Beckoned Home

Michigan calls to me in the early summer heat of a humid Tennessee day. The trees whisper over the distance and miles. The waves at Higgins Lake echo my heart. I am being summoned and I’m on my way.

My husband doesn’t get it – this ancestral call to come home. And that is what it is for me – home to family, friends, the woods, the crisp air, the ground where I was nurtured and where my roots grow deep still.

He says I am lucky to get to take the kids up there for an extended vacation. But it’s not a want, it’s a need (and it’s no vacation when I’m in charge of both our kids for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a month – but that’s a whole other story). A need to be not only with family and friends but to have a sense of place and home that is 100% me in this big, big world. Michigan – and Higgins Lake in particular – is interwoven into the fiber of my being. The clear blue-green water, the crisp pine-scented air, the hard worn dirt paths – these aspects are parts of me at a cellular level. And returning to them is a return to myself. An affirmation of all that I am, all that my children are – our past, our present, and our future.

My children are the sixth generation in my family to be a part of Higgins Lake – to get to know it inside and out, summer after summer, year after year. It’s a place so safe, I don’t worry if I don’t see Taggart for a couple hours. I know who he is with and I know if anything happens, everyone knows he’s mine and will treat him like their own until I’m on hand. We all have known each other our whole lives. Our cottages stay as familiar as the backs of our hands – we’re all woe to make too many changes lest we break the spell of safety and sameness.

Grandparents and great-grandparents get to really know their grandchildren. Parents get to share their children with extended family and friends. It’s a place we all cherish and value – and sometimes there is loyalty with a vengeance, love with daggers. Families become disenchanted with one another and leave Higgins. Some argue; some fight in court for the rights to their cottages. Needless to say, people feel very passionate about this place.

It’s not perfect. It has its drawbacks but like a parent’s unconditional love for an unruly child, or a dog that just won’t mind, most have a deep and abiding love for this place that will not be forsaken. Folks that marry into this clique-ish society need to be a good fit. If not, it’s a rough go. Most of us tell those that love us and come to Higgins for the first time, “Hope you like it, we’ll be coming here for life.” We smile but we mean it.

My dad once referred to Higgins in the summer as “an eternal funeral”: the same people, at the same cocktail parties, talking about the same things year after year. Needless to say, he might not have been a perfect fit at Higgins. But for those who love it and have been raised in its warm embrace - for those who see the sameness as a sign that all is right in this small corner of the big, big world - it’s a tonic for the soul.

Although I acknowledge my dad’s misgivings, I make no apologies when I say “I’ll take my Higgins straight up”. I’ll let my kids run free, have coffee with my mom every morning, visit with friends that I consider family, and even attend a cocktail party or two. I’ll walk the trails, breathe the fresh air, and ground myself amidst the safety of the towering pines. I’ll swim out to the raft, walk to Evergreen with my kids, and give thanks to my ancestors.

I am lucky. I hear Michigan beckoning. And, I’m coming home soon.

Traditions Lost and Found

Father’s Day was tougher than I’ve remembered it being and I am not sure why. My dad passed away over ten years ago but for some reason, the enormity of his absence last Sunday was lodged deep within me. I talked to my grandfather – my dad’s father – and for him and his continued deep presence in my life, I am always grateful.

My grandfather shared a story about my dad going to a YMCA camp when he was young – and about my dad not being so sure about going. This was in response to my telling my grandpa that my son Taggart, age 7 (today!) – was starting a YMCA camp this week – and, he wasn’t too sure about going . . . Funny how traditions we didn’t even know about get passed on from generation to generation.

Speaking of traditions, I once asked my dad about our ancestors and our family's traditions and he answered with the following letter (a letter I cherish and read often).

Dear Meaghan,

It’s cool and cloudy in Detroit this morning. Yesterday it was one of those incredibly beautiful fall days – sunny and 60. You have got me thinking about what traditions your ancestors have passed along to you. Aside from what I said on the phone, I have thought of a bunch of other things. Spirituality and music are at the top of the list. Athletics and an intellectual strain would be included. What else – the love of singing, a poignant lyric, a tendency toward poetry – the perfect word in the right place – the appropriate description of anything – the priority and love of children –our real future – our only future - the wonder of a country scene or city street, snow on the hills – the love of rivers, hills and lakes – Michigan means “turtle” in Ojibwa – what does Tennessee mean? – the beauty of a kid waiting for a school bus – a person on a bench – at our best the wonder of the day – nearly every day – toast and coffee - lunch with a friend – I haven’t mentioned DANCING in the dining room or wherever to a song we love . . . remember. Horses in the pasture – Alice Walker’s Horses Make a Landscape More Beautiful – curiosity about how things work and the things we see and hear when our eyes and ears are open . . . everything is beautiful when we pay attention . . .

