greetings from the Beaver Island ferry

journeys; new books; childhood fudge; surprising memories of my father

Hello, friends—

I’m drafting this as the Emerald Isle pulls beneath the Charlevoix drawbridge. The water is striped in various shades of teal, navy, emerald, and aqua. Whitecaps cluster randomly around the boat, while the waves are strong enough to bump these 1,000 tons like an old black inner tube in a motorboat’s wake. The temps are probably in the upper 50s out on the open water, but at least for now the sun is strong enough to need only a sweatshirt on the upper deck.

Lake Charlevoix as it enters into Lake Michigan, as seen from the ferry upper deck; unedited photo courtesy of A!

In my bag is the fudge I bought in Charlevoix—one slice of maple pecan and one of peanut-butter-and-chocolate. Buying fudge was a longtime tradition when I was a child—fudge at Murdick’s and then a trip to Rexall Drugs across the street (it’s still there!) to buy Archie comics. Today, we also bought fresh peaches from a farm stand. Perhaps we’ll make cobbler tonight.

I also bought two books. Since my divorce, I have become a library-almost-all-the-time kind of person, but I do like to support independent bookstores, especially while traveling. The books serve as souvenirs! I was excited to see that the bookstore on Bridge Street is selling Jill Bialosky’s The End Is the Beginning: A Personal History of My Mother, as Jill is a friend of The Writer Studio and occasional guest teacher. I also loved seeing the store’s Booker longlist display. The only one available in paperback was Misinterpretation, so I bought it, even through thrillers are rarely my first choice.

I love journeys. I love train rides and plane rides, and, although I don’t really enjoy the act of driving on a daily basis, I still enjoy a road trip. I like the way a journey is the middle place—neither here nor there, well past the departure but still well ahead of arrival. I especially like a dark plane cabin on a cross-country flight with no wi-fi. It’s a great time to get lost in a piece of writing—whether creating one or reading one. And I mean lost in a very specific way, untethered from whatever might ordinarily distract me—not only my phone but also the ordinary demands on a human. When I am at home and working, as all of you will surely recognize, more often than not my attention is fractured. Even if I am trying to dedicate time to a particular task, I sometimes can’t help the inevitable interruption of a doorbell ringing or a child calling or the sudden realization that I forgot to role the blue bins out when I hear the trucks in the neighborhood. When this happens, I race out of the house in my bare feet, trying to beat the noisy truck to the curb.

All of this goes away on a journey. It’s a pause in both the literal and karmic sense. There’s nothing for me to do on a journey other than be on the journey. If being in the now is perhaps one of my biggest challenges as a human, then being on a journey makes it a little easier for me to practice being present right here, right now. I am on the journey, yet the journey also holds me, in a way I don’t often feel in the rest of my life. I am more trusting on a journey, instinctually primed to believe that things will work out okay; I am more open to surprises and detours. These are beliefs and lessons I am trying to bring into the rest of my life.

Back to the ferry. The crossing is mostly due west, maybe a bit north. We’re on open water now. The lake is solid navy here, no more traces of aqua or emerald or faded denim. The whitecaps are still present, but only in the distance, far from the boat. Behind us, I still see mainland Charlevoix, the skyline of the quarry visible but shrinking each minute. If I look to the west, I see the southern tip of Beaver Island. As we get closer, the entire eastern shore of the island will come into view, a 10-mile stretch of uninterrupted dunes and pines and ferns.

When I was a child, my mom and dad and sister and I bundled up for our annual ferry crossings. We packed sweatshirts and blankets and rain jackets. My mom usually had snacks—clusters of grapes, cut-up apples, some ham and cheese roll ups. We had our fudge. We all had our books. We read, bundled in our many layers, feeling the freshwater spray on our faces, the sun warming the tops of our heads. With 30 minutes or so until arrival, though, my dad and I put our books away. We made our way to the prow of the boat. The wind roared so loud there that it was impossible to talk at all. My hair whipped wildly and my dad put both hands on his hat to keep it in place. We stood very still and watched the island come into view: the eastern shore, the shallow marshy areas where the ducks nest and play, the small white church and bell tower, the old metal playground equipment of the public beach, and, on the other side of the harbor, the old Coast Guard garage with a red shingled roof that was abandoned while I was a child.¹

My father and I were both runners. For as long as I can remember, and no matter what race I was in, whether a high school quarter-mile or a 2005 marathon, I always recreated the Beaver Island ferry crossing as a way to talk myself through the race. As soon as the gun went off, I began to visualize the Charlevoix drawbridge, imagined myself moving slowly away from the dock, then along the long pedestrian walkway and past the public beach at the mouth of the canal. When the running started to get hard, I told myself, Okay, now you’re on open water, and it’s windy, but you won’t be here forever. When the end of the race was approaching, and I was really tired, pushing hard to keep my pace and not collapse too soon, I started to visualize the harbor, the safe haven, the end of the journey.

I never told anyone about my ferry visualization exercise. Not my dad, not my high school or college cross country teammates, not my longtime marathon running partner. But one day I must have mentioned it to my father. I was well into adulthood by then. Well into motherhood, as well, I suspect. And he laughed so hard as he listened, tears gathered in both eyes. Francesca! he finally exclaimed, wiping his face from behind his glasses. I do the exact same thing!

When my dad was dying, I was newly pregnant. I was distracted by morning sickness. I was also distracted by two children under the age of 3. I have a lot of regrets about those months. I regret that I primarily viewed my dad’s dying as a steady stream of tasks on a to-do list: drive to Chicago, meet with hospice, return emails, plan funeral mass. I wish I had spent more time just being with him. I wish I had asked him questions: did you like being a priest and what about it did you miss and what was your favorite part about being a father and what kept you running for 60 some years and who is your favorite author and what do you wish you knew about what comes next? I can guess at a lot of these answers—working with migrant farmers and taking my daughters into nature and Shakespeare come to mind. But me guessing is not the same as hearing him tell me.

More than anything, I wish I had sat next to his bed in those last days. Even when he was unconscious. I wish I had talked him through one last ferry crossing. Look, Dad. We’re almost there. Do you see the strip of creamy sand where the pines start to grow? The small kayaks like brightly colored jelly beans along the shore? Can you hear the gulls? Tell me again, which is the heron and which is the egret? Do you think we’ll see loons this year? We’re getting closer now, Dad. Do you see the woods where you hung our tire swing? The sidewalk where you taught us how to ride our bikes? The pier where you first took me fishing? I think I hear the church bells, Dad. Is that a hymn you used to play on your guitar? Just a Closer Walk With Thee? Can you hear it, too?

We’re closer now. The clouds are fluffy and low, stretched out like white taffy along the horizon. My dog is asleep on my feet, his flank warm from the sun. For a while it was getting pretty chilly, but I dug into my bag for my second sweatshirt, and I’m comfortable again. A. and his daughter went into the protected cabin to play cards at one of the tables. I’ll sit out here a little longer, feeling the sun, watching the water, and enjoying the journey.

Thank you, friends, as always, for reading. Got any favorite journeys to share with me in the comments? I’d love to read them.

Love, Francesca

1. Each year, I spent long, late afternoon hours, alone, swimming under and around the old docks. Sunlight fell in strips and splotches through the holes in the roof. I was endlessly fascinated by the way the shadows echoed the gentle movement of the water and the ripple of sand beneath me.