EDITOR'S NOTE

LOVE IT HERE

by CARA MCDONALD

It’s been an ornery winter and a noncommittal, hold-out of a spring. But we made it—July. The big payoff. The month when the North is at its easiest to love. My friend Jeff Smith once said to me, “If you can’t love Northern Michigan in summer, there’s something wrong with you.” That is so true. Which should make this month’s editor note the easiest to write, but it’s been the hardest so far. Not that I don’t have things to say about summer picnics, or honeybees or local farms or sailing or any of the beautiful things captured in these pages. The fact is, working on this issue has caused an easy, predictable swell of love for this region. It’s not the feeling love part that’s hard. It’s the loving.

I’ve lived in resort regions for most of my life. I’ve been an outsider, an insider, and, after many years and volunteer hours and county commissioner meetings, a local. I’ve had to think about what it means to love a place. When I closed my eyes in a hammock swinging between two blazing gold trees in autumn, it felt like love. Skiing first tracks on Christmas morning, catching the Leonids from my deck, pushing a paddle board out onto a morning lake, biting into the season’s first peach: Love. Easy love.

I guess I’ve made my living as a love pusher, publishing and editing stories celebrating the reasons to live, visit, buy into, support, make a first home or find a second in some of the prettiest places on the continent.

This comes with some emotional tension for me. In part because, despite that love, I can often complain about the state of things where I live. The community, the local leadership, the soccer game schedule and, holy Hannah, I’ll admit it, the weather.

My kids have taken a rather literal interpretation of this. “Mom, you hate winter.” “Mom, you don’t like snow/the school principal/soccer games.”

I happen to love snow (just not in May), respect the school principal and enjoy a September soccer Saturday, and I know this because I live it. I celebrate the first snow of the season with Champagne and fondue; I Nordic and alpine ski in all kinds of spitting weather. I loved my kids’ school enough to be a reading buddy and bring the “healthy” Halloween snack. And soccer Saturdays? I will never be a line judge because I have no idea what’s going on, but I will be the mom to pour a slug of the good kind of apple cider into your travel mug.

My love isn’t just a feel-good thing. It might involve cage rattling, piping up or a good eye roll. But if we’re only loving the easy things during the good times, well, I think the universe has a bigger ask of us.

That came crashing home the week I sat down to write this column, when a tornado of historic force devastated the Gaylord community. Buildings and whole neighborhoods were demolished and two lives were lost, leaving the rest of us feeling some mix of guilty, spared and heartbroken. Those of us who were unaffected grappled with what to do next.

The answer is love. Within hours, donation centers were created, funds established, volunteers signed up, a veritable army of those who love this piece of the mitten mobilized to support a community we feel connected to in a meaningful way.

Fierce love is often inconveniently felt and messily delivered. But the world needs it even more than the pretty kind.

This July, in the midst of all the beauty and gifts this place showers on us, I hope we can love Northern Michigan in the myriad ways that count. Not just the sunsets and wildflowers and Insta-worthy family snaps. Rather, love that shows up by being gracious with long lines and short-handed staff; picking up trash on the beach; sharing your parade curb space with a family who arrives too late; donating to a local conservancy; leaving an outrageous tip for the teen scooping your ice cream.

Love in action is Up North at its very best, and the best way to embrace this place that embraces us. I hope your summer is brimming with it.

Cara McDonald

Executive Editor cara@mynorth.com