Lake Superior Vision Quest

We leave the placid shores of Lake Minnetonka

for the shining big sea water, Gichigami. (Kitchee Gummi?)
Our destination, Duluth, is a gem of a city nestled into the cliffs of the north shore of Lake Superior, on the far western tip of the Great Lakes.
Duluth is an industrial harbor, servicing mining and grain corporations. Taconite iron ore pellets and wheat abound. Big water, big boats, big machines.
The mixture of natural beauty and industry in Duluth has always seemed oddly magical to me. Minimalist sculpture in landscape. I always think that more R&D should be done with this combination, giving nature a chance to work on some of the problems created by industry instead of just being destroyed.The first part of our vision quest is to visit my father's grave - it is the 6th anniversary of his death.
The day he was buried was bitterly cold with icy snow flurries, but today the weather is warm and benevolent - unusual for April in Duluth.He is buried next to my brother Mark who died at the age of five from an inoperable brain tumor. I was three at the time, and my sister Sherry was born soon after his death. Yellow roses were Gordie's favorite flower. The day he died Shirley, Sherry and Dan were in his hospital room as the rising sun moved slowly up his white-sheeted body, making him glow gold as his soul flew away. I will always be sad that I missed these last moments by just a few hours.Next we drive to Canal Park to our hotel - here is our first view of the famous Aerial Bridge:Finally!!! Ahhh, a sigh of huge relief and joy. The air, the water, the light! The sun! The warm land breezes braiding into the cooler winds off the lake!Sherry and I walk the shores of Park Point, a kind of barrier penisula nearly six miles long that divides the lake from the bay, then take a break and enjoy our driftwood cigars.

Beach creatures abound. Sherry wants this particularly beautiful piece of driftwood for her birthday. Where is Brett when you need him? Or maybe several Bretts? Here is Sherry skipping a rock with excellent form:

The water is no more than 35 degrees F., a bare - brrrr! - three degrees above freezing. And that's about where it will stay until August or so, barring the odd southerly wind blowing warmer water from the south shore this way. That happened one year, bringing people down to the lake for the unusual occurrence of swimmable water, and several people had to be rescued by surfers with fins and boards after being caught in rip currents.One young man actually did drown. It was one of those sad small-world events as he happened to be the grandson of my godmother Elizabeth, at the lake with his fellow house-mates from their home for the developmentally disabled. No life guards on duty because there's not usually a lot of swimming in this part of the lake - except for the hardy few, it's too cold! This is how Duluth keeps the riff-raff out - were the weather better and water warmer, it would be as crowded as the Mediterranean. I put my feet into the crystal clear water with rubber boots on and the cold goes into my bones. We see a little boy about two years old sitting and playing in the tiny waves, his bare feet and legs beet red. There are numerous young adults chatting on the sand and I am wondering - should I say something? Do they not understand HOW COLD THIS WATER IS? - when the baby pushes himself up and hobbles red-legged up the sand to his parents.On the way back we go through the Aerial Bridge in the sunset, then eat dinner at the fabulous Lake Cafe in Canal Park - Sherry has liver and onions which she loves in spite of my gagging. Here she tries to cover it up with the figs so I will stop making annoying faces: My mom and I get into a bit of a raised-voice to-do about Fox News, which she watches religiously every morning because they give her the stories that she doesn't get anywhere else.

I say, excuse me? that's because they lie? which makes her mouth go into a little 'O' as if I've said, sorry, Shirley, there is no Santa Claus. She feels beleaguered and put upon by her children who CAN'T STAND TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM WHEN THAT STUPID NETWORK IS SPEWING VITRIOL AND DISTORTIONS AND MISINFORMATION. But we get through this testy moment and upon leaving the restaurant find that the temperature has gone down about twenty degrees during dinner. Later she buys me two beautiful glasses that resemble the ones in the Dutch still-lifes that I coveted, these made by Anton Vojeck of Oulu Stained Glass in Oulu, Wisconsin.

What's not to love about Duluth!

Sunday, Easter Sunday

Such a pastoral scene here in this Lutheran church in the heart of Minnesota (Garrison Keillor-land). But scratch the surface and the Good Friday/Easter weekend is fraught with connections and complications: cruelty, betrayal, torture, darkness,

(Grunewald, Eisenheim Altarpiece, 16th century)

then eggs, fluffy bunnies and roll away the stone. Fertility symbols and bloody thorns. Interesting how intimate this holy-day is with the Jewish Passover, the setting for the Last Supper, a seder.

