From JuJu with Love

From the time I was a little girl, Harbor Springs was my happy place.

It started with a condo, the kind where summers stretch long and the days blur together in the best possible way. Later, my parents built a cottage on Little Traverse Bay, and Harbor Springs became more than a vacation spot—it became the backdrop of my growing up.

We spent our summers there. Long, golden Michigan summers filled with bike rides into town, lazy days on the beach, tennis matches, and evenings that felt endless. We had a sailboat in the harbor, and some of my happiest memories are of being out on the water, the wind in my hair, the sun setting behind us, everything feeling exactly as it should.

We went up for ski weekends in the winter, too, squeezing in time together whenever we could. My mom—fearless and determined—once flew us there in a little Cessna while she was learning to fly. Even now, that memory makes me smile. Of course she did.

On some Friday nights in the summer, my parents took us to a small synagogue in nearby Petoskey. It wasn’t fancy or grand, but it was warm and familiar, filled with faces that returned year after year, just like we did. Sitting there together at the end of the week, the prayers felt quieter somehow—shaped by the lake air, the slower pace, the feeling that we were rooted both in tradition and in this place we loved so much. Even far from home, Judaism was simply part of our summers, woven in as naturally as bike rides and beach days.

By high school and college, Harbor Springs became a place of independence. My parents trusted me to drive the nearly 200 miles north with girlfriends, a car full of laughter, music turned up too loud, and the feeling that freedom was just beginning. We celebrated birthdays there. We learned how to sneak alcohol and mix drinks for ourselves like teenagers everywhere—convinced we were very clever, refilling my parents’ vodka bottles with water!

But life, as it does, changed.

My mom went into a wheelchair. My parents divorced. While I was in college, the house was sold. The summers ended, at least in the way I had known them.

And yet.

To this day, when I go back to Harbor Springs, it still feels like home. It still feels like happiness.

It’s where I remember my family being whole—my mom, my dad, my sisters, and me together. My mom and my sisters and I spent entire summers there, while my dad worked during the week and came up on the weekends. Those reunions at the end of the week felt like celebrations in themselves.

Some days were quiet and unremarkable in the best way—beach days, tennis games, bike rides. Other days, my mom would take us to Traverse City for a little culture, a play or a show or shopping, making sure we understood that even in a small lakeside town, the world was bigger and richer than we imagined.

One of my favorite memories is from when I was sixteen. My parents let me drive my sister Margo to Charlevoix to the Castle Farms outdoor concert venue. We saw The Police in concert—just the two of us, under the summer sky. I felt grown up, trusted, and incredibly lucky.

Harbor Springs holds all of that for me—the joy, the freedom, the innocence, and the heartbreak. It’s a place where time feels layered, where every visit carries echoes of who I was and who we were together.

Some places never stop being your happy place, even when the people and circumstances change.

Harbor Springs will always be mine.

From JuJu with Love 💙✈️