Bringing It All Home

What am I going to do with three (good-sized) notebooks filled with impressions of my first 18 years of life – plus a whole lotta bloggin' posts?

After I've given myself this quiet weekend to get reoriented and back into The Routine, I begin on Monday morning. All the photos need to be sorted and catalogued; the notebook material must be edited and put into digital memory form; and the outline of the book will be a beginning.

We have made a pact with one another that three hours every weekday morning will be sacred time for John and for me.... no intrusion is to be made on each other's "working territory" during that period. We rise fairly early, so there will be time at the beginning of the day for wake-up coffee and a quiet chat in the back bedroom, watching the sunlight tilt into our mountain lair as it gilds the evergreen-tips with light and then washes across the hilltops that rise above the ravine of our creek. There will be time for a good breakfast and the usual day's-beginnings routine. But the hours from 9 AM to Noon shall be sacred-time.

I have never written a book; I barely know how to begin to do something like that. I don't know whether there's a whole book in this effort, or a small essay, or something in between. What I do know is that I have a lot to tell. Being in place, where my life really began so many years ago, has really reinforced my intuition that I had a start in life that was rare and beautiful, and that has sustained me through all the long years since that time. I think that's worth critiquing, assessing and praising; I will give it my best efforts, at any rate.

I know that writing this will require "a clear eye and a cold nose" – as My Dog would put it. The honesty will be very hard to come by, for me; but there is no other reason to write a memoir than to express as objectively and honestly as you know how to do, what memory has taught.

Wish me bon voyage, my dear ones; the actual trip to Ann Arbor was only a launching upon a very wide sea.

The Best Part

The best part of any odyssey is coming home, as Ulysses and I know. I had a safe pair of flights (Detroit to Dallas, Dallas to San Jose – and then home to Boulder Creek by car, with John). All is well, and all will be well. I will do a short recap of my overview of this wonderful trip in a day or so.

Monday, Monday – Can't Trust That Day

And this is why I couldn't trust Monday, September 21st: the Autumn Equinox came in like a lion yesterday in Michigan – and elsewhere. Looking at these skies, I was convinced finally that I would not be wise to drive north to my dear Ontario lakeside. Looking at the weather news this Tuesday morning, I see why Michigan didn't even catch the worst of this new weather situation: Atlanta GA was under water overnight last night. Apparently the swath of hot, humid weather, heavily laden with storm-cloud, has swept up from the Gulf, without any help from a hurricane.

I'm settled in at Ann Arbor for the duration, now. When I woke yesterday morning, Claire's sub-basement rooms were so damp and dark that I was very glad to be packing up and moving out; in fact, I now wonder whether my trouble with arthritis pain last week might well have been caused by dampness there that I hadn't noticed. Now that I've moved to an air-conditioned hotel room, the pain is actually negligible! So it was high time I moved.

I'm spending the muggy (outside) day today catching up on my blog, making notes in my journal for "fodder" for the memoirs, and generally taking things pretty easy.

I've been reading through some of the later writing exercises I did before I left California (brought the notebooks along to see how they were standing the test of time) – and I have to say I think they are not too bad, as vignettes of my childhood experiences. Of course a writer who edits his own work has a fool for an editor; but it just makes me feel good to know I've gathered so many little "snapshots" to look through when I go home and begin the real task of setting it all down in deathless prose, for posterity.

"Sunday Morning, Very Bright....

".... I read my book by colored light / that came in through the pretty window-pictures." I thought of that lovely song about going to church with mother, as I got dressed to go to St. Thomas the Apostle Church for 10:45 AM Mass. I had debated long about where to go to worship this particular Sunday morning. I had considered St. Mary's Chapel, the Catholic Newman Club parish for U of M students – I often attended services there in my past Catholic youth – and had also noted that there was a very nice-sounding Episcopal parish just around the corner from the place I was staying. But in the end, I really felt drawn to worship once again in the building in which I'd first learned to pray the ancient prayers of the Roman Missal.

As I was driving over to Kingsley Street, I found myself humming "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," and chuckled to myself: "I'll bet I'm not going to hear that in St. Thomas this morning!" Never bet against The Creator, folks: as I walked into the church, the organist was rendering a rousing variation on the melody for "Eine Feste Burg," to which Uncle Martin Luther had set such mighty words. Thanks, dear Pope John Twenty-Three, for opening those windows!

