Mullis: Waking up to the ‘wow’ for now

I’ve always wanted to live in a house with a view. I want to wake up every morning, look out the window and say, “Wow. I can’t believe I live here.”

Unfortunately, I can’t afford a “wow” mortgage – at least not on a house that has running water, working heat and more than two rooms. And many of these “wow” places don’t have ready access to the jobs and school systems and doctors that make life with kids practical.

We do rent a house with a view for one week every summer. I love it, which is why I return home with a couple real estate brochures, a wistful look in my eye, and a little envy in my heart.

Fortunately, Michigan brings the “wow” to my front door every fall. I don’t need a cabin in the woods or a mansion along the lakeshore to see it. I just have to live here. Anywhere. Heck, I could be homeless in Michigan during October, and still see breathtaking views everywhere I go.

I forget Michigan is a forest at heart, reproducing trees every chance it gets in whatever crack of dirt it finds. This is why we have to clean baby trees out of our gutters, and weed baby trees out of our flowerbeds, and pull baby trees out of the cracks in our driveway every spring.

During the summer, the mature trees are so prevalent and green, they blur into one leafy roof. When that roof goes Technicolor, it more than catches my eye – it catches my breath.

Every maple, oak, birch, beech, hickory, cotton, flowering and fruit tree changes in its own time, according to its own palette. The world becomes a dozen interpretations of gold, crimson and orange, sometimes on the same tree at the same time.

These colors bring the dark branches into relief. When the wind blows, these limbs appear as graceful dancers swaying or happy flower girls tossing petals.

In fall, I rarely consider Michigan’s pewter skies as gloomy but gracious, for they let the orange pop and the yellow sizzle and the red rejoice. I move slower with my neck cricked to see the show, even if it’s just to get the mail.

I walk my neighborhood year round, but it’s only in October that I stop every three feet and think, “Look at that tree!” or “Look at that ridge!” The rest of the year I am unaware my neighborhood has a ridge.

Autumn in Michigan is impartial, touching not just lakefronts and state parks, but alleyways and abandoned buildings. For weeks, there isn’t an ugly corner or a dull errand or a routine task. Everything is crisper, and I find myself hyperaware of little things, like the scrollwork on old farmhouses or the wobbly flight paths of late-season wasps.

It’s a vacation state of mind without packing a thing or driving a mile.

I don’t want to wax too poetic. I know what’s coming – rakes and blisters and burn piles and the brain-poking buzz of a dozen leaf blowers – the mad rush to destroy fall leaves before the first snowfall.

I hate raking leaves, but that’s November’s headache.

Right now, I am waking up in the morning, looking out my window and saying, “Wow. I can’t believe I live here.”

Nicole L.V. Mullis will be signing copies of her novel “A Teacher Named Faith” at Battle Creek Books tonight. See www.NicoleLVMullis.com for details.