My grandmother once rode a train through the middle of a forest fire. I heard the story second-hand from my dad. The family settled in Alpena, he told me, and never returned home to Tower, Michigan. Grandma was four years old. She was born in 1904. Tower is about 15 miles west of […]
When You Need to Seam Home
The men are laying new vinyl today. “Do you want the seam here… or there?” asks the one in charge. And I’m thinking, I don’t care. I won’t be living with it. This will no longer my home. I’m losing my sense of home. I’m already separating from it like a dying person begins to […]
When You Need to Disengage to Redirect
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” ~Anatole France Home. That’s the word I chose to guide my year in 2015. “It might mean fewer words see the light this […]
scripture sunday: safe house
God’s a safe-house for the battered, a sanctuary during bad times. The moment you arrive, you relax; you’re never sorry you knocked. ~Psalm 9:9-10 (MSG) Stilled and safe, Sandy With Deidra
God Moments with G-Ma and Grace: Sugarloaf Mountain (repost)
We stay on the island as long as possible and then cross the Mighty Mac to the upper peninsula. Grace has waited for this all day. We travel west along Lake Superior and soak in the wonder of sky and water. Later He wraps us in pink and lavender and gold. The next day we decide […]
Textures of Text: Michigan Food and Trivia
I love my new cookbook, The Best of the Best from Michigan. I can’t wait to try the Country Tomato Pie or the So-Creamy Sweet Potato Soup or Bev’s Strawberry-Pecan Salad or the Bengal Lime Curry. But I also love all the Michigan trivia that it includes. Like the ones I’m sharing over at The […]
Saturday Snaps: A Peek at a Piping Plover
We’ve just come back from the Au Sable Light Station near Grand Marais, and the grandgirl and I are hiked out. She just wants to crash in the cabin with her Littlest Pet Shop critters and her case of plastic fish. I just want to make some coffee, put up my feet, and eye my slice […]
God Moments with G-Ma and Grace: The Soo Locks
It’s time to go home. But Grace saw a movie at school on the Soo Locks. She wants to see them up close and personal. And go through them. The scenery assaults me. We’ve come from peaceful and pristine to chaos and clutter. Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan side. A place of barges and docks and […]
Sunday Seasoned Sayings: Taquamenaw
(Photo of the upper Tahquamenon falls by Grace King) Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree! Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree! Growing by the rushing river, Tall and stately in the valley I a light canoe will build me, Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, That shall float on the river, Like a […]
God Moments with G-Ma and Grace: Tahquamenon Falls
Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints. But still they ignore pleas and commands and warnings. Still they ignore fences, leave the path, and flirt with danger. We watch adults lead their children astray, encourage them to dance in slippery spots. And we talk about how we might not be able to steep ourselves […]
