:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
That's a quote by the author N. Scott Momaday, and I couldn't help but think about it as I drove through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this summer. Two-lane highways, bordered by wildflowers, bordered further by birch and pine, and then broken by surprisingly blue lakes, and in some special places, by the The Lakes themselves (the Great ones). The Upper Peninsula is, to use a cliche, a "hidden gem." Few outside of Michigan know about it, and even Michiganders are kind of ambivalent.
I never could be ambivalent, since we drove up to the U.P. nearly every summer when I was a kid, and since I was born there. The cabin in the woods was always our destination then, so naturally the only time I paid any attention to the landscape, or to anything outside the vehicle (a prison of boredom), was when we went over the Mackinac Bridge, and also when Suzie pointed out motorcycles for me to see. All other times I ignored the grave beauty of the U.P., since I was a kid, and kids don't care about beauty.
But now when I drive through the U.P., I feel like it's "memory in my blood." The cabin in Nisula is where the memory-blood clots and collects, but it flows all along the route there. And Nisula never changes, however it appears on the surface. That is to say, my father has re-sided the cabin and put in new windows, but the wooden support post in the middle, notched where he was going to put stairs, is the same. The sound of the door latch is the same. The way the wind in the trees sounds like waves is the same. The outhouse is the same, even if it's inhabited by different bugs. The sauna (pronounced "sow-na") has the same cut-wood smell. It's all the same, even now, more than twenty years after my first memories of it.
Except there was a pleasant difference this time around: people. There were a bunch of people up there for Suzie's wedding, and some of them came to the cabin. And their mere presence challenged the legacy of the place. The cousins and aunts and kids of cousins, who know nothing or very little of the darkness there, couldn't help but fill it with light.
The darkness has to do with my father and the private demons he fought there while alone, and it's a darkness I can't help but feel. I don't know, it could be that I'm afraid of the Yooper dark still. At any rate, it was a strange and fun thing to have a bunch of people at the cabin, and to see my nephews, completely innocent of the pain that used to own the place, make it new in their hearts and minds. One of the two cried when he had to leave.
And now when I have the opportunity, I like to show people the U.P., and take them to these places that are so important to me, and quietly beg them to see how beautiful they are, and how vital they are to me. I want to give them some of that memory-blood, so they can feel it. This is largely impossible, of course.
It's just a place to them, not a life.
