True North
Jim Harrison
Copyright 2004
Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

….I had the distinct, joyous feeling that my desk was being consecrated though I comically fell backward when I came, looking up from floor level at what I thought was the loveliest bottom in the cosmos.

At the airport she looked off at the lovely green hills north of the runway and said “You live in a beautiful place and you don’t act like you know it”. This was the rawest of points because when I looked at U.P Landscapes I often tried to imagine them through the eyes of Schoolcraft or Agassiz before the landscape was finally violated.

At the gate I saw several businessmen trying to conceal their stares at Vernice. I suppose that technically she wasn’t beautiful in the manner of magazine models or actresses  but she drew immediate attention of both males and females. She was full of “elan vital,” a life force as described by the French philosopher Bergson. When she kissed me good-bye before boarding she said, “Well, Quixote, I hope your god is with you. Write when you wish and remember I hate the  phone.” That was that. I went out in the truck and wept. I had my project and my dog with her unstable allegiances.

On my way back I stopped and got a turkey sandwich to go, glancing over at the corner table where I used to sit with my father and Cynthia. I suddenly recalled how in the third grade a little red-haired girl named Martha, the daughter of a visiting professor at the college, controlled my life. They were from Boston and she sounded strange to me but I was smitten and she authoritatively guided me through every aspect of third grade. When I went to her house to play her mother who “loved the dance” wore leotards, smoked cigarettes, and played classical music very loud.