By Scott Sullivan
Editor
The Big Wave
“One in five Michiganders,” says the Vertical Cherry website, “turn to alcohol for making big financial decisions.” Well, that explains things.
“Do I dare to eat a peach?” I’d say in the day, overlooking the produce aisle. Furtive glance; no one watching; pull out peach schnapps hip flask. “Ahhh …”
Everyone exaggerates. VC linked me to data for all 50 states and rounded up Michigan’s from “just” 17 percent. In Louisiana, more than one in three tipplers (35 percent) spin the fiscal wheels.
Notably missing: data on fed and state leaders budgeting tax bucks our behalf. No threat of black ink here.
Lies abound showing numbers lie. Summer drives through west Michigan reveal Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice — “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you” — is true, at least 83 percent in most places.
For 18 years I’ve commuted between my Wyoming home and Saugatuck seeking my real one. Orange freeway cones, barricades and reflective new lane striping point me down Allegan and Ottawa county backroads. Getting lost, I find heaven over and over through my lens and heart viewed in golden light.
“If you” starts our state motto and “about you” ends it. “Pleasant peninsula” stands between those aspects of you and links them.
No man is an island, John Donne wrote in 1623, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
The 17th of Donne’s “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions” came with him beset by what Londoners’ called “spotted” fever, a mysterious malady that hit victims unexpectedly. It rendered them still consicous but physically helpless till what was expected — death — did they part.
Donne was in no hurry. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe — here I substitute “Michigan” for Donne’s context — is the less, as well as if a promontory were: as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were …
On into Saugatuck Township backroads get even better. Roadside fruit stands brim over with fresh peaches, pears, corn, berries, broccoli, apples soon and much more.
Toss coins in a coffee can left unattended, as growers trust you — It’s that kind of place. Crunch into gems from the earth and their sweet and tart textures fill you.
Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I woke last night from a sleepless dream of a big wave coming. The water shone and the sky was purple.
I wrote trying to make sense of this place between sub- and consscious: “He (i.e. I) had grown up on the lake. Waves lapped his feet; there were shells, stones, sand in them. How can a slave of light 60 years later have become so blind?”
The waves, light and water had not gone far. From a Douglas dune lip I watched Lake Michigan waves of all sizes, shining, rolling in.
“There is no reconciliation without first sundering,” wrote James Joyce in “Ulysses.” I came home to my daughter right in front of me. She forgave me.
The big wave of faith pledged all can be one in love again.
