By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Issue Out
“Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home” assumes you can.
Say Apple News emails updates. Today, stories tell of “escalating tensions,” “failed crypto exchange” … explain “here’s what’s a stake,” “key culprit” and “consequences could be devastating.” I couldn’t tell one from the other, so skimmed human stories re: “full-time children” and modern women assessing men as “pretty-fine in a retired-cop sort of way.”
Again awoken I’m meat, I trade post-dream jammies for a soft uniform, still de-stressing from yesterday’s layout deadline. Backcheck: Tuesday 11:49 a.m. I email tech graphics guru Matt “My pages are done for this week, though we still have time to react. I’ll be here on computers and phone,” i.e. I’m bound in the sun for Saugatuck with a newly-erased, fresh camera.
The pressure drop’s palpable as I reload diabetic carbs with oatmeal, adrenaline unroiling. Thirty minutes’ silence on the paper’s business end means I’m free and clear to go.
Enjoy my 2016 Toyota Camry’s still smooth, quiet ride blazing up to 83 mph through I-196 detour maze west and south past Holland. As Ottawa County flies by on both sides, a more-calming energy sets in. Classical music on radio adds calming grace.
In hydrokinetics a quick pressure drop means restrictions dilate, thus flow increases, spreads. The Kalamazoo River does that widening into Saugatuck Township’s Silver Lake marshes northwest-bound through Kal Lake under I-196 and Blue Star bridges between Saugatuck and Douglas cities.
In drawing with light, aka photography, turning down the f-stop means I fill camera sensor with quick light, resulting in a thin-but-brilliant focus depth plus my choice of bokeh: the aesthetic quality of background blur; it’s a Japanese term that’s universal. Inner springs unwind; visual/virtual rest set in.
I troll cities through car windows, once more open to what light reveals rather than impose it. There it is!? Stay calm; traffic on my bumper seeks parking too. Circle back through downtown blocks, people watching. Back ‘round to target sight; I knew I’d see open spots near it on first pass.
There. Ease in, withdraw chosen camera/lens/flash from car trunk, shut, hope “clang” scares no one; perform planned drive-by shooting. On …
Out and west down Douglas’s Center Street to Ferry. What a corner. How are light and crowds (if any Oct. 2, 2 p.m. Tuesday; Old Root Beer Barrel and Woosah coffee may not be staffed during slower off-season hours.
Ferry north past ex-100+-year-old Westshore Golf Course, now a high-end housing complex growing west and north in phases — more and more humans coming — to Campbell Road. Tales west of that stretch we’ll not talk of nor take, till later.
Campbell dead-ends east at Saugatuck’s Park Street (check your coordinates); west lie Kalamazoo Lakefront homes, marinas, a crazy quilt wedged in there.
Straight north on Park past Saugatuck Yacht Club (17 years so far of stories, pictures). The two-lane asphalt road has, at points, narrow to nonexistent shoulders; beware of bikers, neighbors walking dogs. Active, even if aging, people interact here.
North beyond Perryman Street, past Mt. Baldhead Park. On the right (east) sets the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center’s old Pumphouse Museum; on the right (west) few cars are parked around foot of 302-step climb to the Radar Dome and unique, no matter what time of season, view.
Now Park — one lane, be ready to back down, a hellside convex mirror’s there to help you, climbs past the Crow’s Nest trail head; maybe one car can sneak in parked there — and winds to the 114- year-old Ox-Bow Art School campus (Lord, the lore …), more and more secluded. Past the end there’s more, but I’ll get to that.
Today loop through the empty offseason gravel lot, double back downhill, see what I just saw from the other side. South to turn right (west) on Perryman. Drive slow; it’s delicious.
Open lens further: At the grand south Dunegrass entrance were planted paving stones ringing a grass and gardened circle island centering on the “Windchaser” bronze sculpture. At 9-feet it towers over most standing next to it, but is humbled by rising dunes and evolving old-growth trees.
Know the punch code, development gates open slowly, regally, on a a portal and portico to your last homeward wind …
Don’t know code? So what? Is the proud felt-horn who let me take close-up flash shots three weeks ago, still feasting on gardeners’ art? Long in rut now, I expect, but young bucks surprise you. A doe grazed there last time, but herd tagalongs graze elsewhere now.
West again on Perryman to where land ends, the Lake opens massive mouth ahead. Level lens to horizon lines even though they are arcing, note how light distributes across the spectrum. What is next to sea?
Days pass. As I write, more comes in on mismatched den computers set side by side.
Saturday a.m. wake to news Michigan’s Mystery Spot in St. Ignace was broken into and robbed last week. Was it me, dreaming off there? Saw it as a kid; my brothers and I loved joking and faux-solving the owner’s mischief with optical illusions, defying gravity. No laws unbroken.
May mystery forever live.