Life From a Writer's POV
I met a little Elf-man, once…
…Down where the lilies blow.
I asked him why he was so small…
…And why he didn’t grow.
He slightly frowned, and with his eye
He looked me through and through.
“I’m quite as big for me,” said he,
“As you are big for you.”
—JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
All images copyright Naomi Baltuck
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo Challenge: Scale
When I toss a story out into the world, I never know if it will take wing, or where it will fly. I’m still amazed and grateful that Johan Lebichot found me via a post I’d written about my father.
Last year my sister and I traveled to Belgium to visit the Lebichot family to honor a friendship that reached across the ocean and seventy years back through time.
Lightning struck twice when I was emailed by a stranger who works at Machpelah Cemetery, where my father is buried. Kim wrote:
“While doing research on unused burial spaces here at Machpelah Cemetery in Ferndale, Michigan I googled your family name and found you! When I found “A Box in the Attic,” I realized I’d found the family who owns the space. I must tell you I couldn’t stop reading, to be able to put a face and story with these people was a gift…”
The plot thickens. My father died fifty years ago! The burial plot Kim wrote about was intended to be Mom’s final resting place. But when she died twenty-five years later, she wasn’t allowed to be buried beside my father because she wasn’t Jewish.
My dying mother said, “It doesn’t matter. He’s not there.”
What followed reads like the plot of an Afterlife Soap Opera. My mother Eleanor’s mother, Rhea, was buried next to her first husband, William, the true love of her life, and my grandmother’s second husband, Gus, was buried in another cemetery beside his first wife, Laura, but Mom’s stepdad, my Grandpa Gus, ended up with an extra burial plot, probably because his son Karl wanted to be buried beside the love of his life, Barbara, but Grandpa had always loved my mom, his stepdaughter, and so he offered it to her, since she couldn’t be be buried by her one and only, which is why my mother was buried next to her stepdad and not her husband, Harry, who was the true love of her life, but that’s okay, because Mom loved Grandpa too.
Last year, when visiting Mom’s grave, we spent nearly an hour kicking around the weeds before we found it and cleared away the grass. Mom would say, “It doesn’t matter. I’m not there.” In a way she’d be right. All her kids left Detroit long ago. After Aunt Loena is gone, I doubt I’ll return. But I decided to replace her headstone with one easier to find, just in case someone, maybe even from the next generation, wants to leave a pebble on her grave. Kim’s email was an eerily timely message, or at least a poke with a sharp stick.
Kim said we could plant a tree in the empty plot or even engrave Mom’s name on the glaringly empty space on Daddy’s headstone. “We could do that?” I asked. “If you write ‘In Memory…’ so people will know she’s not actually buried there,” said Kim. “I’ll consult my siblings and get back to you. It could take awhile–there are seven of us. In the meantime, please don’t bury a stranger beside my dad!”
I admit there were undercurrents of resentment because Mom was denied her place by Daddy all those years before. But times change, rules relax, Kim probably wasn’t even born when this drama occurred, and the people at Machpelah were eager to make amends. Our parents’ lives were hard, their story bittersweet, but no one could deny their love was true. Why not be grateful for the opportunity to give them as close to a happy ending as can be expected?
Most of us were onboard, and the others simply abstained as we discussed ideas for the inscription. It being my mom, “Wish I’d Brought a Book” would’ve been fitting. And at the start of each road trip, she’d say, “If there’s something we forgot to pack, we’ll buy a new one or do without.” This was a monumental journey for our mom, but we finally settled for the simple truth. “In loving memory.”
No bones about it, after fifty years or even just twenty-five, all that remains is ashes and dust. And their story. In West Africa they say, “One is not dead until one is forgotten.” Dear Mom and Dad, that which was surely connected in spirit has been commemorated–and written in stone. And now I’m lovingly sending your story out to the world. May it take wing, land where it will, and never be forgotten.
All words and images copyright 2014 Naomi Baltuck
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo Challenge: Gone, But Not Forgotten.
I was born in The Motor City. I graduated from U of M, and headed West to seek my fortune. I’ve lived in Seattle for over thirty years. It was love at first sight, it’s the home of my heart, and where my children were born…
…but I still feel unexpected tugs on my Midwestern roots.
Detroit is where my parents and grandparents are buried.
In French ‘Detroit’ means ‘channel or strait connecting two bodies of water.’ That would be the Detroit River that connects Lake Erie and Lake Huron.
That would also be my Aunt Loena, who connects me to my mother–through memories, blood ties, and love. Last spring I returned to the river that spawned me.
My Aunt Loena and sister Lee are still in Michigan, and are always ready for a visit.
We did a drive-by shooting of the old neighborhood…with a camera. We took shots of the little house I grew up in.
Many other houses were already pretty well shot.
Across from Newton School, a woman kept cranky geese in her yard, but the geese were long gone, and so was the house.
My high school was for sale. It was named for Thomas M. Cooley ( 1824-1898), a local boy done good. He started out with a small law business and ended up on the Michigan Supreme Court. In The Cooley Doctrine, he wrote “local government is a matter of absolute right; and the state cannot…take it away.” Cooley must be spinning in his grave since Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder gave himself the power to take over cities, remove locally elected officials, install puppet governments, and destroy labor unions. Not in Russia. Not in North Korea. This is happening in the United States of America.
