Nature Therapy
Time to get outside while we still can.
michigan
City Without Seasons
As Florence sings, it was a city without seasons. March is the November of spring – the weird in-between one. No leaves on the trees, no flowers blooming just yet, and streets as empty as can be.
The truth is that downtown Jackson is pretty empty on weekday nights after 5 p.m. But last week it was extra desolate. I stopped a person or two wandering around downtown, just like me.
Things really got interesting when a guy noticed me taking pictures. “Hey, want to take photos inside the theatre?” This is Jackson’s Michigan Theatre, the city’s lone operational classic theatre. The man was wearing a protective mask. I’m not sure what his role was at the theatre, but he had the whole place to himself. I got the sense, as I was taking photos inside, that the guy was simply lonely. Or he wanted to show off the place. I had to excuse myself after 10 minutes, or else the man would’ve given me the full tour of the place.
So I headed back outside, into the sunshine, to photograph our empty downtown.
With spring coming, and with more light, it’s nice to have the option to get outside and walk around.
Fresh air may be the best hope we all have of staying sane.
October Walk
After this, it’s nothing but exercise bikes, snowy excursions into the driveway, or parking the car in the garage. Oh, and the leaf raking to come.
Introducing Musicians In Jackson
After two years of work, interviews, and shooting, my newest community portrait project, Musicians In Jackson, is live and available.
The project, like my previous Artists In Jackson project, is available on the web and in book form. It features local musicians doing interesting things. Each of them represents a unique facet of Jackson’s creative community, from musical theatre to rap to folk, and many styles and media channels in between.
Together, they help make our small Midwestern city a great place to live, work, and play. They help entertain us, heal us, remind us, and connect us. Our musical scene is small, but tight-knit, and gets a ton of support thanks to local venues that value arts and culture. Jackson musicians are just as talented as anywhere else.
Musicians In Jackson took longer than I expected, and I struggled along the way to get the portraits, interviews, and stories done. Something snapped in me earlier this year, where I said to myself, “Enough is enough.” This summer, I made an arbitrary deadline – autumn 2019 – put it out into the world, and then worked like hell to finish the project.
And here it is. I’m excited to share these 14 local musicians with you, and I ask for your support: purchase the book, visit the website, and help me spread the word.
True North
The trip has me thinking about growing older and the kind of life I’d like to live, even though retirement is a ways off. I have all kinds of thoughts about owning an orchard and living quietly by a lake. Up here, both may be possible.
Pictured Rocks
During our holiday, we spent time inside and outside the park, exploring the wooded paths down sandstone bluffs as well as cruising past the cliffs along Lake Superior. Both were scenic and humbling.
It’s a long drive, and a long boat ride, from one end of the park to the other. Along the way, we tried to take in as much as we could.
On the cruise, we sat next to a German couple, the guy had one of those big Nikon rigs with a couple of the big zoom lenses. I did the best I could with my aging (but still handy) Canon EOS M with a 22mm (35mm equiv.) lens.
God’s Country
Cross the bridge into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and you come into a different world.
Vast stretches of nothing. Straight, empty highways for as far as you can see. Water and forests and wetlands surrounded by three Great Lakes. Quiet and old and wild.
After our trip to Door County, Wisconsin, last year, we wanted a similar upper Midwest experience. We picked Munising as our home base, with a little cabin out in the middle of the Hiawatha National Forest, and ventured out into God’s Country to see all of that different world stuff.
We started the trip halfway there, in St. Ignace, right across the Mackinac Bridge from Mackinaw City. Like its neighbor across Lake Michigan, St. Ignace is a tourist town, but much quieter, and much less gaudy. After one night, the sun came up over Lake Michigan and we made the long trek through the U.P. to see Whitefish Point, sticking out into Lake Superior, and then on to our cabin in the woods.
Each day was an adventure – and a drive, since nothing was close by up here. That meant a lot of time in the car, and a lot of entertaining little kids, but once we got out and into the fresh air, we did our best to tire them out.
We were all tired. That was the point.
Around the Riverbend
Manistique, Michigan
Had a great vacation in the Upper Peninsula last week. More to come.
Bio Dome II
The light can fool you in winter. Sure, it looks sunny and bright, but step outside this artificial atmosphere and you’ll pay the price.
The midwest, in all its January glory.
We’ll watch from inside the terrariums, taking our time in both the arid and humid man-made climates.
Bio Dome
How better to beat the mid winter blues in Michigan than to travel to a jungle and a desert?
That’s what we did when the big snow storm came: a day for sledding in the driveway, and a day for heading out to Hidden Lake Gardens and enjoying the bio domes.
Hidden Lake is truly a hidden gem – out in the middle of nowhere, winding paths and lake trails, plants and trees of all kinds. The bio domes offer a desert environment, a lush tropical environment, and a simple greenhouse. Walk inside, and you’re somewhere else.
It didn’t feel like January in here.
