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CHRIS RICE COOPER is a newspaper/fiction writer, poet, photographer, painter. CRC Blog is an INCLUSIVE & NON-PROFIT BLOG acknowledging ALL voices, ALL individuals, ALL political views, ALL philosophies, ALL religions including Islamism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Agnosticism, Atheism. She has a B.S. in Criminal Justice & completed her workshops required for her Master’s in Creative Writing. She lives in St. Louis. CRC website http://chrisricecooper.com/

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Michigan Resident Walks Michigan's Shore-To-Shore Trail

Christal Cooper

caccoop@aol.com

https://www.facebook.com/christalann.ricecooper

Article 1,326 Words

*This article was previously published on September 12, 2015 by The Daily News, which covers Greenville, Belding, and Montcalm Counties in Michigan

http://www.thedailynews.cc

**Copyright granted by The Daily News and Mike Taylor

Guest Blogger: Mike Taylor

Miles To Go:

Meredith Geselman Hikes Michigan’s “Shore-To-Shore” Trail

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost, from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening-2/

http://www.amazon.com/Stopping-Woods-Snowy-Evening-Robert/dp/0525467343

Generations have read and loved Frost’s depiction of a silent, snow-shrouded woodland, but few have lived first-hand that ephemeral, fleeting communion with the natural world recounted in the poet’s words. Those who have don’t forget their experience.

Former Stanton resident Meredith Geselman, who now lives and works in Saginaw, is one of the lucky ones. This summer she managed to store up 20 days worth of memories by walking across the state, from Oscoda to Empire.

Most of her journey took her along the Shore-to- Shore trail, though she sometimes left it in favor of less-sandy country roads or small villages. She started the trip with friend and roommate, Megan Parks, but was alone for the final 15 days after Parks suffered an injury and couldn’t continue.

Geselman says she hikes regularly, but admits none of her little “day trips” fully prepared her for nearly three weeks on the open trail. Eschewing modern amenities, she carried everything needed for the trip on her back, including food and shelter.

On lucky nights, she would set up camp in one of the primitive campgrounds that dot the trail. Other nights, she simply made came in fields alongside the trail.

Days would pass without her seeing or speaking with another person. She was unprepared, she says, for the loneliness and physical exertion required for the trip.

“I guess it was kind of a Forrest Gump thing,” Geselman says. “this was my first hiking a longer distance, my first time going overnight. The trail is 234 miles. I managed to average about 12 miles per day.”

Geselman’s inspiration for the journey came from growing up with stories of the Appalachian Trail and others like it. That trail – which runs from Georgia to Maine – generally takes hikers about six months to complete.

Geselman, who works as a food service manager at City Rescue Center homeless shelter in Saginaw, didn’t have that kind of time. The Shore-to-Shore trail seemed a viable alternative.

Originally, Geselman conceived the trip as a fundraiser to send inner city kids to summer camp, but says she couldn’t get all (her) ducks in a row in time. She’s considering doing it all again next year, giving more attention to the fundraising aspect of it.

Considering the difficulty of her journey it’s a little surprising to her speak of an encore performance.

Relatives checked in on her at various points along the route, so she wasn’t entirely without a support system. Geselman’s aunt, Kathy Beach, describes one such meeting.

“My sister met her up by Curtis,” Beach says. “When they picked her up she had blisters all over her feet. It was bad.”

“At the end of the first week I had about 10 blisters” Geselman agrees. “One was giant, on the outside of both feet.”

Despite this, she shouldered on and by the end of the trip hard use had worn the blisters away.

Her dog, Tanner, who accompanied Geselman, fared less well. Somewhere along the way, the dog drank from a puddle infested with parasitic bacteria. He was, according to Geselman, flagging somewhat by journey’s end and required medication to get him on his feet again.

One might think the trail would be rife with hikers ruing the height of summer, but that wasn’t the case.

“I saw only three other hikers the whole time,” Geselman says. “And honestly, they had parked their car about a mile down the trail from a campground and had just walked the few minutes in and were camping. I also saw about 10 people on horseback and a few more in various campgrounds. I didn’t meet anyone else who was hiking or riding through, thought.”

