Melissa Gilbert and me: on beauty and wonder

Maybe I think of Melissa Gilbert as one of my girls. And maybe that's silly. But she was there in our home for several years - in her role as Laura on "Little House on the Prairie." You could say that our girls grew up with the Ingalls girls. I have such fond memories of them all hanging out together in our family room pretty much every day after school.

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One of the things I love about the internet is the opportunity to connect with old friends and in my case, connecting with my daughters' friends as well. Because they were special to my girls, many of them became special to me as well.

So while we never really knew Melissa Gilbert, I still find myself paying attention when I hear news about her. Just recently I discovered that she has moved to Howell, Michigan, one of the towns that we have been talking about as a possible place to re-settle. How cool is that!

I kinda' relish the irony that she moved to Michigan after living in southern California her entire life just before I moved to southern California after living in Michigan my entire life. Of course, there are differences in our stories. For example, she is settling into a big old Victorian house and planning to stay there awhile, but I am in a little house on wheels because this is just a temporary camping site for me.

However, it seems that we have had similar reactions to our new surroundings. I have been enthralled by the beauty of my new area and feel almost giddy with excitement to have giant jade plants just outside my door and to be surrounded by mountains and palm trees and strawberry fields and huge orange groves and avocado plantations and to live so near the ocean. And where I can hear the whistle of the neat old historic train from where I sit and write. I wonder sometimes whether the locals ever tire of it and think it would be so sad if they do.

On her blog Melissa Gilbert shares similar thoughts and questions after an experience she had while adjusting to life in small-town Michigan.
Then something amazing happened! I was driving on I96 West, and I saw the most beautiful sight I've seen in a long time. The sun was rising behind me in a big orange ball and the land all around me was waking up. Before me there were stand of trees...wooded areas surrounding large open meadows and fields of crops. The sky above was a pale blue, dotted with perfectly painted white clouds. The clouds looked like someone had pulled cotton balls apart and swiped them across the sky. Over every meadow or field there was a mist...like an Irish mist...just hanging there.
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I was thunderstruck and immediately began to weep and I thought, "Does everyone on this highway see how beautiful this is? Do the Michiganders know what beauty there is to be found here? Or do they just drive their commute, not seeing any of it?"

I promised myself that I would never tire of the beauty that can be found here. Just as I've promised myself over and over that I'm not going to lose my excitement when I see fireflies in my gardenI hear you, Melissa. I appreciate your reminder about the beauty of Michigan. You are right that it is amazing. You are also right to realize how easy it is to get used to the familiar.

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I brought along a copy of Travels with Charley on this cross-country adventure of ours - and have just been re-reading it. Like Gilbert, author John Steinbeck lived in California when he was young and also shares some thoughts on this topic of beauty and wonder.
When we saw colored pictures of a Vermont autumn forest it was another fairy thing and we frankly didn't believe it. In school we memorized "Snowbound" and little poems about Old Jack Frost and his paintbrush, but the only thing Jack Frost did for us was put a thin skin of ice on the watering trough, and that rarely. To find not only that this bedlam of color was true but that the pictures were pale and inaccurate translations, was to me startling. I can't even imagine the forest colors when I am not seeing them. I wondered whether constant association could cause inattention, and asked a native New Hampshire woman about it. She said the autumn never failed to amaze her; to elate. "It is a glory," she said, "and can't be remembered, so that it always comes as a surprise." I love that. What a way to say it.

But now it is winter in Michigan. I mean, it is REALLY winter this year. I empathize with friends and family who have been trudging through the deep snow and sliding around on the ice. I admit that I almost feel like we have cheated by not being there for this brutal record-breakingly harsh winter.

What a winter for a California girl like Melissa Gilbert to be adjusting to Michigan! I just have to wonder if it reminds her of when she was growing up in Walnut Grove - when the Minnesota snow was up to the loft window of their "little house" on the prairie. Wait! Oh, yah, that was just pretend, wasn't it? Just a movie set. Okay, what I meant was... I wonder if it reminds her of when she was little and they were filming... Whatever. In another blog post, she does comment on her first Michigan winter.

Here's the thing about this winter. At least from where I...um...sit...
It's the worst winter the US has seen in 20 years.. BUT...I'm loving it because I know it will make spring that much more glorious. Then we'll have summer and then fall, which is breathtaking here and winter again. It fascinates and exhilarates me.

You see, I come from LA. Basically the weather is the same....ALL THE FREAKIN" TIME! It almost never changes. It's pretty but it gets boring. It really does. And the smog Oh my lord! If everyone in LA could spend one year living here, breathing this clean perfect air, they'd know the difference. ...

Perspective. Familiarity. Change.

Seasons. Beauty. Amazement. Awe.

Wonder.

Ah, wonder.