Yes, there are financial woes, and the economy and tax base of the area were dependent upon the auto industry. Highland Park, a town engulfed by Detroit, managed to stay independent despite efforts to incorporate it. Ford closed its Highland Park factory in the 1950s and Chrysler pulled out in 1993. The population, once over 45, 000, has decreased to 11,000. Now it’s ‘The Detroit of Detroit’, so poor Detroit doesn’t even want it anymore. My grandparents’ Highland Park house was gone. So was the school across the street.
If not for this sign, I wouldn’t have known Highland Park still existed.
But there must be better ways than total dictatorship to save the city. We went to Belle Isle, an island park in the Detroit River, halfway between Canada and the United States. It became a city park in 1904, and in 2014 it became a state park to avoid operation costs to the city.
There used to be an elephant house, a bandstand, and a boathouse. I learned to canoe in its waterways.
Honey Buckets are probably cheaper to maintain than the elegant brick restrooms…
…a compromise so the park might be used and enjoyed.
There was still beauty.
And history.
The Belle Isle Aquarium was built in 1904. As kids we watched the electric eel touch an underwater wire in its tank to light up electric light bulbs. It was the longest continually operating aquarium until 2005 when, after 101 years, it closed its doors due to lack of funding.
But in 2012 the aquarium was reopened–Saturdays only–and is run completely by volunteers from the Belle Isle Conservancy. Admission free.
Next door is the Whitcomb Conservatory.
My folks used to turn seven kids loose in there; we played Tarzan, and our Johnny Weissmuller jungle calls bounced off that glass ceiling.
At the Detroit Institute of Art we found culture, art, and history.
As kids we loved the shiny suits of armor in the great hall.
As adults, we admired the Diego Rivera mural, a powerful statement about Detroit Industries. In 1932 it was scandalous that workers with black, white, and brown skin were depicted working side by side. But Edsel Ford, who paid the bill, said he thought Rivera captured the Spirit of Detroit.
“Watson and the Shark,” my favorite painting from childhood visits to the museum, told a true story. Copley portrayed a multiracial crew rescuing their shipmate from a shark. Painted in 1777, a time of revolution against tyranny, artists began to depict common people as heroes. At least in Michigan, where the sharks are still circling, it is still a relevant message.
I was saddened to read so many hateful bigoted comments when researching this sculpture honoring Detroit boxer Joe Lewis.
In Detroit there was and is despair and poverty, racism and anger.
But I also saw positive action, innovative ideas for bringing life and art back into the city. Are you a writer? Want a free house? Check out Write-a-House. This organization buys abandoned houses, renovates them, and gives them to artists willing to come live in them, practice their art, enrich their community. There are pea patches growing where, on my last visit, I saw burned out houses.
L-O-O-K.
The Spirit of Detroit is still strong.
I saw soul.
And hope.
Sweetness.
Pride.
I saw the future in a city park, where kids were playing.
At the conservatory I saw cactus blooming in the desert, a public park taken over by volunteers who made it available to the public.
I saw open hearts.
In the most unexpected places.
Detroit still has plenty of room to grow, room for hope.
Please watch this two minute video for another look at Detroit.
All words and images copyright Naomi Baltuck
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Travel Theme: Unexpected.
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo Challenge: Room.
Purple is my favorite color, and it always has been. But I love yellow for its cheerfulness.
It’s my daughter Bea’s favorite color.
And she wears it well, don’t you think?
She isn’t the only one.
Whether yellow comes as a tasteful accent…
…a warm background…
…a pleasing bit of contrast…
…or a big splash of color…
…Ma Nature wears it well too.
…and so do her children.
We’ve borrowed this sunny hue from nature to brighten our homes on the outside…
…and on the inside too.
It shines a cheerful light through the darkness…
…and lifts our spirits.
It warms us from the inside out.
Yellow comes in many eye-catching colors and goes by many names…goldenrod, schoolbus, taxicab yellow…
Maize, saffron, lemon…mmm, yellow never smelled so good.
Yellow means different things to different people. Does this signal mean approach slowly? Or go very very fast?
It might depend on whether you’re coming…
…or going.
Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?
Never mind. That’s neither here nor there.
Want to dance?
All images and words copyright 2014 Naomi Baltuck
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo Challenge: Yellow.
Well? What do you think? Is it half full or half empty?
Do you see a gray cloudy day or blue skies?
Is the task before you huge and daunting?
Or are you ready to dig in?
Of course, your perspective will be affected by where you are…
…where you’re going…
…or your current situation in life.
Timing can certainly affect your perspective.
When you have no control over certain events, you can still choose the lens through which you look.
Will this injury leave a horrible scar or provide material for a good story to tell the relatives back home?
Is this an obstacle to folding clean laundry, or the cutest kid in the world?
Do you feel the damp and see the darkness, or admire the view?
It’s not always this easy to find a happy place….
…or even the light at the end of the tunnel.
Sometimes you have to write yourself a better ending.
It helps to have someone who understands.
Who can lend a hand.
Who can help you put things in perspective.
If you can’t change your path, then do whatever the hell it takes to change your perspective.
Sometimes the glass really is half empty, but who says you can’t fill up the darn thing? In fact, fill up another one too, for a friend.
All images and words copyright 2013 Naomi Baltuck.
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Travel Theme: Refreshing.
Writing Between the Lines 