Part of the reason for this may be the Shore-to-Shore trail is notoriously difficult to hike, owing in large part to its sandy composition. (Picture walking 234 miles on a sandy beach and you’ll have a fairly accurate idea of Geselman’s experience.)

Another aspect that keeps some hikers away is the wildlife, which includes bears and coyotes. The ideas of predators didn’t worry Geselman much while Parks was with her, but once again things changed.

“That first night (alone) I was really sacred,” she says. “That was the night when the coyotes came closest. I could hear them howling right outside, near my campsite out in the middle of the woods. I was kind of freaking out. I stayed awake a long time that night.

“But at least I didn’t see any bears, so I’m thankful for that, because I didn’t have anything to stop them with.”

An experienced camper, Geselman knew enough to put her food and gear in a tree at night to thwart nocturnal scavengers.

From a psychological standpoint, Geselman says the thing she missed most (other than people) was knowing the time. Parks had the pair’s only watch and took it with her when she left the trail.

Though she had packed a mobile phone, Geselman used it only to check her time and location the first thing every morning in order to conserve battery life.

“The weirdest thing was not knowing what time it was,” she says. “The map I carried wasn’t that great. It was all just walking and trying to guess how far I’d come and whether it was a good time to stop and set up camp. I hated not knowing.

“Sometimes I’d be in the middle of thick woods, sometimes in a field of ferns. I didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of a really deep woods, but I also wanted to get as far as I could. It’s tricky trying to figure it out without a watch. I just prayed to the Lord that he would give me a good campsite and that I wouldn’t get eaten by a bear.”

Geselman admits she was “Pretty much done” five days before reaching Empire and the end of the trail.

“I was just tired of walking,” she says. “it was a lot. Some parts were absolutely beautiful. I love Michigan and the scenery we have here. But some was just uphill sand for miles and that’s just not pleasant.”

Despite the exhaustion – now gone but not forgotten – Geselman says she will likely make the trip, or one like it, again. Next time, however she plans to bring along a larger group of hikers. It was after all the lack of human contact she found to be the most difficult challenge.

Those few she did meet along the trail were kind, she says. Some gave her water, some offered rides, some shared only their company, which, considering the lack thereof, was enough.

According to her aunt, Geselman is a “giving person” who loves the outdoors, is determined and independent, and not the sort to give up on a challenge once begun.

“She did it because she felt God wanted her to do it,” Beach says. “But we were all a little worried. She didn’t just stretch her faith, she stretched ours as well. We wanted to pick her up and so many times, but we had to just let her do it.”

Loneliness aside, hiking solo has its good points, Geselman says. You set your own schedule eat when you want, sleep when you want. You needn’t worry about following someone else’s routine. Even so, it’s not something she plans to do again any time soon.

“I think I will probably do a long hike again,” she says. “It was very peaceful being alone and all that. But I just missed talking with people. I missed the social contact. Next time I’ll be doing it with some other people.”

Photograph Description And Copyright Information

***All photographs are given copyright privilege by Meredith Geselman unless otherwise noted

Photo 1

The Daily News web log

Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law

Photo 2

Mike Taylor

Web logo photo

Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law

Photo 4

Robert Frost in 1941

Attributed to Fred Palumbo

Public Domain

Photo 5

Jacket cover of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Illustrated by Susan Jeffers

Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law

Photo 6

Michigan equestrian and hiking trail from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron

Attributed to Barnyers99

CCBASA3.0

Photos 8, 25, and 30

Meredith Geselman in Empire at Lake Michigan.

Photo 9

Meredith Geselman’s campground

Photo 10

Scenic pictu5e of the Shore-To-Shore Trail

Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law

Photo 11

American Map depicting the Appalachian Trail

Public Domain

Photos 12 and 13

Shore-to-Shore trail

Photo 14

Kathy Beach

Photo 15

Meredith’s blisters

Photo 16

Tanner

Photo 17

Horseback riders on the trail at Goose Creek Camp

Photo 18.