In many ways, I found the St. Thomas of today had not changed that much, however: I noted the usual lack of friendly greetings or welcoming smiles (to which I've now become so gladly accustomed in Episcopal parishes); the vast population of little children were yelling and fidgeting next to their parents (no parish Sunday School here, those kids need to learn to genuflect and fold their hands, somehow); and it's still hard to get an aisle-hugger to let one into the occupied pew. However, as I was resigning myself to squeezing in behind one of the big marble pillars that support the basilica form of the building, a fellow who was saving a place for someone shoved over a bit and indicated that there was actually room for one more on his side of the pillar. I gave him a big smile, and sat down.

I'd forgotten what great acoustics that basilica has got: and now the parish has a superb organist and a really fine choir to take advantage of that blessing. Listening to the coda strains of "A Mighty Fortress" I thought that I could not believe I'd ever dared to set my fingers and toes on that instrument – but I guess I did, back in the day. Ah, the hubris of youth. The choir, later in the Mass, sang a gorgeous version of Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus," and I remembered that we'd been taught to sing that, in Latin, when I was in choir there – along with how to read shape-note Gregorian chant. It was a privilege I have only appreciated much later in life.

It was very moving to receive the sacraments this Sunday in the church where I'd made my First Communion – then with my little hands placed palm to palm in pious prayer, returning to my pew with Sister's guidance, placing my hands then over my face, as I tried to imagine Jesus actually being inside my soul (and with no clue in the world as to what Transubstantiation meant – as is ever true, world without end, Amen).

I prayed, there, for my mother, who had instilled the faith that yet sustains me in my latter age, for my father (whose different way of faith did the same), and for "everyone for whom I've been asked to pray, down through my ages".

As we were dismissed and began filing out, the man who'd moved over to make a little room for me in the pew turned to me and said, "I hope you have a lovely Sunday." (Knock me down with a wet noodle!)

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After church, I decided to make a full-nostalgia day of it, and drove out to the old roadhouse near Lakewood where my parents used to take me with them occasionally when they went out for a cocktail: Weber's Lounge. Of course it's now a huge convention hotel and very fancy restaurant facility; but for $9.25, I had a generous brunch buffet meal (quite conventional, as befits a convention center, but a steal at that price – and with fresh-squeezed OJ!)

I spent the rest of Sunday getting packed up a bit and ready to move out of Claire's Guesthouse, and in trying to decide whether I could go up to the old vacation haunt of my youth in Kincardine, Ontario, on the shore of Lake Huron. But the weather reports were ominous as evening wore on, and it looked unlikely that I would leave Ann Arbor .... ("Oh, no, you can't escape!" I thought once again, history repeating itself.) But I resigned myself to deciding on Monday morning what I would do – and at least now I had self-determination on my side, as had not been the case when I was 18 years old.

Come Saturday Morning ....

This is Claire's Garden, where I spent a lovely Saturday afternoon.

"Come Saturday morning, I'm going away with my friend" ..... There's a beautiful song (written for a film score, I believe) that goes like that; I think about it occasionally when I wake on a nice Saturday and realize I can do anything I'd like, all day. This was one of Those Days. And here I was in my old home town, on a U of M home-game Saturday – staying at the house of a philosophy prof who teaches at the rival school coming to town: Eastern Michigan University, in nearby Ypsilanti (EMU, love it!) I didn't dare to hum "Hail To The Victors" around that house.

It was a gorgeous morning, clear and bright, with a few little white cloud-puffs drifting across the blue sky. Mine hosts had gone out early, to shop the natural-foods and farmer's market circuits; I had a healthy breakfast (the only kind this B and B provides), and decided to enjoy the quiet while I could. I spent some quality time writing up the great "research" I'd done the day before, visiting my roots in Lakewood and Dexter. When I got hungry for lunch, I realized the Big Game was well started and it was safe to venture out. I drove over to my beloved Washenaw Dairy and got a "black-and-white malt" – the best kind, made with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and lots of malted powder. Back at the guesthouse, I found a garden chair and put it out on the lawn under a tree; grabbed a good book and my journal, and settled in for a quiet afternoon in the garden. It was a lovely, restful time, after the running around I'd done on Friday.

So I don't understand why, by early evening, I was feeling rocky. I was not at all hungry, feeling alternately cold and too warm, and with a pretty upset tummy. Bah. I got into comfortable clothes, crawled under the covers in bed, and lay there feeling basically blah – trying to read, unsuccessfully.

