On The Road - And Buddha Laughs

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Hudson Mills Metropark

Dexter, MI

Hi Everyone,

I'm sitting in my Odyssey with Orion and Rosie in their crates and I'm parked in the lot overlooking the rapids at Hudson Mills. There are perhaps 15 yards of grassy sloped embankment between the car and the rapids. The Huron River is in fine, full, fast, flowing form today. I'm vividly recalling a terrifying event that occurred last year at about this time.

The Huron River is in flood stage, the rapids are a raging torrent. The water has risen all the way up the grassy embankment to the parking lot. I'm letting Orion out of the van when his lead slips off his collar. He realizes he is unconstrained and charges into the water. He can't swim, so he flails his front paws wildly as he bobs up and down in the relative calm of the flooded  embankment. Five more yards further out and he will be swept away by the Huron's massive current. He is oblivious to the danger. I shout his name over and over but it is useless. He is drifting towards the charging rapids. A sinking feeling of helpless desperation seizes my mind and shakes me violently. I am frozen in fear. I'm about to charge into the water to attempt an extremely dangerous rescue when I hear another car pull into the parking lot.  A Chocolate Lab bitch is released out the passenger door. Orion takes note immediately and struggles heroically to reverse his momentum and come ashore. After long anxious moments he is safe on shore, shaking off the water and schmoozing the Lab. I clip on his lead and he is saved, but it will take another five minutes before I stop shaking.

There, the secret is finally out. I never told Susan or anyone else about the events of that day. I couldn't bear to upset her so. Susan, please forgive me.

Several dozen Canadian Geese are, at this moment, peacefully grazing that same river embankment adjacent to the parking lot. I open the door ever so slowly as to not frighten them. There are about 10 adults and maybe 25 one month old juniors. They shuffle slowly as I open the door but are otherwise unimpressed. That will all change when I let the dogs out. So I wait. The Geese have their backs to the rapids. If I pull out the dogs, they'll flee into the river and the little ones will be swept away and drown. I wait some more. Maybe if I just gently open up the back and let them glimpse the crated dogs. They're still not impressed. I take out Rosie. They all instantly react and head towards the river. Rosie barks sharply. Everybody jumps into the rapids. My heart sinks. Then, in precise single files of 6 to 8 birds, an adult at both ends, youngsters in the middle, they glide majestically downstream over the rapids. When they are sufficiently far downstream they make a sharp left turn back to the river bank. It all happens with military precision and no commotion whatsoever. Well, no wonder they were so unconcerned. Ain't nature grand?

So speaking of nature, the grass is covered with it. The geese have left gifts of downey molted feathers and little goose poop dog treats. Orion's mouth is watering and is covered in fluffy white down. He looks positively rabid. Rosie is sniffing franticly. Goose treats give them terrible diarrhea. I yank on their leads and get them moving upstream along the bank. A woman appears directly ahead of us grasping a large camera in her left hand while waving a clipboard overhead in the other. She is followed closely by two other women. The scene reminds me of Delacroix's painting Liberty Leading the People, except, of course, Liberty's breasts are covered. The younger of the two other women is clad in a black cocktail dress, her long dark tresses spilling down over her shoulders. She is Mona Lisa. Her mother, Olympe de Gouges, peers suspicously as Liberty plucks weeds from around a large boulder for Mona Lisa to sit upon and pose for her portrait. As we pass close by them on the narrow path, Orion is urgently seized by the need to take a dump. As I kneel to pick up his load, Rosie gags on a piece of goose poop. Mona Lisa stops smiling and inquires if Rosie will be all right. I respond matter of factly that I don't know. Obviously perturbed by the disturbance Liberty motions the group to move on. Mona Lisa edges down off her perch and steps into goose poop. As she bangs her shoe on a rock and issues an explicative, Liberty waves the group further downstream. We continue our trek upstream through the poop fields.

In front of the Altarpiece in the Temple formed by the North Territorial Road Bridge over the Huron River I am thrust back to the events of May 26, 2010, Susan's 70'th Birthday. I am smiling inside at how much my feelings have changed since the disappointment of that day. If I were writing the story today it would have ended very differently. The issue, as I see it now, is not what happened, since that is indisputable, but rather how I interpreted what I saw. Peg replied to my description of the event in "On The Road - At Home in Dexter, MI" by saying:

"Susan was playboating!  She was doing a stall with her bow up.  And then, since she no longer needs oxygen for her journey, she was able to submerge and find herself in the river.  When she found exactly the right current, she resurfaced to show you that she was celebrating her day as she became one with the river to continue on her journey. ... You did exactly what you set out to do.  Susan found her place in the river." 

Standing there in my River Temple memories of Orion's narrow escape from the river trigger memories of the helplessness I felt when I saw Susan's kayak submerge. But I do not dwell there, as my mind-stream carries me forward to the goose babies floating gently over the churning rapids. Most certainly Susan could have floated peacefully downstream in her kayak, it would have been the most natural thing to do. But then Susan would have remained "on" the river rather than "in" the river. Instead, Susan goes playboating, and in a swift kayak maneuver Susan's ashes find their rightful place.

