake of a blazing sun. Despite the stormy rainy-ness of last night and this morning, the aforesaid sun dispersed the clouds and made the whole county steam.
Yesterday was appallingly beautiful. Around sunset, dark storm-clouds flashing with white light marched across the southern horizon from the west, while the northern horizon warmed to a deep golden hue behind the black silhouettes of the trees.
It’s nearly eight ‘o clock. Th days go by so quickly!
July 30th, 2011, Saturday
I find myself contemplative this evening, as I lay (or is it lie?) out in the wet grass among the apple trees. Dusk has fallen over the farm. The sun has slipped below the western horizon, leaving the sky all pale silver and yellow and faint blue-and-rose.
Tasseled corn rises high all around me – the garden, all bushy and green and earth-smelling – spreads before me. In the distance, a borrowed tractor runs as Dad and Uncle Bruce attempt to rid the farm of a bit of the junk that has accumulated over the ten plus years we’ve lived here. Crickets chirp – the birds have gone to bed.
The mosquitoes haven’t, of course. A rather horrifying number have gathered around my place of solitude – little dark wisps buzzing in my ears and hovering over the white page of this journal.
July 16th, 2012, Monday
There is something about getting up in the gray light just before dawn, when the dew is still thick upon the grass, when the birds are waking up and beginning to sing, when all is still cool and fresh. There is something about spotting the rising sun at the edge of spruce branches, just coming up, all red-gold and melting in gray-blue cloud – melting like chocolate . . .
There is something about all this, unless, of course, you are running with your crazy sister at six a.m.
July 4th, 2015, Saturday
The drive up to Silver Lake smells like smoke, gasoline, and hot pavement. The farther north you travel, the more sun-baked and weather-worn the buildings are, the more gun shops you see, and the bigger the gas stations are – as if built only for semis. Everything is named enticingly (I want to work at “Morrows” or “The Angry Rhino”) and the flower shops are surprisingly beautiful – the most run-down roads called the prettiest names (Apple Ave, for example).
I don’t expect the urge to live in Michigan’s North (which begins a few miles from Sparta) to last forever. It’s something that affects youth. But the idea excites me – it feels easy to lose oneself in the fields, the pine-and-maple forests, the stretching blue sky over empty gray road. The first time I tried to write a story – a long story – coincided with a vacation to cold, rainy St. Ignace, when I got up a few early mornings to write on the hotel porch, bright sunlight flashing on the water. It was as perfect, as romantic, as I’d imagined it, and in my dreams, I live on Mackinac Island year-round, a full-time writer with a volunteer position at the library.
The reality, though, of now, is a holiday weekend, the celebration of America’s beginning as a country. The fireworks began last night, took a brief break, and began again at 10 AM, just after Tony and I woke up. David and the Tanises met us at the house, then we began our trip up here to Silver Lake. Tony and I motorcycled, as the weather is absolutely perfect, and now that we’ve arrived, there’s nothing to do but eat, rest, game, and boat.
The lake is alive with water-revelers: tubers and speed-boaters – pontoon-riders and jet-skiers. The men are making coffee and the little one is exploring all the chairs and babbling semi-coherent words to herself and anyone who will listen. I am writing because it’s been too long, and the words are starting to press at me. It may appear anti-social, but there are so many other people to talk to, I figure I won’t be missed.
July 18th, 2016, Monday
Tony took me biking out in the country yesterday and it was just – absolutely delightful. It felt undiscovered and yet familiar, with all the green, wood-and-field smells I remember from childhood. We were the only people on the trail for miles and miles, and it was that part of dusk where the deer come out and the shadows grow long and the sunshine is this magical golden color, like something you could slice up and eat.
Part of being an adult, at least for myself, has been learning to find joy. Because you can make it yourself – you can carry it around with you and give it to others and let it sustain you.
But sometimes – a lot of times – it’s so hard to make it yourself. The bad feelings. The fear. The scariness and the doubt and the worry – it presses so close it’s like a death-squeeze. And that joy isn’t strong enough to wrestle off a death-squeeze.
But if you know where to look. If you know what to do or where to go – you can like, find these wells – like a shrine in a video game world or a happiness treasure chest – and this beautiful golden feeling comes spilling out like dawn or Friendship soup or water from a watering can. And that joy is strong enough. It can beat the death-squeeze away and lift you up to where the sun is shining.
Part of me learning to be an adult has been me learning where to find these wells of joy when I’m not strong enough to make it myself. Sometimes it’s music. Sometimes it’s a great story I’ve loved since childhood. Sometimes it’s a talk with my family, or my favorite Psalm, or it’s writing or doing the dishes or watching a movie or going to bed early or coming outside and looking deep into the sky where the far, far galaxies are . . .
Sometimes, none of these things work and that’s usually when I’m just hungry. Or, it’s a dark time indeed. But you get through those times like tunnels. Feelings aren’t what you are – aren’t your whole reality. It’s a comfort.
July 2nd, 2017, Sunday
We’re across the bridge. We came up and over in the midst of driving rain, the shores of the UP ahead, pointed spruce and fir all shrouded in clouds of white and silver mists, and then, a few minutes after getting through the toll, blue sky and white clouds came out, and we’ve been driving past nodding yellow flowers in the roadside ditches, more evergreen forests along the highway.
The Lake’s on our left, rain’s coming down from gray sky, and on our right is bushy green forest. Now a patch of blue sky, there a patch of mist. It’s wild and lovely and so changeable up here. :)
Delightful.
August 28th, 2018, Tuesday
In other news, it is very hot. And thunderstorms come looming across Lake Michigan, shaking the whole world, and then it’s cool for part of the day, and then the heat rolls in, smothering, to announce the approach of yet another one. It’s like the west is throwing them at us – a sign of displeasure.
August 7th, 2019, Wednesday
Summertime. And not just summertime, but late summertime, when the green fades, begins to brown and turn heavy with dry, worn, dying smells. I drove home from work last night after close, and as I stepped from car to side-door, I was smacked in the face by the fragrance of pasture and overgrown creek. I’m not sure which of the me-tall plants it was coming from – maybe it was all of them together, in a messy tangle, that had the scent of Farm and home. It made me stop, and smile, and breathe, for a few moments under the night sky, remembering and missing, but also glowing with joy, that my little house smells so familiar.
House becomes home. <3
August 9th, 2020, Sunday
Sitting on the hill by the Red Barn, in the shade of the white pine (soon to be as tall as the old stone silo), listening to the ruckus of Jon’s tractor-work down in what used to be the old hay meadow.
It is a hot, bright day – the air’s still and filled with swallows – the trees are only softly rustling.
Summertime. :)