From Michigan
The Bluffs
Now I laugh at how quick I am to sleep on planes, and how soon I adjust to time differences (albeit, only three hours later). I must be getting old.

It also strikes me as ironic that as soon as I come out here, expecting to swelter in the midwest, it's upward of 100 degrees back home and only seventy-five here. It's raining though, a warm, sticky, humid summer rain nothing like what we ever have in Eugene. It rains and rains and rains, BIG, wet, drops that will soak you in an instant. And in an instant a downpour can become a vicious thunderstorm or... stop... and be as sunny as it was five minutes earlier. When I stepped off the puddle-jumper yesterday, a hot, wet wind nearly blew me off the runway. I thought, "this must be what the plane feels like, flying over the great lakes every day..."

So I'm here at my Gran (formerly known as Yia-Ya) and Grandpa's house in Traverse City on the Bluffs. Well, technically it's BELOW the bluffs, but it's on Bluff road. The water from the bay, Lake Michigan, is just across the road as I remembered it three years ago. Things stay the same, but they still change. The water level has dropped to extremes. They haven't had the dock out since we left and hence haven't been able to moor the speedboat in front of the house. What was a rock and sand beach is now almost a marsh, swampily filled with tall reeds and grasses. Apparently there are polliwogs and leeches nesting there. POLLIWOGS... in a Great Lake! Blasphemy!!

I haven't gone swimming in the lake yet. It's been pouring buckets on and off, too cool (though it feels hot) and cloudy for a satisfying swim. I went with Gran to her aqua-aerobics class today to get a little excersize, but the instructor was out so the ladies all diddled around and did a mini-workout while I chatted and swam. I took a thirty-minute run on the road later in the evening (between rains) to compensate. Oh, and last night saw Uncle Steve and Aunt Kathy with Melissa, their daughter, for a while. We had pork ribs (yes, me ate pork x-b) and chatted. Damn, that child has gotten HUGE suddenly! But I suppose they think the same thing about Eleanor... and me, for that matter.

Things here are comfortable. I don't feel at all out-of-place. Slightly doted on and a little nostalgic... but it's not weird. I really haven't sat down and contemplated the business of "getting back to my roots" yet. I suppose that's what I'm doing here, after all. I decided to come back to Michigan one morning in June after having a nervous breakdown upon discovering my grandmother was flying all my sisters- but me- back to Warren for a month. So here I am mostly of my own means (and hence a much clearer schedule) with nothing in mind except to see what I can see.

Tomorrow we're driving up to Port Oneida road, where the cottage was. This was my sacred space growing up. Thankfully, I realized it was a sacred space and was able to enjoy it as such before we lost it to the Park Service. Stupid contracts, stupid preservation of land. They condemned the property shortly after we left and it's taken them this long to move the house to a different location. Their plan to "preserve the dunes" has left them with a lot less maintained and more corroded than when we spent time there, at least to my understanding. I suppose I'll see tomorrow.

It's really easy to talk to Grandma... though I still have a hard time not calling her by her chosen pseudonym, Yia Ya. She seems spritely and as sharp-minded as I remember her. Grandpa, on the other hand, has suffered two strokes since I last saw him. I always had a more difficult time talking to him because he was always so strongly-spoken and, well, republican. But to be honest, he was a great inspiration to me... the Travel Journalist of the family, the Adventurer. I never knew it, but he was who made me want to be what I am. Thankfully, he's recovered a great deal from the devastating sensory and memory loss caused by his strokes and is much easier to talk to. He seems to get a bit lost in memories sometimes, and I can still never think of anything to ask him about (I get flustered) but at least I have the chance. Oh, and the Gato... Squeaker Tom... a huge black cat with a soprano squak. Hairy and loving as always. What a great house.

It smells nice here, like rain and childhood. I don't know if being here (or anywhere else I'm going, for that matter) will send me any revelations but it certainly is comforting.

Lesley is coming up North tomorrow, and we shall probably see each other for a day in Traverse City. I'd be content to sit here and read and sleep but I'm also eager to see her. Eager and anxious. Her voice doesn't sound quite like I remember it and I'm kind of scared to see if/how she's changed since high school. I know I have... but I'm proud of it. I'll be riding down with her to Ann Arbor on Saturday to spend a few days with Sian before she heads out to Japan on Monday. Then I've got the better part of that week with the other set of grandparents... the ones who (hoo boy) don't know I'm a heathen witch with a demoralizing living situation. (oh ya!) Looks like I might even get to go to Cedar Point with Lesley that week!!! SWEET. West Coast, you have nothing on this amusement part. Enchanted Forest can suck... yah... erm....

Well, I'm off to a peaceful, quiet sleep before I ruin my start at time adjustment. I miss a bed mate but it's also a welcome change. Especially not having to fix anyone breakfast in the morning. ; D

I hope work is holding up well without me. Apprarently some idiots didn't get the list mail I sent out to both my departments, cause they're all like "help, my printer's broken!!" like they can't look up how to fix it on the internet. So I was like, "did it go be be bee beep and eat, like, half your paper?" cause I found it on the internet and sent them how to fix it. And my grandma uses AOL. *smacks forehead* Sometimes I wonder if there's hope for progress anywhere in the wide world web....

But I digress. I must impress, I'm not here for progress but to regress. SO, I suppose, this is my cue to take my repose... upon white, downy pillows

ah, crickets and fireflies.... night rains... how I missed you.