There was a knock on the door: my "landlady" – bearing a bowl of steaming hot homemade vegetable soup, the gleanings of early foraging at the farm markets. Would I like to have it?

You can never know why, when or how such works of mercy come into your life; but that soup saved mine, that evening! I ate some of it, fell asleep early, and woke feeling great on Sunday morning.

An Excellent All-American Adventure: Day 4, #2

And here's the story of my afternoon in a small village that has waited for me to come back. I'll take the notes directly from my small journal for Friday:

It turns out I was quite right about Dexter; it hasn't changed much in 55 years, and that was very consoling for me, this Friday afternoon. After I journalled about my old homestead for a while and finished my soup/half-sandwich lunch, I asked for directions to the mill, and it was just around the corner and up a couple of country blocks, across the NY Central rail tracks. As I drove up to it I thought, "YEESSS! It is the place we always came for apples, cider, and .... mmmm .... donuts, when I was a kid."

I parked in the lot and walked around snapping pictures, trying to catch on film all my good old memories. Looking down at the entrance to the little sales room, I recaptured them in my mind immediately; and it was just the sort of day that would have drawn us to come out for a drive in the 1950s: clear, slightly warm but with a cool breeze, and great puffy clouds scudding across deep blue skies.

I walked on down to the entrance, the heady scent of just-picked apples and warm cinnamon donuts drawing me hungrily nearer. The shelves inside the barn were laden with jams, honeys, and every manner of apple-y thing you can stuff into a jar. I joined the line of people slowly snaking around to the service counter, and when it was my turn I ordered a glass of ice-cold cider and a cinnamon donut. Just one of each, mind you: I am not such as pig as some people might think.

Sitting in the dappled sunlight on a bench near the rushing Huron River, absorbing this feast (it's what God orders up, when She comes to this part of Michigan) I was in Proust Heaven; no madeleine, no cafe au lait, ever conjured up better memories, I am sure of that. I channelled an autumn snapshot of my mother and dad sitting in the front seat of our Chevy with the racy aqua-and-white exterior, my brother in the back seat by one open window , myself on the other side, and little Melissa stuck in the middle (as was only right, she being the youngest) -- driving through the old back roads on a Saturday afternoon, singing silly songs ("Splot goes the spider against the wall" was our favorite; we made the words up to drive my mother crazy, to the tune of the equally silly Christmas ditty, "Up On The Housetop"). Don't ask. When we got to the cider mill, we'd pile out in a hurry and run down the slope toward that very same glorious scent of autumn harvest banquet that had drawn me back today.

As I reluctantly drove away, I got a bit lost on back byways (I think my eyes were a bit misty, perhaps) and I turned down a side road to make a U-turn and go back the way I'd come: and was immediately confronted by the startling image you see on the left. "Don't shoot, I'm only turning around" I muttered, backing and filling rapidly. You never know what you'll find in these backwoods, brothers and sisters! (I did take a very quick snapshot before speeding off and away; had to prove I'd actually seen it!)

In many months and years ahead, I'll be distilling all that I've experienced here this time, and trying to tie it to old pictures in my memory bank. (As Diane said, while we were reminiscing a couple of days ago: "Don't rush me, my memory bank is trying to access that data.")

One of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Goudge said it: "You cannot judge the value of what happens to you until many years afterwards. Then you see how one thing led to another, and how it was all – even the little trivial things, as well as the big ones – somehow necessary."

Fran's Adventures in Lakewood: Day 4

I'm writing this immediately after visiting the home where I grew up. After the tour of Lakewood, I've driven on out to a nearby village called Dexter, and you'll see why, later. Anyway, this is a good place to sit in a coffeeshop and have a bite to eat and to try to absorb what has just happened. (The photo on the left is the front of my old home, 236 Mason Avenue, Lakewood/Ann Arbor, Michigan)

