Palette of My Happy Place ~ 2020

Because COVID confinement has changed life as we know it, we expect our annual pilgrimage to South Haven to be changed. Seeing magnificent Lake Michigan in many moods does refresh my spirit, sagging from four months of disorienting events. South Haven’s culture of appreciating simple, natural, sunset beauty draws me, and hundreds of tourists and locals, to the lakefront every evening. COVID also colors the trip. 

Day One. Baby blue sky, Prussian blue expanse churning into sandy-brown shoreline curls. Golden sun shining in bright white diamonds dancing on the lake. But… in a blink of the eye, gray sky. Ash-stone-battleship grays in massive mountains upon bulging billows. Because it’s tradition, we sit on a fire-engine red bench to watch the sun set behind the crimson red lighthouse. No sun. Instead, raindrops. Disappointed, we shelter.

August 2’s sudden sky-change from stunning blue to somber gray certainly smacks of the sudden sea-change of society last March. One minute, normalcy is clear, the next it’s all a gray area. Fearing dastardly droplets, we scurry to shelter. Well, some of us anyway.

Debate rages on between the maskers and no-maskers. In South Haven, the divide is very pronounced. Only 20 percent at most of pedestrians wear masks. Stores strictly enforce mask wearing, citing threat of closure by Michigan state if they don’t. Restaurants, however, serve patrons at sidewalk tables amidst throngs of unmasked passersby.

Balancing a desire for safety with a desire for fresh lake breezes, we set up lawn chairs and read in glorious sunshine on a grassy area near water but not near sidewalks. I had prepared and packed enough food for two people for three days. When we see that we would not feel safe dining outside South Haven’s restaurants, we eat all our meals in our hotel room. They are super-simple, but we are content, if not as free as in previous Augusts.

Day Two. Spectacular colors in August 3’s sunset. Horizon campfire of golden glowing embers as the sun burns itself down and washes upward to honey-tinge taupe clouds. Lighthouse a black silhouette, its beacon blinking green. Slate-gray waves wash over the pier and thunder to shore. Black-suited surfers zig-zag-stitch sideways along four-foot curls.

I feel mixed emotions watching skies skitter above and hearing surf pound below. Since March a dangerous undercurrent thrums. Winds blow fast. Yet peaceful beauty abounds. And a steady gaze reveals that the beacon still blinks green.

Besides the sunset tradition, I like to walk the South Haven beach. This year the water level is extremely high, making the beach very narrow and precipitously tilted, but I do get my toes in the sand. The ugly green-brown of dirty dishwater, waves climb up to shore and loudly sneeze freezing spray onto my ankles. Uncomfortably, I walk toward the lighthouse anyway. Swirling grit unsteadies my balance and sands callouses. My frozen ankles cry uncle after only a few minutes. I hope that I will walk through these disorienting times patiently enough that God can work off my rough edges. 

Day Three. Our third and last chance for a South Haven sunset does not disappoint. Fireball spills glitter across the lake. Blinding banana-bumblebee-butterball brilliantly backlights rogue vine leaves. Even weeds glow under the Almighty’s paintbrush.

An old Girl Scout campfire song comes to mind: Day is done, gone the sun, from the lake, from the hills, from the sky. All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

South Haven: I just can't say goodbye

Call me sentimental, prone to nostalgia, slow to let go of what/who has meant something to me. I am all those things. During my days in South Haven in August, for the first time in thirty-one years, the question, “Is it time to let go of my August South Haven tradition?” crept into my consciousness. For thirty-one years, South Haven has been my happy place. And I felt happy there this time as well, but … but what? I’m not sure. My sentimental attachments make this a difficult question to ponder.

Every street, every shop, every restaurant, every inch of both beaches and both piers hold many memories. The year I rented a cottage so poorly built, we could see daylight between the floor and the back wall. When my sister dropped off my young niece and nephew to spend a few days with me, bless her heart, she stayed long enough to wash black mold off the walls. When the kids left, friends arrived for a few days. Other friends and my husband have joined me in B&Bs and cottages and motels and campgrounds over the years. One summer I was thrilled to share my happy place with my parents; and it turned out to be perhaps the last summer my dad would have been able to take a trip. One August a group of friends had fun watching the Blueberry Festival parade and going to concerts by the river. Oh so many glorious sunrise beach walks, ice cream indulgences, refreshing lake breezes, foam-rubber Frisbee games on sandbars, and glowing lighthouse photos in thirty-one years.

Since my novel is partially set in “sparkling South Haven,” in 2008 a bookstore there invited me to have a book-signing event on their sidewalk. It poured rain all day, but mobs of vacationers were all smiles. They sat down at my little table, leaned in, and told how they had fallen in love with South Haven once and kept coming back, buying houses there, making family memories, and extending summer vacations there from one week to two to three to four. I shared my story of falling in love with South Haven with everyone who stopped, too. I don’t think I sold a book, but I packed up my little table display with a big smile on my face and joy in my heart.

Every year I feel nostalgia for the South Haven of the 1980s when a string quartet played beautiful music for people waiting outside a popular breakfast restaurant in a Victorian mansion. Now it is townhouses and a parking lot. To my knowledge, none of today’s SoHa eateries even serves local blueberries in their breakfasts, as that rambling restaurant once did. South Haven is proud to be “Blueberry Capital of the World,” but in the height of blueberry (and peach) season this August, we were served melon and pineapple from God knows where with our breakfast.

