11.August.2022
[Where: Tweddle/Treat Farms, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
What: evening hike with James
When: 8:45p-10:30p]
This hike was inspired years ago after our first visit to the Tweddle/Treat Farms. The presence of so much history coupled with the surrounding natural beauty put me in mind of a nighttime visit. I imagined a moonlit walk through fallow fields. A mysterious walk through the shadowy woods on the old road connecting the farmhouses.
Somehow, that hike never happened. Too cloudy. No moon out. No time. Each time we’d return from a daytime hike — usually on the way back to the car — I’d remark that we really should come here for that moonlight visit I’ve always imagined. Yes, we really should. We should do that this year… sometime.
“Sometime” finally arrived, last night: a Thursday evening free of errands and appointments. A calm evening with no clouds was forecast. Can we? Should we? Let’s go!
And so, after dinner and dishes, we made an appointment to meet the sunset at the WNW horizon at 8:45ish where at least a day’s worth of to-do’s, distractions, and unknowables would be exchanged for a fistful of colors, a blanket of stars, and a silver dollar moon.
As we headed up the trail in the gathering darkness, daylight seemed to be holding on somehow, resisting night’s advances. Our conversation was a tad grumbly, filled with litanies of complaints reaching as far as our vegetable garden’s performance. Eventually, a silence fell over us and we heaved a long, exasperated sigh for the twin misfortunes of great ambition and elusive free time.
We reached the Treat Farm just as the sun dipped below the surrounding duneland leaving the landscape bathed in peachy, soft light which warmed the greens and blues of the old apple orchard. Mostly killing time, we walked among the old trees, marveling at their tenacity — bearing fruit though nearly hollowed out by time and the elements. There’s a metaphor in there, but time holds the key to these words of wisdom the trees offer.
Seeing the deer-forged trails through waves of tall grass, we followed in their wake, pausing to admire pastel sweet peas and a lone pear tree with sensuous green bells hanging elegantly down. It seemed these pears longed to be admired and perhaps lovingly harvested again. Grasping one in my right hand, it was tempting.
We circled round the still proud farmhouse with its darkened, silent rooms. I climbed the steps and stood on the front porch. I immediately felt the silence of the old house overhead like hands outstretched, cupping the air, catching the scattered words of our mundane conversation.
Do old houses miss the sound of idle chatter? Do their floorboards creak in nostalgia for brief reminders of us? I certainly like to think so.
Then, feeling the deep silence of that house seeping a little too deeply inside us, we retreated down the hill to meet the trail to the dunes. There, we saw an owl gliding silently from her perch in the old pasture to take shelter in the anonymity of the forest. In that strange light of the departed day, black-eyed susans glowed nearly iridescent, giving off sunlight they’d absorbed throughout the long summer day.
At last, we arrived at the steep bluff overlooking the lake. We found the final remnants of sunset ⏤ a blaze of innumerable, inseparable shades of orange, gold, and blue. We had dutifully arrived at our destination with predictable punctuality. The remaining part of the mission was to wait. Wait here. Wait for the sun to completely disappear. Wait for stars to silently appear, one-by-one. Wait for the blue above to deepen as the blue below to receded into shimmering white noise enveloped by darkness.
Waiting for the earth to rotate is like any other task of waiting. We busied ourselves admiring the wild apples perched precariously along the bluff. We sat on the cool sand and stared at the horizon to watch the colors shift in the rapidly changing light. We walked out onto the dune to admire clusters of pale lavender asters and the bright white trunks of birches all glowing star-like in the scant remaining light.
And then, because it had been so richly rewarding, we waited just a bit more. Far below, along the shoreline, distant campfires sprang to life like twinkling orange stars at water’s edge. We saw the big dipper and speculated on the identities of astronomical clusters we thought surely must be named (and pledged to look them up later).
A quick glance at the time and we knew it was time to meet the real guest of honor. We tread carefully through the lush darkness of the forest, giggling at the inherent spookiness of it. And then, in a clearing ahead, the full Sturgeon Moon blazed. Here she was: the guest of honor I’d been waiting years to meet in these woods.
Her glow was so bright it stung our eyes and cast silvery glowing streams of mist over the surrounding pasture. We marveled at our shadows as we walked in the strange beauty of it all.
As we neared a familiar turn in the trail, the owl returned to fly circles near our heads — ever closer but completely silent. Her silhouette crossed the glowing face of the moon before retreating to her post in the shadows.
As we walked past the farmhouse now looking freshly white-washed as it glowed brightly atop the hill in the moonlight, I half-expected to see a glow within it ⏤ perhaps a single lamplight near one of the windows ⏤ but was relieved that I did not. The old outbuildings, now like magnets of darkness, gathered in the surrounding shadows. Their indistinct walls now bounced our seemingly disembodied voices eerily back to us.
Moonlight gracefully dappled the trail back to the car, but at intervals the moon disappeared behind hills leaving us in complete darkness. We were both a bit afraid… and so we kept talking, each of us in turn like a nervous duet whose carefully notated lines allow no breaks for silence.
Turning the final bend, the canopy opened up and pearly moonlight poured in more brightly than ever. We quit our hurried pace and stood at last in dumb silence. For a moment, I considered what it was we were so unspeakably afraid of. A shadow to my left which seemed to occupy three-dimensional space quickly reminded me: some thoughts are better left unspoken.
Surrounded by the safe confines of our car, we drove along the familiar road and watched as the moon danced about in the treetops. Later that night, a wide silver beam of moonlight drifted across the bed and lit the room so brightly it woke me. In the stupor of half-consciousness, I smiled and happily returned to my dreams.
J.T. McKinney 