No coincidences

SUTTON’S BAY, Mich. – On Tuesday, we headed North … again to Michigan.

It’s a natural path for us now; instinct takes over.  We point the car, and roughly two days later, without much thought, we’ve arrived.

The Boardman River

We found a place to stay near Sutton’s Bay, which is just north of Traverse City on M-22.  It’s on the west side of Traverse Bay.  Much like my visit earlier this year to Pine Knot on the west side of Lake Superior, we haven’t been privy to sunsets. 

But that’s okay.  My sister Mary Ann in Green Bay reported that there was still color in the trees at her latitude. And it was true.  Upon arrival, the reds and yellows were their own brilliant sunset, gradually dimming ahead of winter’s sleep.

But even we were surprised at the depths of the reds and yellows, the way they shouted from the hills.  Not a sleepy goodnight, but a barn dance of celebration … a final, loud salute to the goodness of the harvest.

The fun part was that we stopped to see the Slacks on the way up.  We’re all still remembering the antics around the Bellingham wedding.  We reminisced about that, though not too much.  Day-to-day events quickly overtake all of us, and so we mainly shared the latest in our lives.

The latest for me has been both unpleasant and telling.  I won’t share much.  Just know that the vagaries of business sometimes require managers to do things against their very nature – to accept the reality that a bigger cause requires painful and difficult decisions.

I remember when I was in junior high school, and Mom, Dad, Barb and I sat down to dinner in the kitchen.  Looking back now, it was during the recession of 1969 – mild compared to what we’ve all been through lately, but it had a significant effect then.  Housing starts were in descent. Dad’s business – making thermostats for homes, among other things – was upended.  Demand was down, but profits were still required.  The solution?  Cut expenses.  Cut personnel.

I remember then Dad easing into his chair, tense, and Mom asking him what was wrong. And Dad physically shuddering a bit, his hands shaking – I’d never seen him do that – then saying he would have to “let go” of someone the next day … someone who had worked with him for years. That she didn’t deserve this, he said, but corporate had its targets, and targets had to be made or the whole enterprise could be in jeopardy.

I don’t remember when in 1969 this occurred.  Spring?  Fall?  It was a season, though, full of "letting go."

I do know that Dad would count on Michigan to put some emotional distance between these kinds of struggles and his hope for a life better.

And so we find ourselves here.  The timing is a coincidence, I tell myself.  Then again, I believe such coincidences happen for a reason … and so they are not coincidences at all.  We needed this time away, especially now. 

Cindy, me, on Traverse Bay.

We came to explore.  It’s never too early to think about “what’s next,” especially as you approach retirement. Planning is paramount these days.  It takes years to put together an adequate strategy for that kind of “what’s next.”

It’s too soon, of course, to declare that Michigan is what’s next. And we hardly envision us as traditional retirees.  But I think we’ve made a decision that Michigan will be our last stop in our travels.  And not because we’ll be ready to sit on our duffs and admire the reds and yellows and other incredible sights. 

No, instead, it’s because Michigan has always represented for us youth and energy and freshness and a renewed sense of purpose.  I’ve been coming to Michigan for just those reasons since I was 7. It's where dreams are made.

Since 1974, that renewal had occurred at a small red cottage my mother had dubbed Wind Song on Glen Lake.  As readers of this blog know, I and my siblings sold the cottage for a variety of reasons to the National Park Service.  The service in turn knocked down the cottage and let Nature take hold.

Where the cottage once stood.

We visited the cottage site today … the first time we’d seen it since the bulldozer had done its duty.  The view of Glen was as beautiful as ever.  The winds were crisp, the waters blue, the waves dutifully marching down the shore, crashing their hellos.

I braced for more sadness this visit.  But interestingly, it didn’t happen.  We speculated as to why … that perhaps it was past the time for grieving.  That time does heal most wounds.

It also had to do with the promise exhibited by the wild grass and other new growth where the cottage’s foundation had been. After all, during our last visit – when the cottage was still standing but abandoned, dirty, disheveled – the cottage’s state seemed both sad and an abomination … a mockery of all of the joy, laughter and love that had existed within its walls.

Now, at least, the cottage’s spirit had been set free.  And Nature’s might was busting through where there had once been foundation and shadow.

But more than all that, I think it was our mindset about “what’s next.”   We ambled throughout the countryside this visit, looking at other lakes, other cottages.  Imagining moving here or there, and what that would be like. 

Point Betsie.

Sure, we visited the old haunts.  Art’s Tavern for lunch, Esch Beach to marvel at the historic low levels of Lake Michigan, the Point Betsie lighthouse where it still towers, after 154 years, over a shoreline of pesky, hard-to-find Petoskey stones.

But that wasn’t the heart of our visit.  That’s the past.  At some point, we’ve realized, we’ll be hungry for the future. And coming here is natural … has been for almost four decades.

And so we wandered like we used to before children and house payments and other deep responsibilities.  We breathed in the smells, savored the fresh-water breezes, and let our eyes dance with the sun along the shore. And we saw a familiar land, yet one teeming with new opportunities.

There’s a reason instinct pulls us North.

Up here, there are no coincidences. 

Esch Beach ... Lake Michigan.