The changes I’ve seen over the years are too numerous to count. I suppose upon first noticing each change, I felt a little twinge of regret, but many if not most changes have been positive, and the town is still vibrant. People still smile a lot. Strangers are still friendly. Locals and vacationers still come down to the waterfront to watch the sun set behind South Haven’s iconic red lighthouse. South Haven still speaks “summer” to my heart.

This summer, however, three changes may push me toward letting go of my annual pilgrimage. (Note: I cannot bring myself to say I have decided.) One is that the locally made ice cream I look forward to all year is no longer being made. This might seem trivial, but to me it’s kind of a big deal. The tradition is walking down to the pier with Sherman’s ice cream to watch the sun set. I don’t eat ice cream the rest of the year, and Sherman’s is really really good. We did watch the sunset this year without ice cream, and it didn’t kill me, so I can probably adjust to this disappointment.

Secondly, high water levels of Lake Michigan have swallowed up all long-beach-walk sections of the beach. Now the beach is so narrow that a beach walk cannot be a free-feeling, arm-swinging long stride with eyes on the horizon. It’s more of a watch-every-step, arms-out-to-balance-yourself as you gingerly navigate what is really just the steep base of the dunes. Thirdly, South Haven’s popularity has finally priced us out of acceptable lodging. To pay $$$ a night for substandard motel accommodations a mile from town takes away considerable enjoyment.

I’ve been to a lot of nice towns in my adult life without ever feeling the connection I feel to South Haven. I can’t imagine a summer without South Haven. Having a happy place seems important enough in this acrimonious age that perhaps I could start planning now what not to spend money on this year so that next summer we can afford to rent a house or a condo with a deck or other outdoor space. Not sure how to replace those rejuvenating beach walks, but maybe I can figure this out, too. I would sure be sad to say goodbye to South Haven.

Cache and Carry

Uploaded the entire contents of my camera's memory card to my computer tonight, then cleared the card for new photos. Scrolling through all 1,300 pictures carried me back several years. In some cases, seeing certain images again reminded me of a glorious spring day with purple pansies and orange and yellow poppies at the Chicago Botanic Garden or a hot summer afternoon in the park with a granddaughter who couldn't be persuaded to stop sliding down the slide, even for the promise of a "possica" (Popsicle) if she'd come home. All seasons of the past few years were represented in my photos. And that granddaughter showed up older in subsequent photos. Tonight I revisited my parents' last few birthday parties, the last two Mothers' Days, Christmases, Thanksgivings, and twice-a-year visits to my beloved South Haven ~ all with their own happy memories.

A few photos saddened me. Like one of my dog Charlie surrounded by colorful autumn leaves two Octobers ago, because we were about a half mile from home when I shot that photo, and his arthritis would make it impossible for him to walk that far now. And like one of Charlie licking my dad's cheek, because as Alzheimer's has eroded his mind these past few years, he always still asks me how Charlie is ~ until the other day when he asked instead, "Is Charlie a dog?"

My photo cache can carry me from today's blizzard to summer sunflowers.

For the love of South Haven

I’d wanted a book signing in South Haven, because after all, my novel is partly set there. I figured folks there might like the connection. What I didn’t anticipate was the intensity of the connection.

When did I first go there—1988? The first time, I went because a friend invited me and some other girls to her aunt’s cottage. Why did I go back the following year? And the next? And some years twice? I don't know. Now, 20 years later, I still eagerly anticipate my South Haven pilgrimage and all its simple rituals, from walking (savoring hometown ice cream) down to the lighthouse to watch the sunset, to picking blueberries and peaches, and everything in between.

Each year I like to visit, at least mentally, places I have memories of. The road leading to the cottage I rented the summer a niece and nephew came up for the first half of the week and 11 friends came up for the second half? Hey, it’s still a dirt road. I love glancing at the blue stained glass window of our honeymoon room in a lovely B&B as I drive by. Oh, and here’s where we sat to watch the drawbridge go up. And there’s where the Tall Ships were the year we camped with friends at the KOA. Oh, and that picnic on the bluff above the beach was such a beautiful day. Certainly there have been changes to the town and some of its traditional sights. But the feeling of the town remains.

I have no words to describe that feeling. But I know I’m not alone in feeling it. At the book signing, people approached my table on the sidewalk outside the bookstore, sat down, leaned forward with an elbow on the table, and poured out their falling-in-love-with-South-Haven stories. One couple drove up once from Indianapolis and have spent 3 weeks a summer here ever since. One woman came once on a fluke, came back every year for 15 years, and finally bought a house here, where she commutes on weekends from Toledo.

The day of my book signing was a grand day. The rain was relentless. Streets and sidewalks were slick and shoppers soaked. Car tires sizzled by and flip-flops slapped against the sidewalk. Umbrellas of every color and design and shiny yellow ponchos bobbed along as people moseyed from shop to shop. Rain dripped from awnings, benches, and branches. Crystal droplets hung from Italian lights, which themselves looked like crystal droplets. The South Haven scene I saw from my little dry spot in front of the bookstore was wet, wet, wet—not exactly an ideal day in a beach and boating town. Yet people’s faces were all smiles, smiles, smiles. I guess any day is a good day to be in South Haven. Although I can’t explain this, I’m very glad to have heard the stories of others who share the feeling.