Michigan Living
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Rock Walls
The sky is blue today and so I open my windows to celebrate, letting the cross breeze cool the kitchen as I cut vegetables for tonight’s dinner. June, crabby and sick and possibly teething too, is taking an early nap today after dumping her pretzels on the living room floor and crying as she picked them back up, one after the other. I told her that it was okay to feel upset, sometimes we all just want to cry. Then, I plucked her from the floor like she does the tulips in our front garden, stripped off her red Converse and carried her to her crib. When all else fails,…
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Fredrick Meijer Garden 2017
The morning was spent in the thick of trees whose names we did not know. Overhead, sun spilled in the greenhouse feeding our bodies and the plants around us. It was one week before the butterfly exhibit was due to open at Fredrick Meijer Gardens, but already butterflies waltzed between us and the exotic plants, their wings revolving in a rhythmic harmony we could not turn our eyes from. Momentarily, Sean held June, balancing her chubby arm still in front of her body like the branch of a great tree, wishing that a butterfly might land there. But quickly, she grew annoyed– she was no tree. Squirming, she begged with…
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Our Winter Wonderland
June does not seem to recognize the concept of cold like Sean and I do. We take her outside to play in the snow, watching her cheeks and the tip of her nose turn pink in the winter air. She toddles down the recently shoveled sidewalk with purpose and determination. The fresh air has always evoked a side of her that the indoors cannot. Long after June had gone to bed the other night, Sean and I were watching a TV show in bed. One of the characters said that children, when they play, are hearing music in their heads. I watch June play outdoors, mystified by the swirling flakes…
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Days of the Golden Sun
The burrs on June’s tights remind me of the ones that used to stick to my shirt on my elementary school playground. Little and hard, like tiny battleships commandeering a port. I pick them from her as she squirms on my lap, annoyed by my constraint. We spent the morning playing baby doll, wrapping up dolls and pressing them against our chest, rocking them, kissing them, passing them back and forth between us. The game went on and on until at last the sun came out and we were able to escape outdoors. It has been days on top of days of rain here. Any hint of sunlight finds Sean…
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Into the Woods
I woke up this morning, thinking of Thoreau, who went deep into the woods to escape the chaos of society. My husband is so much like this great man: body and mind aching for the solitude of nature; so I followed him into the woods, unplugged and relaxed for the week. We spent undivided time together as a family vacationing in Michigan’s Upper Penninsula. It was exactly what we needed. There is a feeling of addiction from which new lovers suffer. Thoughts of one another eat away at their minds all day like a starving Pac-Man or a log on fire. This period of infatuated obsession is a short time…