EDITOR'S NOTE

AUTUMN’S MAGIC LIGHT

by DEBORAH WYATT FELLOWS

photo by Deborah Fellows

Our youngest, olivia, has just gotten her first job. A journalist. Imagine that. My husband, Neal, and I sit among changing autumn colors, contemplating that milestone while finally acknowledging that we have to take the boat out for the season. The air, the lake, the leaves, the boat and Liv—so many autumn moments tied into memory in that visceral way place provides.

It’s October 1999 and the leaves are just before peak. We haven’t taken the boat out of the water yet, and on a Saturday, we bundle the kids into it for a ride around the lake. Ben is 8. Peter is 5 ½. Austin is 3. And Liv, home with us for just two weeks, is about to turn 1. We’ve piled blankets, books and snacks into our old Rinker for this, possibly our last trip of the year, and Liv’s first ever. The water is a deep blue, still dancing in sunlight’s diamonds, and the shoreline is ablaze. Ben is hanging near Neal, hoping to take the wheel at some point, and I am up in the front with the other three who scramble to the bow to sit on their knees like figureheads on an ancient ship. Liv has sandwiched herself between her two brothers; Austin gently placing her hands on the silver railing, Peter exclaiming with his pure joy just what she is about to experience. I hold on to the back of life jackets as gently as possible so they don’t know I’ve got them and try to imprint the moment, and Liv’s face, into my memory. In just a few weeks, our brave little girl has been plucked out of St. Petersburg, Russia, and dropped into life in Northern Michigan. We already know she embraces life with sheer gusto, and on this day, I watch as she tilts her face to the wind and the October light. She is too young yet for language and would have no English yet if she could speak. So, her language on this glorious day is her little fingers clutching the rail, her tiny, tiny body braced against the rush of the wind, her gleeful laughter that comes from the belly, her beautiful china-blue eyes closing just briefly. And I know then that we are complete. We are the family we were meant to be, gliding together through October’s magic light and whatever comes beyond.

It is October, 10 years later, and Ben, tall and fair-haired, has come home for the first time from college. He arrives in the late afternoon and as the dropping sun turns the world a rich, deep gold, he changes into his suit, grabs a towel and heads to the lake. It is not a warm day. The lake has gone cold. But in he goes, and then he sits for a while down on the dock until he becomes just a silhouette against the darkening waters. Eventually, he walks slowly up to the house and as he passes through the kitchen, he looks at me and says, “You just forget.”

But we don’t really forget, do we? It’s like muscle memory, coming back to us again and again when the light slants just so, or the water shimmers a certain blue or the sun filters through a canopy of trees turned brilliant green or shades of red and gold. All the memories of any given season in Northern Michigan live just one moment away. We can almost turn a corner and come upon them; time spent with the landscape we love, the people we love.

If these pages inspire you to head out into the landscape of this region and create memories, then the promise made over 40 years ago when we launched Traverse is fulfilled. And if you are somewhere else, far away from Northern Michigan’s magic autumn light, and something in these pages pulls you back into memory, then we have done what we set out to do. We are so honored and grateful that we still get to do it, because we never forget.

Deborah Wyatt Fellows is founder and editor in chief of Traverse Magazine/MyNorth.com. debwf@traversemagazine.com