Meredith Geselman on the sandy composition of the Shore-to-Shore Trail.

Photo 19.

Meredith Geselman’s last night of camping.

Photo 20

Meredith’s campground.

Photo 26.

Meredith Geselman’s campground near Kalkaska, Michigan

Photo 27

Meredith Geselman found a treasure trove of “water” at one of her campgrounds.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Poet Terri Kirby Erickson's Poetry Collection Illustrated by her Uncle Stephen White . . .

Christal Cooper

caccoop@aol.com

https://www.facebook.com/christalann.ricecooper

*Article With Excerpts – 1,503 Words

All excerpts have been given copyright privilege by Terri Kirby Erickson and Press 53

www.terrikirbyerickson.com

http://www.press53.com

Terri Kirby Erickson’s Poetry Collection

A Lake of Light and Clouds

Terri Kirby Erickson’s most recent poetry collection, A Lake of Light and Clouds, was published by Press 53. (April 3, 2014).

The poems from this collection are focused on Erickson’s family, her own reflections, her spirituality, nostalgia of a time past, environmentalism, and victims of crime.

A Lake of Light and Clouds is illustrated by Erickson’s uncle Stephen White.

“It seemed natural for me to ask Stephen to do the paintings for my book covers, and as his only niece, I feel like I had a bit of "pull" when it came to what his answer might be. He is an amazing artist whose work has been in MoMA, so I feel grateful and blessed that his fine paintings grace the covers of my books.”

IRISES

For Stephen White

By the stone wall on top

of which my mother balanced as a child,

grow the purple irises

my grandmother planted, still blooming.

The house is there, as well, but the paint

is peeling, the front porch

collapsing. The man inside carries

a baseball bat,

peers at us through the bulging screen

door like we’ve come to rob

the place, though we are not the trouble

he’s been waiting for – just a family

searching for the past, saddened

by what we see. That’s when Stephen

spies the irises. Then the once familiar

house, frightening in its strangeness,

takes on a kindlier air,

as if the woman kneeling by the walk

decades before, digging up the rich, red

dirt, pushing bulbs into holes

she made in the ground, is still there –

and we are all welcome.

Erickson describes her reading and writing poetry as a sculptor with a piece of clay, an act some attribute to the creator aspect of God. It’s not surprising that Erickson is a Christian but never describes herself as a Christian poet.

“C. S. Lewis once said, " I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." I don't write "Christian" poetry, but because I am a Christian, everything I write moves through that prism of belief.”

BLUEBIRD

Light as crumbs on a plate,

a bluebird perched on the porch

railing, cocking its head this way

and that, feathers

the indigo blue of a king’s hand-

dyed robe, or the sky

on its bluest day, drained of clouds

and concentrated in the bottom

of God’s drinking glass, which He

swirled and swallowed,

then breathed out this little bird,

now flying.

She’s been reading poetry since she was nine years old, sitting on the floor beside her parents’ bookcase reading poems by Robert Frost, the only book of poetry in the house.

“And of course, my mother read all sorts of books to me before I could read, myself. I was blessed with loving parents who have been married now, for sixty years, and a joyful childhood, which I can go back to again and again for the length of any poem I write about it.”

HOSPITAL PARKING LOT

Headscarf fluttering in the wind,

stockings hanging loose on her vein-roped

legs, an old woman clings to her husband

as if he were the last tree standing in a storm,

though he is not the strong one.

His skin is translucent – more like a window

than a shade. Without a shirt and coat,

we could see his lungs swell and shrink,

his heart skip. But he has offered her his arm,

and for sixty years, she has taken it.

One year later when she was in the fifth grade at Brunson Elementary School she wrote her first poem in which she compared snow that had been on the ground for a long time to old newspapers.

“My wonderful and gifted fifth grade teacher, Elizabeth Reynolds, (who to this day, attends my book launch parties and buys my books!) praised my fledgling efforts to no end, which is what I hope every parent and teacher will do if their children show any interest in writing.”

