When James and I were deciding on a move, the common ground between our senses of home was the Great Lakes. I have never lived on a Great Lake, but my childhood was spent with family visits to Ontogonan, on the Lake Superior shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. So Lake Superior is the family seat, so far as those sorts of things go. Lake Superior is mine, towards the very top of the list of places-I-am-from.
Despite this sense of the Upper Peninsula as the family seat, I never thought of myself as a Michigan person. But, while at Notre Dame, Lake Michigan became an escape and a solace. Especially during campus summers, Lake Michigan feels like the backyard of campus (even though it’s definitely not). It’s close enough for a quick escape when feeling landlocked and listless.
If South Bend were 30 miles closer to the lake, it would be the perfect city.
When I was trying to sift through what it was about New York City that I loved so much, it was its geography. The land itself is often covered up to often by the city, it’s easy to lose sight of this lovely granite archipelago at the mouth of the Hudson. New York’s natural energy comes from its location as a port city, in a natural harbor protected from the sea, and a river that connects it, via the Erie Canal, to the rest of the country. It’s easy to forget the proximity of the sea in Manhattan, but the longer I lived there, the more I felt its presence. I’ve never lived that close to the water, but, again, the spirit of the port permeates the city.
And the Hudson River Valley is primal. Underneath the bridges and highways, parkways and interstates, the land is ancient to the touch, lush, and constantly moving. It’s this energy of water on the move, glacier-carved landscapes, and wet deciduous forests in a temperate zone that led us to the Great Lakes.
And so here I am, on the banks of Lake Michigan. Or, at least, a ten-minute walk from the shore. After every run on a hot day, I dive under the waves on Montrose Beach. The lake is powerful, sometimes the waves whip up, the water grows choppy. Some days, like this morning, the water is glassy and smooth.
It seems impossible that I would be able to have access to something so beautiful, some easily. But there it is, free for all, constantly available, this magical, glistening, glacier-carved lake. It is living, quaking history, the story of the earth exposed to the air, and I can just jump into it any old day I please.
In a terribly foul mood last week, I walked alongside of it, and felt myself restored to a semblance of peace. This is, I think, why I find it essential to live alongside water. Not just a river or a lake, but an unconquerable, vast body of water that we depend upon and fear.
The lake is the perfect reminder, on the edge of the city, that we are in the hands of God. It is untameable, unstoppable nature. We build our lives on the edges of it.