meltdown5/22/99 2 pm Lake Michigan, Holland State Park I am a Cancer. My mother is Aquarian. Together we used to watch water, sitting quiet on a beach, or a boat, sunglasses on, a book in one hand. Hearing the soothing wash of breaking waves, watching the sunlight sprinkle on the rippled surface. Just contemplating the vastness of the lake or ocean, the sheer volume of water before us. We visited my mother's sister, Bev, in Connecticut when I was ten. After an endless drive to the Sound, we sailed out toward Long Island in my uncle's prize sailboat. It was the biggest sailboat I'd ever been on. My uncle bustled and bossed; he's quite a bit older than Bev and the boat was his retirement gift to himself. He shouted nautical terms toward my two cousins, who grumbled mutinously. My mother and I lounged, out of the way, on vinyl-padded seats, until Bev suggested we scoot up under the sails to the front of the boat. After a bit of coaxing, my mother slid along the rails with me and we sat in the wind, surrounded on three sides by cresting water.
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Sunlight spatter
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My parents rent a condo for a week each summer on the channel of Lake Charlevoix. The town of Charlevoix spans this channel with a single drawbridge. The bridge lifts twice every hour to allow boats to pass from Lake Charlevoix and the marina into Lake Michigan. The 2nd floor condo faces the channel, so the passing yachts and sailboats are only 50 or so feet away. Every 30 minutes a horn sounds, a bell chimes, and traffic slows to a halt as the bridge is drawn. During the ten minutes before the horn, boats back up on either side of the bridge until they can pass. My parents sit on their balcony all week and watch the boats come in and out of the marina. Just watching the affluence float by. The pedigreed yacht dogs. The town of Charlevoix supports a tourism boom in the summer, but the tiny shops of downtown can only hold one's interest for an afternoon, especially if one doesn't have several hundred dollars to blow on a wooden carving of a lighthouse. Or an undying love of pastel "C-H-A-R-L-E-V-O-I-X" sweatshirts, with lighthouses in the background. Northern Michigan is all about lighthouses.
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Sailboat Names
Gig ‘Em [Manda's sunfish: Sassy Tessie]
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2:30 pm
A group of four Indian men and one woman, three cameras among them. Business people taking in the tourism sights between meetings. When the tuba-euphonium ensemble from U-M toured down here, my host family had a house right around here somewhere. It was early March, I remember because I'd just broken up with Mike and I was missing his birthday. My quintet walked to the beach together, I think it was Dave, Bernard, Matt T., Matt S. and me. The lake sported ice bergs and chunkies, and a huge snowy crust framed the beach on the water side. We walked along on this ten-foot thick ice bridge, cracking jokes and marveling at the huge cresting waves that slapped away bits of ice from the bottom of the crust. I remember stepping down a little too hard, silly and defiant, hitting a soft spot and feeling my foot crunch through layers until I was shin-deep in frozen lake. The looks on my companions' faces were priceless.
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I love the legs of teenage girls. Smooth, healthy, fearless. Their biggest worry is stubble, or a farmer tan.
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3:00 pm
I have to stop myself from thinking this may be my last trip here for a long time. Another manifestation of my obsession with the future. When will I learn to love the present? In any case, I promise I will come here again before I move. I may not see Holland again for a while, but I have to get to Duck Lake before I become a resident of elsewhere. On the bright side: moving to Georgia brings me one step closer to having a sailboat of my own.
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3:30 pm Holland, MI, Tunnel Park I followed signs to this place, wondering exactly what they meant by "Tunnel Park" and I came to this place where I have been before. My earliest memories are from Holland, MI. The lake (the cold, cold lake) the boats, the channel, the Whippi-Dip. I had forgotten this park. It's the back of a dune. Most of the slope is feathered with dune grass, but a large patch has been cleared so people can sled down on cardboard boxes, or on their asses, if they feel like it. Maybe 40 feet high, almost a 60 degree angle. One new thing: there's a staircase at one edge. I remember standing at the side, 5 or 6 years old, realizing I'd never make it to the top. I spent an afternoon climbing halfway or one third of the way up and rolling down from there.
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There's an overabundance of blonde people in western Michigan.
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4 pm
Can't believe I never found this park before. The top of Tunnel Park, roughly, I dunno, fifty yards above the beach. "Tunnel" refers to the tunnel between the park and the lake, right under a giant dune. I'm on a bench, facing a huge vista of my favorite-favorite place. If I swivel my head from straight-left to straight-right there's nothing but sand and clouds and water, framed by stunted trees and dune grass.
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One of the silliest words ever: buoy. buoy buoy buoy buoy Did anyone else call them "boo-ies" when they were young? Anyone still call them that? boo-ie boo-ie
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I have to look silly. Old sandals, bare feet, legs poking out of rolled-up jeans--for sand walking. How does one walk in sand without looking foolish? Green fleece sweatshirt over garlic-scented blue men's dress shirt. Found that in the trunk :) Hood pulled up over my green straw hat. Sunglasses and purple nail polish. Writing in my silly journal. I don't look half as silly as the 8-ish girl on the beach who keeps throwing a beach ball into the air, into the wind. Goes up 6 inches, comes back 8 inches and bops her in the face. Funny once, even funnier that she keeps doing it. Little kid digging with both hands between his knees, like a dog. Throws himself forward into his ditch. Older sister scoops dirt over him until he's a lumpy sand worm. So much work to set up your volleyball net on the beach. Why not use one of the sand courts you had to pass on the way to the waterfront? Or did you want the added effect of the wind blowing the ball all over the place? 45 minutes later: After all that work, the ball hit the net once and the whole thing came down. Little girl in a huge fluorescent green sweatshirt stumping through the sand. Her walking is stilted and arrhythmic, like the 2-legged AT-AT's in Return of the Jedi. She alone looks dumber than I do when struggling across the beach. There's a fluorescent green lump at the edge of the water--probably the bottom half of that darling outfit she's wearing. :)
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4:30
Oh, yeah. The reason I'm here. I hate the wedding. Hate it. Finally FINALLY got my parents excited about the Adrian wedding. We talked about the church, the SMALL guest list of two families and a few friends. The cake, the photos, the dress. John thinks there are too many people coming, but he won't say that, he just gets quiet. The he says, "This is turning into a real wedding, isn't it?" Always. He always says that. Today I got a little pissy. He's refusing to help me with this. I understand; neither one of us really wants to do it, but one of us has to and I'm the one here, so it's all me--fine fine FINE. But does he get to criticize? I said, "Look. There's only one way to do this without a real wedding, and you aren't willing to do that." "What, elope?" "Yes." "We can do that, god, we just have to let my parents be there." "Dude. It's not eloping if your parents are there." I blasted him with that one. He hates it when I do that. So we went around again. "Do we have to do this again? You know we can't have your family there and not have my family there...blah blah blah...." I started to feel like I was trapped in the middle of a large group, charged with making everyone happy. Not one idea works unless I go ahead a plan out a full-blown wedding. And even then my dad is upset--he wanted us to elope. Every plan makes John quieter and quieter. So today, in the quiet, I mentioned that I might ask my friend, April, to take pictures of us. "This is starting to sound like a real wedding..." pause, "dude." He knows I love it when he calls me "dude." I was silent. Furious tears welled up (silently) and I pressed my lips together with my fingers to keep from shrieking. "Come on, Bets--family, photography, now you want to know what I'm wearing...." (icily) "I have to know whether you're wearing a suit or a tux so I know how fancy my dress should be." If John wears his tux, my dress will be expensive. If he wears a suit, my dress isn't so hard, but he doesn't own a suit. If he wears the tux, we have a good reason not to have others stand up with us, because the men would have to rent tuxes. I told him I wanted to cancel the whole thing. I'm sick to death of the wedding. I just want to be married to John, but if this is my trial, screw it. I can live with him without being married. Should I truly hate my wedding? If I'm going to have a wedding, I want a damn wedding. With a dress and a cake and my friends and a groom who will accept the whole thing. I don't need a wedding in order to be happy. I would be happy with an Elvis officiant or an Air Force base chapel; I'd be delighted. Then I could look back and say we married efficiently, spontaneously, happily. With my thrown-together affair, I'll have to look back and say it was a shabby wedding, AND I was miserable. Because I am miserable. I don't want to start my marriage this way. It's off.
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