Darren King's Blog (7)

River

Strength and courage overrides The privileged and weary eyes Of river poet search naivete. Pick up here and chase the ride. The river empties to the tide. All of this is coming your way - The River, R.E.M. Funny. The songs that come to me after some down time on lakes and rivers and playing music with a friend. But it occurred to me kayaking the other day, this song came into my head, how this time Up North has highlighted crossroads for our family. Our oldest is of the age we can no lon… Continue

Posted by Darren King on August 21, 2009 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Wish You Were Here

It's the song you play when you have two guitarists on a Lake Michigan beach. Acoustic twelve-string and six-string. That timeless tune that gets better and better (fulfilling its own irony ), "year after year". That, and "Sweet Melissa" works well. And then any one of Bob Marley's tunes, peppered with a few well-placed minor chords. All thumb, no pick. But that afternoon on the beach, as we played our music, I watched the horizon grow dark, the wind changed direction and intensified as a storm… Continue

Posted by Darren King on August 17, 2009 at 11:00pm — 3 Comments

You're My Blue Sky (You're My Sunny Day)

Today has been a good day. And a sad day too. First, the good part; sharing an early breakfast with our friends and their beautiful children. Good food and good conversation under the umbrella of pines and bird song and the sun finally rising up to crest the tops of pines and burn off the dew. And then the children sneaking in one last time to play as adults talked and later to hear their new schemes in an attempt to delay the inevitable - seeing them off, home to Pennsylvania. That was the sad… Continue

Posted by Darren King on August 16, 2009 at 1:30pm — 1 Comment

Hosts to Pure Michigan

My wife Deborah is a Michigan girl. Born and raised and proud. She's not shy about it either when talking on blogs and over the Internet. She's "smitten with the mitten," as she likes to tell her out-of-state friends. And a couple of years ago, when we were thinking of taking our vacation out east, she said, "I don't know. I think I'd like to relax and go Up North. Besides, everything we want to do and our boys want to do is there anyway." Except whales. And the ocean. She knew this. And I did… Continue

Posted by Darren King on July 25, 2009 at 10:00am — 1 Comment

Walden

When Henry David Thoreau left the village of Concord on July 4th - a date he contended was, more or less, coincidental given the inference to our American Revolution - he would later write that he had gone to the woods to "live deliberately" - and thus was the first in a string of paradoxical experiences. Several miles outside of town. Alone. Living in a 10 by 15 cabin he, himself, had built. Home for the next two years. 1845. Walden Pond. Though his intent was deliberate living, Thoreau wrote:… Continue

Posted by Darren King on May 23, 2009 at 2:30pm — 2 Comments

Song of the Exiles; mapping my life up north

As children, my brother and I lived with our parents in a suburb of metro-Detroit. But really, we grew up on the lakes and rivers of northern Michigan. There, our father gave to us the values that come from experiencing first-hand, nature and wildlife. Hiking for hours through the Porcupine Mountains seeing black bears, camping along Grand Traverse Bay, fishing the flood-waters of the Au Sable River. We always stopped for lunch on a sandbar and the evening always ended with a roaring campfire, w… Continue

Posted by Darren King on October 30, 2008 at 6:30am — 4 Comments

15th Anniversary

Last weekend, my wife and I enjoyed a three-day weekend celebrating our 15th anniversary. Of course, it was Up North. Leelanau. M22. Glen Arbor. Port Oneida. Leland. Northport. Omena. Suttons Bay. Traverse City - and then across M72 back to Glen Arbor. Unlike down-state, the colors were still at peak. A best-kept secret in the lower parts of the LP. We also had to hit all the art galleries and of course, Sleeping Bear Dunes and Empire...beautiful. We timed our stops with food. Great food. Seriou… Continue

Posted by Darren King on October 27, 2008 at 7:00pm — 4 Comments