Moving Through

A delightful discovery during my trail run today. / Trails at the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, Traverse City, Michigan. I hear his voice before I see him. “Excuse me. I don’t mean to bother you.” I look over my left shoulder, out the window from where I sit in the driver’s seat in my parked car. A young-ish guy — in his early 30s, if I had to guess — is looking at me, smiling, his right hand held up in a wave.

A special spot on East Grand Traverse Bay, July 14, 2026. The day before the wildfire smoke arrives, we hit high 90s and I can think of nothing but getting myself to the water. An-end-of-day doctor appointment is all that stands between me and a dip in East Grand Traverse Bay.

Dreaming of another Lake Michigan visit very soon. / Bohemian Beach, Leelanau County, June 2026. It’s a true heat wave, just about everywhere it seems. How are you holding up? Work has kept me mostly indoors, behind my computer screen, much of the past few days. Thankfully we have air conditioning, which sometimes gets a tad too frigid for my liking, especially in my lower-level office, but it beats the oven that is the outdoors right now.

NYC, June 2026. This trip to the city was one for the books. (And being there the same week the Knicks won the NBA Finals was pretty awesome; buildings like this one in the background were lit up orange and blue throughout the city.) Hello, fellow travelers! After a string of damp, dreary days here in northern Michigan, the sun made an appearance first thing this morning. The light and warmth boosted my spirits and has me thinking about a trek later today to Lake Michigan.

My hometown downtown beach. Traverse City, Michigan ~ April 2026 Last week was a whirlwind. I might still be catching my breath, if this evening’s mini-meltdown in my kitchen is any indication of my attempt at recovering from the past several days. I’m OK, I am, but you know when things just catch up with you? That’s me, tonight. Thankfully, two days into this extra-busy work week, I’m now comfy on our living room couch, my favorite plush blanket pulled over my legs and lap.

One of my favorite assignments with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources found me here, at this remote state forest campground on Pretty Lake in the Upper Peninsula. I love this photo so much I made it my screensaver on my work laptop. / Fall 2024 Hello, friends! As I begin a new professional adventure, which I share later in this issue, I decided to travel back to spring 2023 and this essay I wrote back then.

2 great warm-weather races to check out (and a discount code!), plus the book I can't put down right now. The scenes show up unbidden, suddenly filling my mind as I trudge through our front lawn still blanketed with snow despite a string of warmer days.

Celebratory chocolate, for a February win. Hello, fellow Moving Through travelers! I’ve been out and about recently, downstate in Lansing and Grand Rapids for work and to spend time with two of my kids, but today I am back home, writing from northern Michigan, where Mother Nature is sneaky in February. We momentarily forget and start to believe spring is maybe just around the corner even though it very much is not.

A moment of recent beauty I am holding on to these days. A good friend and I snowshoed together on our neighborhood trails. I know before I turn my hands over, revealing my palms, that my fingertips will be gray black, smudged with decades-old old newspaper ink. I’m not even halfway through the beige bin containing stacks of folded papers dated 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000. I keep going through the stack, sorting out the clipped articles, setting aside entire sections I’d chosen to keep.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:12:46 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. You can run outdoors all winter long — and even come to love it! (OK, at the very least, embrace it.) In this episode, I stop by downtown Traverse City’s Running Fit (now known as Feet Fleet) to talk winter running and outdoor exploring with running shoe experts Marc McCombs and Alison Goss.