Camping

Miscellaneous notes on our group camping trip to Ludington State Park

Will Drive for Beauty

A five-hour drive for only a weekend of camping seems long for people like us whose eyelids get heavy after just one hour of tires humming and scenery blurring. Our friends seem to have more energy for driving and need only a brief bathroom break in a five-hour drive. Yesterday, on our way home from a group campout, my husband and I stopped three times, once to eat lunch, once to buy Michigan blueberries, and once in desperation at a Starbucks where we sat nursing coffee and discussing which one of us the caffeine would take quick enough effect on to keep eyes and brain alert for the last hour and a half between there and home.

Although we struggled with the drive, five hours to Ludington State Park was so worth it. For 25 years, I have appreciated southwest Michigan’s pristine ribbons of sand and pure, refreshing Lake Michigan swimming. Going further up the coast meant even more of the same, with the added benefit of forested sand dunes to hike and inland lakes to canoe and kayak. If southwest Michigan’s Lake Michigan playgrounds are convenient natural beauty, northwest Michigan’s Lake Michigan playgrounds are breathtaking natural beauty.

Stuff

Our friends are experienced campers who bring tools enough to improvise just about any fix needed. Our group has Philips screwdrivers and four types of camping lanterns, butcher knives, cutting boards, spatulas and tongs, nonstick skillets and percolating coffee pots. Camp stoves and red-and-white-checked-clothed picnic tables sit under an expansive kitchen tarp. An assembly line of kitchen helpers prepares hot meals for 7 to 14 people and washes, rinses, and dries their dishes and silverware. We sleep in tents, but we are quite comfortable.

In one respect, camping simplifies life. One’s campground stuff is significantly less than one’s household stuff. I find this freeing, similar to living out of a suitcase on vacation. On the other hand, on this trip I was surprised to note I was more preoccupied with keeping track of my stuff. Maybe it was my attempted simplicity that caused this, I don’t know.

I took only one little backpack that I thought could double as my bathroom bag and my beach bag. Good plan, but then I ended up packing, unpacking, and repacking the backpack two to four times a day. One doesn’t need a camera at the bathroom, but one might want a camera at the beach. Flip-flops are good for both communal showers and beach walking, so they stay in the bag. To walk to the bathroom just to brush my teeth, I transferred a zipper bag with toothbrush and paste to my pocket and then had to remember to return it to the backpack—but not if the bag’s next trip was to the beach.

Camping Prayers

Prayers fell into three categories: thanksgiving before meals, awed praise for God’s creation, and protection requests—the last for traveling mercies and communal bathroom mercies. Water (or worse), sand, and long hairs snaked over every surface—and park staff cleaned these restrooms twice a day. “Oh God, please don’t let my toothbrush fall on the floor.” “Oh, God, please don’t let my washcloth fall on the floor.”  Again, our camper friends seemed to take bathroom crud in stride, but just the possibilities turned my stomach.

Romance vs. Reality

One day we walked a long stretch of white sand to Big Sable Point Lighthouse, built in 1867. Our friends who’d been there before had suggested we bring $3 so we could go inside the lighthouse. Well, going inside a lighthouse sounded historically interesting. And seeing, for example, the tiny light bulb that was beacon to Great Lakes ships as far as 18 miles away was interesting.

But what our friends had meant about going inside was climbing up inside. Even as I trudged barefoot in the sand approaching the lighthouse, I thought how fun to be in the aerie way high up by the beacon. What a great view from there. Even as I stood at the bottom of the wrought-iron spiral stairs and looked up, I thought how pretty the lacy pattern on each step was. Even when I knew I’d be climbing 130 steps, I thought the climb would be only a mild challenge.

Well. Climbing to the first landing, I thought, “I can’t believe there’s only one handrail.” Climbing to the next landing, I wondered, “Are these steps getting skinnier and steeper?” My self-talk became, “Keep looking up, Jane; keep looking up. Look ONLY at the handrail.” Occasionally, the opening above me narrowed, and I had to bend forward to avoid bumping my head. It’s very hard to tilt your head down, keep your eyes open, and not look down. My stomach flipped a few times. On a couple landings, when I stopped to peer out a porthole, I remembered my lifelong fear of heights.

By the time I stepped outside near the top, I was afraid enough for 20 people. Buffeted by wind, I plastered my body against the lighthouse itself and a smile on my face. So many visitors blocked my view, however, I knew I would have to surmount my fear of standing at the railing, too. Gripping the railing for dear life, I circled the top of that lighthouse several times to take panoramic snapshots.

Eager to touch ground again, I poked my head in at the top of the stairwell to find my stomach doing back flips at the sight of the ground through all those see-through steps. All pride aside, I asked a lighthouse volunteer to hold my hand while I sat down on the top step. I managed to stand on most steps, but I did sit down again in a few sections. Upon final touchdown, my stomach settled, and I enjoyed a short video about the lighthouse. Curtains breezily billowing further calmed me.