(Jacopo Bassano, 16th century)

Indeed, the date of Easter is dependent on where Passover falls in the Hebrew lunar calendar. Yet I grew up without really comprehending Jesus’s Jewishness, much less his mother Mary’s.

The pastor’s sermon is a riff on a small purple crocus giving a man hope and faith after a long dark winter. The congregation’s children gather at the altar for their own special service where each is given a plastic egg and exhorted to wait, wait, all together now: open! Oh, NO – a mass sigh lifts to the rafters - empty eggs!
This very emptiness is where Easter finds its meaning - the body having left the tomb! - they are told while many small fingers click and clack the empty egg-halves. Finally a large basket of candy is hauled to the altar, staving off a general uprising.

He is risen; they have candy.

(Grunewald, Isenheim Altarpiece)

I worry about the kids who have chocolate-sugar-food-coloring issues. I worry about the kids who cling to their parent’s sides and don’t go up to join the group. Until the candy comes out, that is. Then a strange dance: run up, grab egg, run back to parent, open, look around (chagrined), sit and fiddle until the basket of candy appears, run up, grab candy, run back. Is this fair? One of the shy little boys, about four years old, spends most of the service in his mother’s arms. Then when she stands to sing a hymn, he sits on the bench behind her and slips his head between her legs, over and over until he bumps his head and gets teary whereupon he goes back up in her arms. I am transfixed. A voyeur hiding behind a hymnal.

Here’s what we used to wear for Easter in Duluth: We would shop and plan our outfits for weeks: new hats, anklets, purses, shoes, corsages. My mother would sew our dresses. Now I see jeans in church. JEANS on EASTER! If the woman in front if me had worn a proper dress, her clingy child wouldn’t have been able to slide his head between her legs. As easily, anyway.

Not that I'm wearing a dress, either. But I have proper pants on, not JEANS!

The communion service offers a selection: red or white, wine and grape juice, respectively. Some churches have given up wine altogether which makes me wonder: What Would Jesus Think? White grape juice running through his veins? Obviously I must push my imagination to its limits to grok the radical new church. They have real bread here, too, standing in for the “body,” a round crusty loaf, not the dry wafers of yore that disintegrated on the tongue like old acidy paper. But have these bread-tearers and dispersers properly washed their hands? Really, when you think about it, church is a mine-field.

Much safer later on the deck with dessert, the only real hazards being my annoying brother Dan, the mother who loves him, badminton, Ali's tortoise, and the spring swamp filled with noisy crazy burgeoning life.






And last but not a bit least, a little Skype brings the family together the new old-fashioned way:

Perfect Saturday

Arrive at Sherry's, met by Izzy who has numerous complaints.Other inhabitants of Sherry's house include Peewee Herman, Ed Grimley, and Moe the cat.

Brett making breakfast - hard to tell who's the smoothie here.
Sherry (my sister) and I get to work:Here's what we didn't get at the yard sale:I love this box!!!! Want, want, want. Alas, can't have. Too big for the plane. Too big for my life.
I nixed the gray waves.
Anybody remember Billy Beer, put out by Jimmy Carter's troublesome small-time-huckster brother?
Elvis, we hardly knew ya.
This shirt triggers Sherry's gag reflex. Here's what I did get, spending 75 cents:A rare golden Egyptian pin.
Can't have too many WW2 books. I think I keep thinking I'll figure it all out someday. I spent the entire winter before my second son's birth reading about submarine warfare and concentration camps. Perhaps that's why Andrew is so thoughtful. Also, Ken Follett doesn't usually disappoint. His "Pillars of the Earth" about cathedral building was huge and gripping. However, his latest book "Fall of Giants" about WW1 is a good history lesson but the characters and plot-lines are less than memorable. Nothing like Herman Wouk's "Winds of War" that plunges you into the current of World War II and barely lets you take a breath. And then Wouk does it again with "War and Remembrance."

Later Sherry, Shannon (my niece) and I go to the Goodwill. As I said, this is a perfect day. Hours later, Sherry finally rejects the magic bling shoes, against my advice. Why, oh why would she not buy these fabulous shoes?At home, we make fabulous art, in the guise of coloring eggs:The blank canvases.
The elixir.
The amazing results! Abstract, subtle, a bit minimalist yet making a profound statement about the deep and rich roots of historic symbolism and its religious manifestations.

Shannon expounds upon the day to Ali, who is awed. Ali is on her second day as a brand new bartender, so sadly had to miss the thrift-sailing and Goodwill hunting.

As I say, it's been a pretty perfect day. For us, anyway. We appreciate our riches.