. . . the greatest art is a nurturing landscape, seascape, or horizon because we only have these things on loan from you children. We have tried to give you a common sense approach to what is right and wrong. You don’t need a law degree to figure it out, or a master’s degree or Ph.D. I read recently in a Sufi book that the only sin is waste.

I’ll lighten up Meg. Solar is good. Windmills are nice. Log cabins. Teepees. Organic gardens, orchards, vineyards, pastures, forest. Bicycles, baseball, soccer, a good book, a water-color, a swift, clear creek or stream, horses, cows, roller-blades, campfires, a pocket-knife, Saturday dances, a cigarette, a joint, a hug, a swim, a sweat lodge, friends, work you love and believe in, the respect of those you respect, love, a warm shirt on a chilly day, moccasins, good socks, a Navajo rug – is that enough to keep your generation occupied? A guitar, a piano, banjo, clogging and nurturing the kids around us to the best of our ability. That’s the weight you’ve been given and it’s not always easy but mostly you’ll sleep well at night. It’s always for the kids, right? – you, Chris, Sarah, Terri, Kacie, Justin, Jeff, Allison, Kevin, Leah, Adam, Lisa, Alex.

I’ll never forget your basketball-track days. It will take you a while to really comprehend how beautiful the Suttons Bay relays really were –whether you won or lost – but of course your team set a record – but aside from the setting on Lake Michigan – it was just you healthy kids running with the wind in bright colors. Nothing could be simpler or better.

I think of you everyday.
Peace and Love,
Dad

Cultivating and sustaining traditions has always been important to me and I think Father’s Day reignited the sadness I feel about my father’s absence in my children’s lives. He would have loved my children – adored them as he adored me and my brother – and I hate that they don’t get to be on the receiving end of my father’s warmth and affection. I am reminded that I need to do a better job of continuing to share my dad with my kids and foster the connections we share with him – spiritually, through my memories, and by living the values he instilled in me.

This letter is certainly one I will share with my kids one day when they are old enough to understand it. It says a lot about who my father was and what he believed in. And, who I am and where I came from. My relationship with my dad certainly wasn’t perfect. In fact, it was often tenuous and tense; sometimes we simply could not give each other what the other needed. But our relationship was always under girded by an unfaltering love – and luckily, we both held tightly to that knowledge when all else failed.

The nicest thing my dad ever said to me occurred the last time my brother and I saw him before his sudden passing. We were hanging out at the property where he was living, listening to music, and eating breakfast. During our perfectly ordinary conversation he looked at us and said, “Time spent with the two of you are like moments of grace.”

Nothing could be simpler or better.

I think of him every day. And some days more than others. Father’s Day was just one of those days.

My Present

I’ve been out of pocket and at my kids’ beck and call for a couple weeks now. It is fun, fascinating, infuriating, and exhausting – sometimes all within an hour! We are busy and together a lot. This is a great thing most of the time. Except for when I’ve reached my limit and need some space. Just to catch my breath and not have to think about anyone else’s needs. Those spaces don’t come easily and often not at all. Nonetheless, I know how much better I am to my kids, my family, myself when I carve out those little niches somewhere in the midst of my swirling days.

I am reminded of a Nietzsche quote I fell in love with my freshman year of college: “One has to have chaos within to give birth to a dancing star.” This quote has been a mantra for my life since I first heard it. And, I believe it to be true on every level. But my question to Nietzsche today is this: What does one give birth to when the chaos is simply the act and art of motherhood? A raging rhino? A Tasmanian devil? A “mean mama” with a short fuse and a sharp tongue?

Yes. Yes. Yes. All of these and more. And sometimes even a dancing star – or two – who just happen to be named Taggart and Sage. They can make me laugh and they can make me cry. They make me try to be a better person every day. They make me proud. They make me angry. They tickle me and they slay me. They are maddening and magnificent.

And no matter what, no matter how mad or how tired or how in need of space I am, they are mine – all mine – and I, well, I am theirs – hook, line, and sinker. And I adore them and our deep connection. They are a gift. They are my present. And I will have all the space I need some day in the not-so-distant future when they need their space. Our tables will have turned. And I guess I’ll just have to be O.K. with that. How could I not be? I love them. They're mine. And they’re also my gift to the world ~ my two dancing stars.

