24 and the Pontiff

Last week was pretty momentous on this side of the computer. I turned 24 on Tuesday. The day was pretty unremarkable for the most part. I was at work, on site. I have been on site a lot recently. I have been doing punch lists for an 11-story apartment building that is almost completed. Basically, I have to go around into every unit and mark everything that is wrong with blue painter's tape. An employee from the contractor firm walks with me and inputs everything into a system so that it can be fixed by the appropriate subcontractor. It's not the most fun. However, it does get me up and out of the office. After work, I had a nice dinner with three good friends at a French restaurant. It was a wonderful treat.

On Wednesday, the Holy Father, Francis, celebrated Mass on the east portico of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. During Mass, His Holiness canonized St. Junipero Serra. I was way in the back of the congregation, but I had a clear sight line to the altar (designed by several of my colleagues here in the School of Architecture). The Pope looked fairly tired (I don't blame him), and his voice was quite soft, but it was an extraordinary event.

Geographic extremities

The rather unwieldy and fanciful motto of the State of Michigan is "Si quæris peninsulam amœnam circumspice" which means, "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." One of the reasons I like Michigan is that is has lots of geographical extremities. The land is always wandering off aimlessly into one of the big lakes. Roads end in Michigan. They terminate in a shifting sand dune or in a tangle of blueberry bushes clinging to the exposed rock. There's often to be found the sensation of reaching as far as you can go. The azure water arrives abruptly and announces -- like God to the primordial seas -- "Thus far shall you come and no further."

A few weeks ago, I happened to be traveling with my family in the Keweenaw Peninsula, a stunningly beautiful region in Upper Michigan. I had never been. It was always too far from wherever we happened to be. It's too far from Marquette. It's too far from the camp. It's just too far. But, the further a place is, the more mysterious and fantastic it becomes. I drank in the mystique of this little hidden kingdom at the top of the state. We drove several wooded roads to their end, where entrancing localities awaited further on foot. We climbed the bald, granite head of Bare Bluff to watch sheets of light rain shimmer across the unperturbed cerulean surface of Lake Superior. At Horseshoe Harbor, past the end of US-41 (which ends its 2,000 mile journey from Miami as a gravel cul-de-sac), the winds blew with ferocity out of the west, sending surges of whitecapped water crashing into the ancient lava formations. The inscrutable pine forest stood erect, sighing softly.

The end of the Keweenaw Peninsula and Bete de Gris Bay from the summit of Bare Bluff

Michigan is a bypassed state. It's peninsular, after all. It doesn't go anywhere. One has to make an effort to go there. The Keweenaw and all of the other sub-peninsulas await exploration all the same. One is schooled in enjoying the journey, because there's usually nothing at the end of it all. The Leelenau Peninsula comprises unparalleled wine country, but it terminates without ceremony at a lighthouse and a stony, cramped beach. The Old Mission Peninsula is perhaps marginally more exciting, as its terminus lies at the 45th Parallel. Why drive to Whitefish Point? It ends in shipwrecks and wind and blown sand. Truth be told, you can't even get to the end of the Keweenaw. The roads get too disorderly, overgrown and rutted. The Garden Peninsula, which separates Lake Michigan from the amusingly-named Big Bay De Noc, is inhabited by ghosts, who have their capital at Fayette, an abandoned town. But each is worth the drive, as I and any other Michigander will tell you. We're the experts in seeking pleasant peninsulas, after all.

September

Fall is upon us. Though, unhappily, fall weather is not, at least around your scribe's abode. The busy-ness resulting from the agitated confluence of work, school, and the rest has launched me into a whirl of activity. Are your Septembers busy? Mine always are. The air needs to get cooler to accommodate the annual rush of activity that attends the end of summer. In bygone years it was football games and homecoming and new friends, now it's thesis projects and work deadlines pressing down after the summer lull. Someday, I will have a restful September, a calm and golden-tinted transition into the radiant glories of October, which I will be able to relish appropriately. Brooding November will be as placid as a newly frozen lake. December will arrive with coziness and warmth shining from its frosted windows. One's advanced years are often called the autumn of one's life. Perhaps that is the only time we will be able to experience autumn in its completeness without the often superficial rush of quotidian tasks. The term certainly did not arise to draw a comparison to the September of a twentysomething graduate student.