Reflections

A few of us were sitting on the patio having a beer and talking about good days — what makes them and why we value them and how you don’t always recognize them until they sneak up and surprise you.

Whitefish Point is a funnel for migrants, and on some days you can see hundreds of raptors soaring in “kettles” as they wait for a south wind to carry them across the lake to Canada.

For 20 years I’ve walked this same trail once or twice a week, in every season and in all kinds of weather. Say 60 times a year — 1,200 excursions.

Years ago, when my wife and young sons and I lived in the Old Town neighborhood of Traverse City, we often walked to the Carnegie Library on Sixth Street. On winter evenings we would bundle up in coats, boots, hats and mittens and set out through the snow.

Autumn reminds us to enjoy every day. It reminds us, also, of transience and mortality.

Ten was an age with some weight to it. Double digits. No more kid stuff, I thought. No more toys for Christmas. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was time to get a job and start saving for college.

We had a weekend in a cabin on the Au Sable, and I couldn’t have been more excited to be there. The first morning...

Now and then we need to escape. It seems to be a basic human impulse. In military terms retreat is disgraceful unless tactical. Ours are tactical.

It’s good to now and then climb to a height beneath the sky and take stock of where you are.

Winter is a great time for noticing the little things. Maybe it’s seeing a clump of snow drop silently from a hemlock bough. Maybe it’s watching a red fox trot up the driveway.