As I drove out Jackson Avenue toward Lakewood this morning, I was struck by the fact that I came upon the old subdivision so quickly; in my youth it seemed to me that we lived "way out of town" – how can the distances have shrunk so much? Suddenly, I was driving past Bethlehem Cemetery, where I and my siblings used to sneak over the fence and play around the old tombstones. And right beyond that hallowed ground, I came upon the turning into Lakewood, where an old gas station and general store always marked the entrance. Lo: the entrance was now marked by a very spiffy "Great Lakes Chocolate and Coffee Shop" – right where the old station once stood. Of course I had to stop in: it was 10 AM, aka "Cappuccino Time." As the co-ed mixed my capp, I said in my corniest old-folks voice: "I grew up in Lakewood 50 years ago, and used to come to a convenience store right here all the time." She told me that this was the actual building that had housed the station and the store, but (indeed) it had been vastly remodelled. "Do you still have an ice chest in the corner with Nesbitt's Orange Pop in it?" I queried archly. She looked a me with a "Who is this nutty old party, I wonder?" gaze and said, "We do carry orange soda, if you would like it." .... I accepted the cappuccino instead, and bought an "Ann Arbor News.Com" local paper (now published on Thursday and Sunday only, and believe me, not worth the newsprint it's printed on .... but then, maybe it never was). It was rather nostalgic to sit in there and glance through the poor remnant of my first example of journalism in childhood, idly wondering if they'd "hazmatted" all the dangerous pollution before establishing a coffee emporium herein.

After coffee, I drove into Lakewood, down the streets I used to ride my bike on, the streets where I learned to drive the Studebaker 4-on-the-floor when I was 15 ..... and I came to the old swamp. Hah: old swamp is now "Dolph Lake Park" and has a little dock there at the end of Lakeview Avenue (I hope not for swimming: eww, swamp creatures!) That dock is just where we used to launch out on our ice skates when the swamp waters were frozen hard; it was pretty bumpy ice, due to the reeds and roots poking up from the depths, but we were tough in those days. Just a bit further on, the old forest begins, as it did in my youth; and I saw paths like the one we would follow uphill to where gnarled old vines hung from mossy trees: we'd dare each other to swing out on those "ropes" like Tarzan. (Did I ever do it? Memory says, sure you did; but now, I'm not so sure. Imagine if the vines had not held: I'd be swimming with those Swamp Things now.)

Here is one of the paths through the woods; perhaps it's the one we would take to walk back in to where the blackcap raspberry thickets yielded those great breakfasts .... my brother and I would walk over there very early on a summer morning, before it got unbearably hot and humid, to gather the berries, haul them home, and eat them in big bowls with top-milk out of the glass milk bottles, and lots of extra sugar....

Wandering around back roads in my car, roads that were not extant when I was a child, I found my way back onto Lakeview Avenue. I drove up and around the corner where my girlfriend Alice Coleman's house still stands (the very corner where her evil boxer dog took a chunk out of my brother's leg as he biked past, one day); and there I was in front of my old home.

I parked the car, grabbed my camera and the photocopies I'd brought of old black and white pictures of the exterior of the house that my mother had taken with her Kodak in the early 50s, and hopped out. I was snapping away, when an old guy came around from the back of the building, where he had been power-washing the exterior. "Are you the owner of the house, sir?" I asked politely. "No, I'm just a friend, helping him get the place in order," he replied; "who are you?" I told him I'd grown up in this house, and did he think the owner might let me come inside? He assured me his friend would be happy to do so, and went to get him. A nicely dressed man came out and greeted me; I showed him the photocopies, and he was just delighted; he'd bought the house just a month earlier, and was thrilled to see what it had looked like back in the day. So he gave me a guided tour of my old home. It was a fascinating experience; you see, it was, and yet was not the place where my dreams often take me back. The rooms were in the same locations, but oh my, how much smaller they seem now! I gazed about the remodeled little kitchen, wondering how on earth my mother had fitted in a small table and chairs in the center, and had room to do her ironing on a pull-down board at one side of ths tiny (to me now) kitchen where I learned to bake and cook. Upstairs, my great bedroom with its alcove and window where I sat to read and dream, seemed no longer mine at all; the owner was using it as a home office, and he scanned my photocopies so he could keep a picture of the exterior for himself. I peeked in the room that was my parents' bedroom, and on the next floor up, looked at the loft that I'd helped my dad to renovate into a room for my brother. They were the same rooms; but yet they were not. I had thought I might cry, walking through all those memories; but all I felt was gratitude that the people who lived there after we were gone had kept the fine old place in such lovely shape after all these years..... No, it was not my childhood home any more; that place lives now only in my heart and soul.

When I left Mason Avenue, I needed a change of venue badly. I remembered that further out Jackson Avenue a road led a bit northward to the small village of Dexter; I thought it might not be as changed as Ann Arbor has become, so I decided to drive out and see if the old cider mill where we used to go on excursions in other autumns was still there. It is; and after lunch I am going out there. You can read all about it in my next blog.