"Where you grow up forms who you are. It has a big effect on who you become. I truly believe that."
I nodded as I listened to the Sister as she went on to describe a childhood filled with lush hills and tall trees that she adored. I then talked about the place that has my heart: Lake Superior. Its glassy blue waters, the cloudy grey skies before the rain, the soft sand beneath my toes throughout my college years. The place where I grew up. The place that knows me best.
I never appreciated where I lived when I was growing up. To me, the UP was I needed to escape. A place that lacked any real shopping, no true art or culture and was as homogenous as an area could possibly be. (Today a friend who chose to set roots in the UP was talking about a Yooper teacher who took her students to the Twin Cities to experience art museums. They saw a black person and began shouting about how they had seen their first real "homeless person.") (I'm not joking. That really happened.) (And truthfully? That's kind of what I thought when I saw my first Black person when I went downstate in high school. Because it is THAT undiverse.) I couldn't wait to escape the UP.
A funny thing happened once I left and moved to the middle of Lower Michigan. My body began craving bodies of water. The pond at the park by my apartment couldn't suffice. None of the tiny lakes around the Lansing area satisfied me either. I longed for a Great Lake. Specifically Lake Superior, my home. I wanted to see miles of coastline. I yearned for white-capped waves. I needed to see a sunset over Presque Isle. When I was finally able to return home I nearly cried when I saw Marquette's outline alongside the lake. It's a part of me. It has a part of me.
I read a quote from Michelle Williams yesterday that struck me. "I want to be like water; strong enough to hold up a ship but able to slip through your fingers." That resonated with me as I'd like to think of myself as strong, yet I feel that I should work on being a bit elusive and intriguing. I should be a little more like water. Specifically I should be a little more like the lake I love: strong, beautiful, inspiring, unafraid of changing conditions yet stable in its own amazing elements. Lake Superior is not only in me, it's a part of me. I'll continue to draw inspiration from it for the rest of my life.