As each visitor emerged from his tubular trek, a lighthouse volunteer handed him a bright yellow reward sticker to wear. I wore mine proudly for two days. I still can’t believe I got up and down that lighthouse, but I’m glad I did. I’m sure there’s a life lesson somewhere in this story. The difference between succumbing to and overcoming fear is in what you look at? Maybe being too far into a fearful endeavor to turn around helps? Worthwhile achievements may not come easily?

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard ~ Review

The windswept dunes of Provincetown, Mass., are a symbolic setting for the story of Toby Maytree, Lou Bigelow Maytree, Deary Hightoe, and their bohemian friends. Their home—this narrow spit of sand at the tip of Cape Cod—survives vicious gales, deep, swirling snows, and shifting shapes. Despite often inhospitable conditions, post-World War II inhabitants find life and make steadfast lives there. In The Maytrees, author Annie Dillard poetically describes decades of tidal rhythms and constant constellations. Like the tides and stars, the characters’ lives change, but the characters remain true to who they are.

Other than saying The Maytrees is a story of longtime loving friendships, I hesitate to reveal much else about the plot. Instead, I’ll share a few of my impressions. This is a beautifully written book, as befits a story about an artists’ colony. Toby wrote four book-length poems and three books of lyrics. He was well-educated and liked to discuss philosophy. Lou painted, and I could easily imagine Dillard’s descriptions of how Lou saw the dunes as her paintings. Lou knew three languages but rarely spoke any of them. Toby’s courtship of Lou—he first inviting her to his beach shack and she shyly approaching it—was sweet. Vagabond Deary played drums in a seaside restaurant and slept in a rolled-up sail in the dunes. The easy relationships formed among these and other artistic folks who had chosen unconventional lifestyles stood the test of time.

Dillard’s spare prose told me just enough. At times it was dense though with challenging vocabulary. Despite this, her lyrical language swept me up in night sky, moonlight on seafoam, wonder of new love, purity of simple living—and just when I was thinking this is lovely but I’m not getting emotionally attached to any characters—something happened that made me so mad, I couldn’t sleep at all the night I read it. So I guess Dillard had also swept me into the story.

The Maytrees organically offers contrasts between walking in nature’s glorious beauty and trotting on the treadmill of materialism, between isolation and community, between gracefully adapting to and enjoying nature’s cycles and forcing oneself into society’s unceasing, seasonless expectations, between emptiness and fulfillment, between the Milky Way and the “low-ceilinged cave most Americans lived in unknowingly.” [p. 132]

Later in life, selfless Lou Maytree volunteers at a nursing home, where she accepts residents’ self-centeredness as human nature, but rankles at their not having learned lessons from life experiences. At first, this seemed dissonant to me. If I were as selfless as Lou, I might be especially impatient with others’ selfishness. But on second thought, this detail about Lou reveals that like a sweet, lavender beach pea blossom nestled in undulating sand ripples, forgiveness has truly found a home in her heart. Also, Lou knew that living in the hush rather than the rush, taking time simply and slowly to know and love—and observe and think—is a better way to wisdom.
Photo attribution: blmcalifornia

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay ~ book review

In the 1920s, Bryn Mawr classmates Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough ventured abroad to England and France. In 1942, they regaled the world with stories from this prolonged visit by collaborating to write memoir/travelogue Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.

I very much enjoyed the authors’ colorful descriptions and humorous observations. They poked fun at their own mistakes, innocence, and language, culture, and fashion gaffes. Some incidents, like Emily’s throwing a deck chair to a drowning man, are laugh-out-loud funny. Three of my favorite descriptions are:

“I was tall and moved like a McCormick reaper.”

“We looked like a pair of igloos out for a stroll.”

“I had tried camouflaging my face with slathers of foundation cream and half the contents of a box of face powder. The effect was that of someone who had been ducking for apples in a paper-hanger’s bucket.”

Between goofy incidents, funny metaphors and similes, and clever, vivid language, I found myself laughing a lot while reading this book. Whether these women found humor, or humor found them, I am not sure. Either way, the book is light-hearted.

The book holds some historical interest as well. What was it like crossing the ocean on a steamship? How did ships avoid icebergs in dense fog? What was it like depending upon a porter to move mountains of trunks and luggage and garment bags? Once in Europe, the girls traveled mostly by train, but I got to learn of various 1920s conveyances such as “open Daimler” and “tally-ho” and “torpédo.” The girls also had a broad classical education in those days, as their conversations were peppered with mythical, literary, and artistic references. Not too many 19-year-olds today would liken a sight to a “Stygian tunnel” or Macbeth seeing Banquo’s ghost, or Millet’s “The Angelus.”