FLOWER CHILD

Flower child, where did you come from?

Your hands are bigger than mine, stronger.

They are seldom still. Digging in the dirt, stringing beads

on a necklace, snapping your fingers to a Beatles song-

you are always moving forward, dragging the past

behind you like a streamer. You are happier barefoot,

dancing in the grass, than women

wearing designer shoes, jumping in a pile of money.

Pierced and tattooed, silver bracelets jingling,

you are as different from me as North

is to South. Yet wherever you go, my heart,

like the needle on a compass, follows.

She attended Appalachian State where she was a Sophomore English Honors student, but had to drop out due to complications from Crohn’s Disease.

By her twenties she was a divorced single mother of her only child, daughter Gia: “She is 33 years old, and is the loveliest "poem” I ever ‘created.’”

She earned a living in a variety of fields: copywriter for a radio station; worked on the news-desk and researcher for the Winston-Salem Journal; assistant to the Director of Vascular Ultrasound Research at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical; and a contract technical medical editor.

By her late twenties she went back to college at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina where she graduate Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in English Literature and Mass Communications.

“At the time of graduation I was going to school full time, working part time at the Winston-Salem Journal, and raising my daughter as a single, divorced mother. It was quite a rigorous schedule, but I was determined to get my degree...and I did it!”

Meanwhile, the grasshoppers,

which can leap twenty times their bodies’ length,

are still on the move, mandibles packed

with brown juice like baseball players chewing

tobacco, legs quivering from the hard

work of lifting from one side of the field

to the other, a creature that wears its skeleton

on the outside like a coat, eats more than a cow

will in a single day – but can also jump,

resembling tiny puffs of green air – as if the earth

in spring is so content, it can’t stop sighing.

Excerpt, “GRASSHOPPERS”

In 2006, her first poetry collection, Thread Count, was published by AuthorHouse in January 11, 2006). Two more poetry collections followed, Telling Tales of Dusk (Press 53, August 13, 2009); and In the Palms of Angels (Press 53, April 1, 2011).

It took Erickson three years to write A Lake of Light and Clouds, which is the norm for most poets.

“Most publishers require that at least a third to half of all poems submitted in a manuscript be previously published in literary journals, it takes anywhere from a year to three years and even longer, to produce enough viable work to create a full-length collection. So, I write poems and send many of them to journals in hopes of publication.”

She then makes hard copies of every poem and stacks them on her dresser until she has eighty or ninety poems to choose from, lays them on her living room floor, and determines the order the poems will go in the poetry collection.

“I take my time to decide which poems "fit" and which poems don't. And then, of course, you submit the manuscript and your publisher will have some preferences and suggestions, also.”

Press 53 editor and founder Kevin Morgan Watson accepted A Lake of Light and Clouds, her third book to published by Press 53.

“Kevin Morgan Watson works beautifully with writers. Kevin and I are friends with a great deal of respect and admiration for each of our roles in creating a book of poetry that is beautiful to look at, a pleasure to hold, and hopefully, an unforgettable read.”

Erickson does most of her writing (essays and poems) in the morning in her sunlit home office, which she considers a haven: full of books, art work, photographs and meaningful objects she’s collected through the years: a snail shell from the ocean given to her by one of her readers in 2009; and a tiny wind-up Merry-Go-Round gifted to her from her mother.

“I have written in waiting rooms, in my car in between stoplights, and other strange places. When a line comes into your head, you have to get it down right away or risk losing it. The poems come when they come--I can't write poetry unless I am moved to do so by something I've seen, heard, remembered, or imagined.”

Erickson teaches poetry workshops and classes in multiple venues, is a frequent guest speaker, and a member of Delta Kappa Gamma International, an organization for key women educators. Erickson’s work has been widely published: Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Asheville Poetry Review, 2014 Poet’s Market, and many others. She has won multiple awards including the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Nautilus Book Award.

She can be reached via email tkerickson@triad.rr.com and via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/terri.k.erickson