Michigan is The Great Lakes State. It is a fact that anywhere you are in Michigan, you are no more that six miles from a body of water. I love water in all its forms. Grandma Pat still calls me her water baby. I spent every summer swimming in her pool until we moved out of town. Grandma Pat and I would walk across the street to the Shiawassee River with stale bread to feed the geese. Sometimes we'd drive to Higgins Lake to feed the geese over there. Every summer my mom, my brothers and I spent a week at Sage Lake with cousins. We'd bring inflatable rafts, tie them together and float in shallow water. One year, the older girls and I took our rafts and went tubing down the Rifle River. It was shallow but moved fast and I delighted in the free feeling of bouncing around in the currents, sure of where I would arrive, not knowing quite how I would get there.
My first out-of-state move took me to the Georgia coast. I was awed by the ocean but less so than people who never saw Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior's freshwater coasts swallow the horizon. When I left Georgia for New York City, I would take the L-train to 1st Avenue, walk down, through the financial district and stop at Battery Park. I would walk down to the Pier, to the very edge and look down at the cold, black saltwater as it slopped the concrete border of the city. I left New York City to come home. The vitality flowing through me had been drained, siphoned away and dispersed as a fog.
The deepest connection I have to Michigan is to the water I grew up loving. I change form: stagnate, evaporate and collect myself again. I move constantly: walk, bicycle, run away. My life is full of abrupt turns, swiftly changing directions and inconstant currents. I seek out my source only to move away from it again, to come back, to move away...
(me in the middle, on my Grandpa Willie's property on the Grand River)
Cassie,
ReplyDeleteI love your connection to water and the comparison between your life and water's tide. When you mentioned you were awed by the ocean (but not as much as those who hadn't seen the Great Lakes), it reminded me of the first time I saw one of the Great Lakes. I was definitely in awe; though I had seen the ocean many times, I had never seen a lake so ocean-like. It would be neat to read further about the places you have been and the source of water you found in those places. How did the bodies of water you found reflect each place? It's fitting that you, a water lover, keep returning to the state that holds so much water. I love the photo addition; I could tell you were the one in the middle before reading the caption :)
Grandma Pat's "water baby" says it best! I love the water metaphor...if only we could all collect ourselves that well. I love the movement and the rootedness at the same time. I can't wait to read more. Truly.
ReplyDeleteI'll echo what the others have said about water being such a powerful metaphor. I was especially interested in this idea:
ReplyDeleteIt was shallow but moved fast and I delighted in the free feeling of bouncing around in the currents, sure of where I would arrive, not knowing quite how I would get there.
That sounds, from what little I know, a larger metaphor for your life, no?