Witching for Light in Michigan

There wasn’t a light in the pea-green outhouse when my parents had purchased the small plot of lake-side land in Upper Michigan in ’95, during a time when you didn’t have to be from Illinois and rich to do so. Electricity was the last thing they’d install. “That’s what they made candles and flashlights for,” Mom said.

First they cut down the thick patches of pines and birches alone the shoreline so that you could actually see the lake from a top the hill where the green, trailer sat from the previous owners from Florida. It was a summer home for them, a mansion to us. The trailer sat like a time machine forgotten about: the roofed sagged, the floor had bullet-size holes that had to be plugged up, and mice had taken over every cubby. It was ours just the same.

A year later, a local friend of our family from Watersmeet, a well witcher, came out with a willow branch in the shape of a wishbone tucked into his back pocket like a sling shot. He walked slowly back and forth across the sandy property as though looking for gold coins until the tip of the branch pulled his old arms downward: If the branch could have spoken, it would’ve said, “Here! Here! Dig here! Here is where the water is!”

Years later, electricity came, like an announced visitor that wasn’t welcomed to supper. For, no one likes to set an extra plate when everyone around the table wants seconds—takes the hunger out of things.

Light, unlike water, is not something you need. . . . You can think in the dark.

Stopping at the Gas Station for Candy Necklaces

Every time my father would squeeze Jenny and I in the cab of his truck, his fist bumping my knees every time he’d shift, he’d stop by the gas station just outside of Fond du Lac on 151 and come out with candy necklaces: one for each of us. Pink, blue, white, yellow, orange—all colors that looked different but tasted quite the same. But, because it was from my father, he didn’t surprise us with much outside of Christmas, I wore it around my neck like diamonds.

My first broken heart—like all firsts—you remember forever because like the first time you ride your bike without training wheels, first hug from your mother, your first beer, you don’t forget that feel that taste of being alive. My mother said she was “staying out of it,” but my father, he was there.

He sat down on the edge of my bed and said two things to me: First, “There will be others.” Second, “You want me to get my shotgun?”

My father is naturally a closed man, but he is an honest man that knows that candy necklaces are sweeter than diamonds just like first loves.

My Mother Voted for Ross Perot

When I was in third grade, my mother voted for Ross Perot because she felt bad because he had big ears.

My family wasn’t into politics growing up. It wasn’t until around high school that I began to understand what a Democrat and Republican was: another two labels that you had to choose from to categorize yourself—jock/book worm, daddy’s girl/mommy’s girl, pretty/ugly.

I choose to be a Democrat. Felt more “wick” out of the two; Democrat sounded alive and light as it rolled off your tongue than the harsh and sturdy “R” of Republican.

Though as you get older, what you think doesn’t matter much, it’s about what others tag you as. As if every adult walks around with a barcode on their foreheads, scanned by others with a first impression:

1. Female, stout, mousy pretty, nice thighs, successful job (she has insurance), and she takes good care of her dog (three walks a day).

2. Male, tall slender frame, soft laboring hands (a contradiction), long eye lashes, wants the most, the “everything” out of life but is not sure how to get his hands on it or keep it for that matter. He is disappointed but can play through it.

3. Female, looks young enough to be kicked out of a bar, some call her beautiful but she’d rather be witty. She is “ok” with being alone but secretly wants someone who can be alone with her.

My mother, my parents have many labels, but political is not one of them; they are much more than what the government can label them as am I.

95 year-old Woman and an 8 year-old Girl in a 26 year-old Body

If it had been ten years ago, ten months ago, ten weeks ago, from today I might have been able to tell you that the flowers in the field, their bright colors, tasted just as good as they looked. I’d bite into one—punch—apple, lemon, orange. Their juices, their souls would have dripped from my thick lips.

But now, my lips, once broad with desire, have gotten smaller, almost vanishing just like all the important things I have love in my young and old life.

I pluck a blossom today, a lavender one. I take a bite. Taste nothing.

Like a 95 year-old woman, I have forgotten how to taste . . . to love.