Inching Along

Summer has always reminded me of a long, slow stretch. And I mean that in the best way. After a run, I come home and stretch and it is the perfect way to honor my body and thank it for getting me through how ever many miles or hills I’ve just put it through. Summer’s sort of like that. The perfect ending to a hectic year where you can slow down, catch your breath, and just let days unfold. Honoring the spirit of spontaneity that summer affords (Ice cream anyone? A run through the sprinkler, perhaps? How about Loopy Lemonade on a Wednesday?).

I realize I’m describing life on a traditional academic calendar which always ends with a long summer break and you’ll have to forgive me. Thirty-four years on an academic calendar – grade school, high school, college, grad school, more grad school, teaching at Vanderbilt . . . I’ve clocked a lot of hours in academic institutions. I think I’ve earned a lot of summer (if for nothing else than the lack of a big salary all my degrees in education bring me!). And, I think my kids like having me around.

We do camps because we want to and luckily not because I have to find somewhere for them to go each week while I put in my forty hours. We’re doing swim lessons. We go to Grammy’s pool. The library. The zoo. The Humane Society. Target (don’t tell my husband!). Baskin Robbins. We have fun. Most of the time. Although there are days, and often hours in consecutive days, when I’ve threatened to give both of them away to Goodwill. Or we’ll be at the post office and someone will be admiring Miss Sage and I’ll offer her to them – for free! (Can’t you hear them later that day telling the story of this mean ole’ mom they saw at the post office who joked about giving her kid away – all I can say is they hadn’t been up with that same cute, fussy, cantankerous kid since 5 a.m. . . . )

I’ve tried to keep us relatively unscheduled. And, all in all, this works pretty well. I need my arsenal of errands and outings for when we are all tired of being home but our summer is unfolding and giving us time to run and jump, swim and relax.
We’ve been working in our flower beds (a penny a weed goes a long way with an almost 7 year old!) and watching our tomatoes come in. We’ve had picnics by the creek and dinner on the deck every night. We’ve ridden bikes through the neighborhood and even spotted a resident fox and some deer.

We get to go camping this week-end in the Smoky Mountains, celebrate Taggart’s birthday upon our return, and then head to Michigan to spend a month at the lake with family and friends. I can’t imagine a more perfect summer. I feel blessed in a million ways, so fortunate to call this life my own.

Other people aspire to have or do other things. A trip to Florida, a pool of their own, a membership to the country club. I get that. But me, I’m just happy that my kids are happy and healthy, my husband loves me and provides generously for our family, and that the kids and I get to inch along through our stretch of a summer. Footloose and fancy free.

A Thing For Trees

Having grown up in Northern Michigan amidst sheltering maples, it’s no wonder I have a deep and abiding love for trees. Being in the woods, underneath the shadows of the many different kinds of leaves, I feel at peace. At one with the Earth, connected to everything: solid and strong.

Taggart and I have gone hiking the last two days and there is this huge oak on the trail that I am drawn to embrace (yes, literally!). Every time Taggart and I walk past it, I stop and wrap my arms as far around it as I can, and I breathe. So solid, so strong. Seemingly permanent. Yet, further down the trail, we see another old oak, hugely round and hollow. And I am reminded that even trees don’t live forever. That’s always sort of a surprising recollection to make. Even trees don’t live forever yet we take for granted their seeming sense of permanence.

I went for a walk around the neighborhood this afternoon and was almost home when I noticed the tiniest little oak tree in someone’s unkempt yard. It was more sprout than tree – a wannabe tree some day long into the future. Yet, someone had taken the time to put a little chicken wire around it. Someone thought enough of this little guy that they had gone to the trouble to protect it. That same attention to detail was not given to the rest of their yard, but this little one, well someone had high hopes for him and wanted to give him his chance. Very thoughtful of whomever. Very sweet. A loving gesture. A random act of kindness. I hope that wire helps. That this tiny sprout one day becomes a mighty oak.

And then there’s my husband, the guy out there schlepping pharmaceutical drugs (he’s a pharmaceutical drug rep) but whose degree is in forestry (it all leads back to trees). The guy who could take or leave organized religion but who has told me being in the woods is where he finds his spirituality. The guy whom my dad would have really liked.

My dad, a tall unyielding pine himself, also had a thing for trees. A self-assigned tree redeemer, he stayed mad at my mom’s family his whole life for making money in the lumber industry. He also once wrote a poem called “Cathedral of Trees”. I wonder if he knew how defining that phrase has become for me. Trees are, in many ways, my religion: they connect me to my loved ones, ground me spiritually, provide breathing space, remind me of my mortality, give me hope, afford perspective, and offer a respite from the world. That all this starts from a tiny seed is a miracle. And with enough love, light, water, and chicken wire, it can become part of a cathedral: yours and mine.