We follow the trail out from under the bridge and cross over the bridge along a sidewalk bordered on both sides by a low railing. When we reach the center of the bridge Orion is suddenly seized by the urge to dump again. There is no grass anywhere around so Orion is forced to use the sidewalk as his toilet. Fortunately I have another bag, the last of three I started with. As I bend to pick up the poop, I catch a glimpse of a golf chariot speeding along the sidewalk directly at us. I immediately recognize the charioteer as the same chap that ordered me to pick up Rosie's lead on Susan's birthday. I forget about the poop and hold the dogs tightly and squeeze against the railing. The chariot speeds by without slowing and squashes the poop against the sidewalk into a five inch pancake. Kneeling down, I struggle to figure out how to pick it up. It is then that I see Budai approaching me from the opposite direction as the chariot. I recognize him by his bald head, walking stick, expanded waistline and elongated earlobes. I've always know him as Laughing Buddha. He smiles knowingly at me as he approaches, but I lower my eyes both as an acknowledgment of his greatness and shame for my poop pancake. If he is really Budai then he's already carrying a much bigger bag than I have. And as we turn and walk away we hear Buddha laugh. 

Hoping that Buddha laughs at you,

Stan

On The Road - Muskegon, MI

Memorial Day Weekend

Muskegon, Michigan

Hi Everyone,

On a hot spring day, the breeze that slides along the face of Lake Michigan can feel like an arctic blast. Later today I'll play baseball with the twins and we'll soak through our shirts before quitting in the middle of the second inning, not that I couldn't have gone longer, but then, I don't run as hard as they do. But now I'm thinking I wish I had worn a long-sleeved shirt. Stretched ahead is a long breakwater, terminated by a red lighthouse. A sign announces "Welcome to Pere Marquette Park." "A lot of ships have gone down here in storms," notes Chuck, and my mind jumps to the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, the last stop on the last vacation trip of all of the wonderful trips that Susan and I made together. It was to have been a repeat of our loop around Lake Superior, but circumstances dictated a shorter and less strenuous route, so we camped in Muskegon State Park before moving on to Tahquamenon Falls State Park with an intermediate stopover in Petoskey.

Susan's first born child Sharon, her husband Chuck, twin 11 year old sons Elijah and Garrett and I walk a quarter mile out into Lake Michigan along a smooth concrete pavement constructed over thousands of humvee sized quarried rocks. There is a definite feeling of separating ourselves from the ordinary. The crowded beach disappears behind us, and except for the ribbon of earth that supports us we are surrounded by water and sky. The wind and water sound a familiar melody. Jimmy Buffett singing "Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes." Key West, the Conch Republic at the end of the Overseas Highway. We're all going back to Key West, at least symbolicly. At the Red Lighthouse at the End of the Road we'll scatter Susan's ashes over the water.

"Use your will to Zen away the cold", I tell myself. Think Beach, Think Sun, I'm warm, I'm warm. "I'm cold!" Sharon announces.  Sharon is walking just ahead of me, the goose bumps on her shoulder glimmering in the noonday sun. "Is that a new tattoo?" I ask. "Just had it done for my Mom," replies Sharon, "It's the Keys". And Indeed it is. Ahhh, the Keys, I'm feeling warmer already. The Florida Keys were a magical time and place for Sharon and Susan. They walked and talked the beaches, the mangroves, Duval Street, sunsets at Mallory Square, and on, and on, and they lunched together under the palms and sipped Margaritas in warm caressing breezes. For all of us, the Keys are an earthly paradise. For Sharon and Susan, The Keys forge an indestructible link that bonds them eternally.

The breakwater we walk forms a protective harbor for the shipping channel that connects Muskegon Lake to Lake Michigan. Muskegon State Park where Susan and I camped is just the other side of the channel. Susan and I walked the length of the channel along a sidewalk. It was hard for her. Our goal was the green navigation sign at the end of the channel. We made it all the way. It was our last walk together. I look across the channel at the green navigation sign. It tells boaters that they should be on this side of the channel if they are going out into the lake. The red lighthouse at the end of the breakwater that we are on signifies "Red, Right, Return," which I recall from my Keys boating days. Yes Susan, today we are returning.

Wrapped in our new used popup camper in sandy Muskegon State Park astride beautiful Muskegon Lake on that late August day just last year Susan talked with Sharon on her cellphone. They talked a long time, for there was much to say. So much had happened since the Keys. And in this place on that day they reforged their bond. Susan cried and hugged the phone when their conversation ended. I cried. Sharon's back.

Beyond the Red Lighthouse at the End of the Road Sharon releases Susan's ashes into the water and into the sky. She pours ashes into her hand and sprinkles them gently. She pours ashes into Chuck's hand and Chuck releases them into the water. She pours ashes into the hands of her sons and they hurl them, faces beaming, out over the boundless lake. The boys wipe their hands off on Grandpa's shirt. I welcome the boyish irreverence in their expression of love. Everyone is feeling good. The chill in the air is gone.

The path back ends on a beach capped by large sand dunes that invite everyone to play. Sharon, Garrett and Elijah run up and down the dunes, jumping, falling, rolling, covering themselves in sparkling sand, filling their lungs with the bright Muskegon air. Chuck suggests we all get ice cream, so we pile back into the car and Chuck zooms us off to the more urbanized part of Muskegon. Back at the Red Lighthouse a delicate sweetness luffs over the swells, and the water spirits tiptoe ever so delicately across the waves.

Wishing you many gravity defying, hair-raising adventures,

Stan