Michigan Staycation with Friends

Just wanted to post a little update about the wonderful time we spent with David’s old friends (now mine, too) from Amsterdam. David played driver and tour guide, giving us all a full, yet delightful week, perfectly paced and musically curated. Most people don’t know that David owns thousands of CD’s from around the world, and one of his favorite creative outlets is finding just the right versions of songs in just the right order to set the mood. We have “musical wallpaper” for our home and thousands of songs at his fingertips in the car.

Our visit’s selections ranged from 80’s and 90’s to classical, to obscure 70’s and lots of German and Swedish hits. Seth (pronounced “Set”) works in the music industry, so they’ve shared music over the years. Seth’s actually the person who sent David the song “Haus Am See,” which became the name of the blue house I rented as an office in Goshen. If I had to choose one song to sum up our time together, it would be The Hot Sardines, “Bei Mir Bistu Shoen”:

Dorothea (Dor-o-TAY-uh) is an artist and a psychological therapist, so she and I have lots in common. Somehow, everything worked out with everyone very much enjoying everyone else. David and Seth hadn’t seen each other or even connected at all in the past 6.5 years due to life’s craziness and I had never met Seth or Dorothea. We kind of marveled at how risky them traveling to stay with us for a week was, but from the moment they arrived, everything just clicked. So much laughter, love and fun. Seth’s North Node is right on David’s Sun, so they have one of those fated friendships that endures long times apart and fits even as they change and grow.

This visit’s activities included multiple trips to Lake Michigan — sunset at St. Joe’s while driving home from O’Hare …

… walks and swim at Holland, Michigan:

… and a hike through Saugatuck Dunes then onto the beach. Seth and Dorothea both swam, while I walked miles knee deep in the water, as David walked on shore:

We also went to Grand Rapids and saw the Meyer May House, a Frank Lloyd Wright house designed for someone my and Dorothea’s height. Unlike so many houses made for taller people, this one’s views were just right! We all traded photos, but I think Seth took these panoramic views. Sorry for the low resolution, but I want the post to load in a timely manner:

David and I had toured the house before, but on a rainy day. This time we got to tour the outside and gardens, too:

Continuing the Grand Rapids garden theme, we also took them to the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. We’re members, so we usually end up taking guests at least once, time permitting. I always love the Japanese Garden with its lily pads, waterfalls and hundreds year old bonzai trees.

Back to Holland on a different day, we toured the Cappon and Settlers House, followed by lunch at New Holland Brewery and more time on the beach. We’d ordered up perfect weather, but I love Lake Michigan in any weather. It always feels like vacation when I spend time at the Lake.

In addition to music, we spent the week together doing a culinary tour of our favorite restaurants in the area, as well as some of our favorite foods to make at home. Meals were lively with conversation in three languages, but mostly English. It comes in handy to be so telepathic, because even though I speak some German and almost zero Dutch, I could follow along fine. I’ve learned to do this in sessions with people who don’t speak much English or when the phone/Skype connection is so terrible that I need to intuit not just for the reading but also for having any kind of flowing conversation at all. It always works well, and this time was no different.

You can’t see our faces too well in the photo below due to the backlighting, but it captures the energy of our time together. These two images were taken at the Blue Moon authentic 50’s diner at the Gilmore Car Museum. We only got coffee/decaf/Arnold Palmer’s, but it felt fun to step into the past:

An authentic 50’s waitress took our photo, so David took hers:

The car museum was actually cool, and that’s saying something coming from a non-driver who’s never had any interest in cars. Our neighbor was so insistent we go that she brought over flyers and pamphlets, insisting I’d like it. David’s cousin and his wife visited us a few months ago, and the English Major, quilter wife told me the same, that I’d enjoy it. Sure enough, the Gilmore Car Museum is really well done! The cars are gorgeous, but they also feature interesting stories, authentic costumes, fitting music for each era, and unusual trivia.

 

I was on synchronicity overload this entire visit, with a significant dream I had a few weekends ago bleeding through our tours. A butterfly woman in one part of the dream turned out to be our tour guide at Meyer May: same hair, same voice, same height, and her clothing echoed the clothing in the dream. She was even opening and closing wooden linen closets like in my dream.

At the Settlers House in Holland, something sent me into the end part of the dream, and when I snapped back to the present moment, the guide was talking about how unlike the Cappon House, the Settlers House had almost no decorations and very few original furnishings. So many people lived here over the years that the main decoration was layers upon layers of wallpaper with no pictures. Interesting, except my eye immediately went to a postcard sized picture of three owls. I asked the guide, “What’s the significance of these owls?” and she about jumped out of her skin. She had never noticed them before.

I see owls whenever something’s “up,” and David and I saw three white owls when we toured the W.K. Kellogg Manor. You can see those photos and read about an eerie timeline shift in this post here. In any case, I noted the three white owls, especially since they appeared during a time bendy moment in life reliving a time bendy dream moment. I walked into the front room and all of a sudden noticed an owl on the clock:

David took these photos, with much laughter from Seth, because David had the same reaction Seth initially did: “What owl?!” For the life of him, David couldn’t find the owl, but once you see it, it becomes obvious. I love how this owl also features kind of a portal door. The synchronicities from that dream continued at the Gilmore Car Museum, where right after pondering all the ways my dream had shown up in “real” life, I found myself in front of the exact blue truck from my dream:

This was the only truck we saw until the very end, so finding a truck of exactly this color at that time was another synchronicity whoa. The next sign had a Third Eye jolting message about “Destiny,” too. I wandered through the museum wondering if I was really picking up on future information or if “they” (aka My Dream Guys) were having a good laugh at me. What should my eyes land on next?

The Delorean from Back to the Future! I kid you not. It was the Delorean time travel machine. I took that as “both/and” — yes, I’m picking up on the future in my dreams … but also yes, My Dream Guys … or the Universe … or Someone is having a very hearty laugh at me. All this time, we each explored the various cars by ourselves then periodically came together and shared the ones we most liked and why, pointing out the various stories and generally having a good time.

I’ve just been in a period of high strangeness for weeks now, so that theme continued with me. Looking at the huge hood ornament collection, my eyes went right to “Nude on a Broomstick.”

Moments later, Frank Sinatra piped through the speakers singing this:

Ya gotta love Frank! … And Tania … ya gotta love my Sweet Faery Twin Tania Marie, for whom I always see bunnies whenever we go somewhere. She was visiting the same tree she and I had visited together on my Equinox trip to Tahoe last year and I saw these for her:

This was one of several shelves of rabbit/hare hood ornaments, and at the Owl House in Saugatuck, I also saw a bunch of bunnies:

Tania was in the dream, too, but Tania and I are always connected, especially when one or the other of us travels. In any case, it felt a little like she chimed into our visit with Seth and Dorothea, as she sent some photos from last year’s tree portal and then I saw all the bunnies. My North Node conjuncts Tania’s Ascendant and Mars, so she and I have a similarly close friendship that spans time like David and Seth with their Sun/North Node connection.

All in all, it was a magical week together, with Seth and Dorothea heading to Toronto and Niagara Falls for a few days before “coming home” to us for one more night last Thursday. We made Instant Pot risotto while they did laundry and we had a festive, musically perfect final evening together. The next morning we saw them off to Orlando for the rest of their travels before heading home to Amsterdam. We’re all so grateful for our time together, and especially for David attending to every detail, most especially the sights and sounds: