Delight of Life’s Falling Leaves

By Cindy Kendall
Sun contributor
As my dad would say, “It’s been said: There is a good purpose to every season; every season’s fruit is nourishment for another season.” I smile to still hold the fruit of my father’s sharing after all these years. The memory of my parents is alive in Leelanau’s Sleeping Bear. No matter where I am, I can be still inside, feeling the wind off of the water, hearing the waves caress the shore, nourished by all the meaningful ideas we explored together.
It’s no surprise that some local maps are graced with the words “Leelanau” – “The Land of Delight.” Henry Schoolcraft, the first translator of Ojibwa native legends, was the man who named this area “Leelinau”, later spelled as “Leelanau”. “Leelinau” was an Ojibwa legend that Schoolcraft translated while with Lake Superior Ojibwa people.

My mother told me that we descend from Ojibwa Chief Wabojeeg whose people lived near Lake Superior. While reading George Weeks’ book, Sleeping Bear: Yesterday & Today, I learned that Wabojeeg is the grandfather of the woman who married Henry Schoolcraft. When Schoolcraft and his wife traveled from west of Lake Michigan, he named this peninsula “Leelinau”, after the Lake Superior Ojibwa Leelinau legend, at which point the translation of “Leelinau” was changed from “the lost daughter” to “delight of life.”
A stream of color graced across the sky from Alligator Hill to Pyramid Point on the day I first stood on the sand in Glen Haven this year. I fondly remember visiting this shore as a little girl who could barely reach my father’s hand as we walked through the dark, listening to the sound of the waves. That night my dad pointed into the sky and described the Big Dipper. I could not see it. Dad turned on the flashlight and pointed it at the ground. He poked his finger into the sand seven times and called the holes ‘stars’. Sliding his finger through the sand, he connected the ‘stars’ and called it “The Big Dipper.” He turned off his flashlight and told me to let my eyes get accustomed to the darkness. Within moments I saw “The Big Dipper” clearly in the star-filled sky, amazed that I had not seen it before.
That single moment of realization is still alive in me today. There is nothing like my dad’s joy upon successfully teaching me a new idea.
Reading the legend of “Leelinau”, I was surprised to learn that it is about a daughter who loved exploring Nature. Her parents saw her lack of interest in other things as an indication that she needed to be married in order to find happiness in the things they thought should bring her joy. When she ran away, marrying Nature, she was considered to be ‘lost’ to her people.
My dad introduced my mom to this area in the 70’s. We spent every summer vacation near Leelanau’s Sleeping Bear. We loved listening to my dad’s childhood Camp Leelanau stories. We grew up hiking all over and around Sleeping Bear and swimming in Lake Michigan off of the beach just north of The Homestead where we rented a cabin until the shore was protected by the National Park. Mom told the legend of Sleeping Bear as Mother Bear on the beach, watching over her cubs swimming in the water. That legend is alive to me, not something that happened and is memorialized.
We always called this place “God’s Country”. It was a surprise to find other places in the world that people call “God’s Country.” Having been away from Leelanau’s Sleeping Bear for so long, returning has been to find the fruit from my childhood that is nourishment for all the seasons of my life. I find gratitude for my parents who delighted in Life and nurtured that love and joy for Life in me and my brother as they did in themselves. I find it fascinating that Schoolcraft brought to Sleeping Bear the legend that he discovered on the other side of the lake, identifying something beautiful and active as opposed to something lost and gone.
I returned to Leelanau’s Sleeping Bear last year and hung out all summer in a local campground, writing. When it came time to lift my head from words, I visited my family’s favorite places, listening to the joy and inspiration we found and celebrated together.
One day on a charter boat before dawn, I enjoyed my first experience watching the sunrise from beyond Sleeping Bear Point and South Manitou. I took hundreds of pictures that morning, taking a break for a 30-minute marathon of catching salmon. It was a delightful change of pace as Captain Bill Winowiecki thrust a flexing rod into my hand and taught me how to reel in the fish, patiently correcting me when I forgot his instruction. When I left Glen Arbor for the winter, I enjoyed working with him on his website.
This past summer Bill and his son Billy took me out on the Watta Bite Charter Fishing boat. I sat back and watched father and teenage son, recognizing the patience of experience interacting with the ‘eagerness to help while responding to constantly changing circumstances’. At one point Bill handed the bending pole to me and reminded me how to reel in the big fish. The fish was a real fighter. It seemed forever before we netted that fish. Surprised by their burst of enthusiasm, I had to ask “why?”
Captain Bill told me “that is a rare fish” as he pointed to the 12-pound Brown Trout that had a hook jaw. “The hook jaw forms for the season when it needs to protect its nest. When the nest no longer needs protecting, the hook jaw disappears.” I pondered the Nature lesson in that phenomenon while Billy kept the boat straight so his dad could set the lines again. Could it be that Nature provides what is needed, when it is needed?
I think about the last 20 years and see those times when an armor of protection was suddenly there and then gone because it was no longer required, like holding to a truth to counter an error. I think about my seven times great grandfather who was chief of his people at a time of great change. I think of my mother bringing us kids up here, believing that flowers need the opportunity to bloom freely in Nature. I think of my father lovingly teaching me many things that even now continue to blossom in understanding. I think of the people who grace my path, reaching out to me, patient with the daughter who loves to learn. I think of rediscovering Delight of Life’s Sleeping Bear, finding that the protective coating of my heart and soul and mind is really just the leaves that are falling away to make room for unfolding petals.