Home

         My sister and I, five and six years old respectively, shriek as another swell crashes over us. The sun is setting and I can hardly see our dad because of the sparkling diamonds reflecting off the surface of the water. Suddenly he looms before me, pulls me up high above his head, and gently tosses me into the churning waves. I plug my nose as I enter the water and hear nothing but am surrounded by everything, little bits of plants and sand and tiny shells and all this stuff that makes up the lake, and for a few seconds I imagine that I live down here myself. I pop up toward the sun and my sister and breathe in deeply and together we dive down again, spinning and turning over and over with the flow of the water, just happy to be apart of our favorite place in the world.

* * *

         I have always considered Lake Michigan to be my home, because without it St. Joseph wouldn’t exist. Every second-grader in the St. Joseph Public School System takes a walking tour of the downtown neighborhood, learning the great myths of the explorer LaSalle and Fort Miami, tucked in that tiny triangle of land between the big lake and the river. The lake was everything then—trade, transportation, access to the booming city of Chicago, dinner and a way of life for countless fishermen and their families.
         And it still means everything today, at least to me. I always get excited on the drive back home from school. I get off 31 about 10 miles north of St. Joe and take 63 the rest of the way into town. This is the best driving road ever—curves, hills, and teasing glimpses of blue water between trees and summer cottages all the way into St. Joseph. No matter what time of year, I always drive past the beach before going to my house. The lake is alive even in the middle of January, when storms from the West and temperatures in the teens and twenties cause waves to freeze in mid-cycle, a phenomena I have never seen anywhere else but home.
         Lake Michigan, of course, has many practical applications. It is my drinking water, and that of the perch I eat for dinner at least once a week, all summer long. It is home to many more animals and organisms than I will ever know and has a dramatic effect on regional climate and weather. It is still trade and transportation, although the ferry to Chicago is long gone. It is tourism, public beaches, state parks, and campgrounds. St. Joseph still depends on the lake for its booming summer economy—the town literally doubles in population four months of the year.
         And for good reason—I cannot imagine a more beautiful sight than the lake at sunset in mid-July. The sky explodes with colors, more shades of pink and orange and purple than a mere human could ever create, and the silvery lake surface shows a mirror image of the sky’s artwork. Just after the sun disappears, the lake calms a bit, as if it is getting ready for bed. The waves become smoother, more predictable, and the water temperature is still warm even as the air cools.
         At night, however, the water jumps back to life when the wind picks up. I’ve snuck into the beach countless times, well past midnight, with friends or my sister or just by myself. This is my favorite time to go see the lake. It is my infinite abyss, my place where everything is connected and goes on forever without end, where I can become a little bit of the lake and the sky and the air itself. At night, there is no separation, no horizon line. It seems as though you could get in a kayak and paddle to the end of the world and just keep on going. You can only hear the waves crashing into the shore, only feel those waves and sand and wind around your ankles, only see the stars above and whitecaps and the occasional lighthouse beacon far down the shoreline. This isn’t a time to talk or giggle, even if you’re with a big group of people. It is a time to be with the water, to remember all it has given, to understand its power and beauty.
         I realized over the past year or so that I have always taken the lake for granted. At family reunions in Kansas and Colorado when I was younger, I was always confused that “let’s go swimming” didn’t mean going to a lake, but to the hotel pool. In high school, my friends and I spent more time checking out guys playing volleyball than the glorious sunset on our evening cruises past the beach. I never knew how spoiled I was to live less than two minutes away from the most precious spot on earth, until I came to school in Holland last fall. That first drive to Tunnel Park felt like it took fifteen days instead of fifteen minutes, but my new friends were excited that they didn’t have to drive half the day to get to the lake.
         Lake Michigan is my life. It is my physical necessities and emotional ones, it my home and my playground and my general well-being. I cannot imagine ever moving far from its shores.