The Great Lakes and Me.

I absolutely, positively, adore the Great Lakes. I mentioned that I often went camping as a child in a previous post, but what I didn’t mention was that those camping trips involved the Great Lakes four out of five times. At least once every summer my family would pack up the van and head out for the coasts. It’s odd to think about a body of water as having any impact on my perceptions of myself (unless I’m thinking about how fragile the human body is and how easily that water could drown me,) but I do think that the Great Lakes—Michigan and Superior, in particular—had a somewhat profound affect on my relationship with the natural world. 

There are very few places in the world that are simultaneously calming and frightening, but large bodies of water are one of them. While my memories of Lake Michigan conjure memories of gentle waves, a sunny day paired with a light breeze, and the smell of sunscreen, Lake Superior conjures images of white-caps, blustering air, and the embarrassing moment in which my father and brother called me into the water with them—I was nine years old and maybe fifty or sixty pounds; the coldness of the water made me collapse halfway through the shallows and my mom had to drag me to rescue. Alas, I did learn the beauty of Lake Superior from afar; a few years later I had the pleasure of boating through the Pictured Rocks!

I don’t know that any other lake, ocean, or river will ever have such an impact on my life as the Great Lakes, but I’m willing to try out any challengers. Perhaps this summer, during my stay in the Netherlands, I will discover that one of their coasts moves me so deeply it by-far surpasses years of fond memories—but, I doubt it.