Revisiting the Past (Again)

 

Looking back or ahead? Hard to tell sometimes, isn't it?

Sunny Juliet and I didn't start out looking for times before she came into the world. We were content in a little park on Lake Leelanau, where morning sun gleamed on glassy waters. 

Would you have led off with this image instead of the rearview mirror?

But we had time before my first appointment of the day, and I felt called south to one of the few remaining (or so it seems) unpaved county roads.

Such magic in these old roads, sinking with time deeper into the earth!

Every now and then, a magic window opens to the distance.

Why this one? Do you wonder?

The apple tree, its branches heavy with fruit, wasn't the reason I stopped here. Do you see the two big old cedars behind it? Once an old log cabin stood here. "That's where Fred's grandmother was born," I told Sunny. "Or was it his mother?" Fred is gone now, along with his mother and grandmother, so there's no one left to ask, but they were immigrants from France, the cabin built in a style no doubt common in French Canada. When my husband and I drove this road thirty and forty years ago -- always very slowly, with many stops -- we would get out here and poke around the remains of the cabin. Now I don't go back to the cedars to see if any logs remain, but I stop and look at the trees and remember. 

Coming out of the woods, back to the present

When we came out of the second stretch of woods, a place I remembered walking a long-ago dog, Sunny let me know she would appreciate a chance to stretch her legs, and we walked a little way in the sun. Not a bright, blazing sun, but we are accustomed to clouds and don't let them keep us under the covers.