References that didn’t fascinate me so much were to stage actors of the day. Skinner’s father was a famous actor, so she traveled in that milieu. I don’t recall recognizing any entertainer’s name she mentions in the book. The girls had a number of personal experiences with Cornelia’s family’s connections. Also, Cornelia and Emily describe in some detail fashions and their wardrobes for different events. Except where their clothing added to the humor of a story, I wasn’t so interested in those descriptions, but that’s just me.

I was charmed by the authors’ innocence and emotional honesty. As impressively educated as they were, as resourceful as they were to study French while in France, and as proud of their first independent adventure as they were—they were still girls. For example, when the ship stopped briefly in Cherbourg, “Emily put her head down on the rail and cried again because the French were turning out just as she thought they would.” Another example was when measles-ridden Cornelia admitted she just wanted her mother. And in their fear of abandonment in the Rouen cathedral bell tower, they concocted such an elaborately frightful worst-case scenario—including imagining tossing bits of clothing from the deserted tower so that passers-by finding sweaters floating down would look up and see the girls stranded in the tower, but instead the clothing would catch on gargoyles and never reach the ground—that they scared themselves into rushing down and out of the cathedral so fast, their exit created enough wind to blow out the votive candles.

Parts of this European adventure took me back to my own European “firsts,” reminding me of pensions with shared bathrooms down the hall, the wonder of standing where Charlemagne stood, and the leisure of wandering. I loved that the day before Cornelia and Emily left Paris, they visited their favorite places; and what they chose was sweet. The book ends with the statement that both authors have been back to Europe since, but this was the trip when “Our hearts were young and gay and we were leaving a part of them forever in Paris.”   

Review of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

In need of a pick-me-up? Pick up any P.G. Wodehouse story about Bertie Wooster and his gentleman’s gentleman Jeeves. I dare you to frown even once as you frolic in English countryside with the likes of Stiffy Byng, Gussie Fink-Nottle, and Stinker Pinker, the local curate. Just reading their names brings a smile to my face.

If you’ve read (or seen on TV) any of the ten or more Jeeves & Wooster stories, you know that ingenious Jeeves must rescue scatterbrained Wooster from awkward pickles. In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Bertie must be rescued from a series of pickles, including repeatedly being mistaken for a thief and being threatened with an unwanted betrothal to the demanding daughter of the very man who detests him most, ex-magistrate Sir Watkyn Bassett. Hilarity ensues.

I could picture the silliness of most of the scenes, and my favorite was one in which Bertie and Watkyn bump into each other in the hallway in the middle of the night. “...as I felt my way along the wall I collided with what turned out to be a grandfather clock, for the existence of which I had not budgeted, and it toppled over with a sound like the delivery of several tons of coal through the roof of a conservatory. Glass crashed, pulleys and things parted from their moorings, and as I stood trying to separate my heart from the front teeth in which it had become entangled, the lights flashed on and I beheld Sir Watkyn Bassett.” Moments later both men leap onto a large chest to avoid being bitten by a dog. Wodehouse unfolds this scene over seven pages with perfect pacing, droll observations, and funny dialog. Not to mention Watkyn’s dressing gown of yellow frogs on bright purple fabric.

Wodehouse’s clever wordplay, colorful descriptions, and understated British humor always delight me.

Review of Elsewhere

In Elsewhere, Richard Russo recounts a lifetime of episodes showcasing his mother’s fears. By the end of her life, a sky-high stack of such episodes teetered perilously in life’s breezes. That the tremulous tower never toppled is due to decades of her devoted son’s solicitude.  A life story such as Jean Russo’s could have become tiresome if told by a less masterful storyteller than her son. Though Jean’s myriad anxieties permeate the family stories of origins and travels and troubles, Richard tells the stories interestingly, mixing vivid memories with insightful observations about character and relationships.

Besides his mother’s eccentricities, another thread throughout the stories is her delusions that any place else would be better than where she was. Hence, the book’s title, Elsewhere. The book also looks at the legacy of the leather-tanning industry in Russo’s home town, Gloversville, New York.

Despite the stressful subject, I was always eager to pick up the book again for the next stories. And I hope Richard Russo writes a sequel, because I think Elsewhere leaves unanswered questions. He begins asking questions such as, “How could I have failed to see in myself the very traits I’d so confidently assigned to her?” [p. 161] But he doesn’t satisfactorily answer them. And he probes psychological underpinnings of his mother’s anxieties and suspects his own behaviors were enabling. But as his hindsight lengthens, an author as observant and sensitive as Russo will no doubt have more self-reflections to share. And I’d buy that Who am I? book, too. I might even like that better than this book, which is more of a Who was my mother? memoir.