Miss Michigan

Four years. That’s about how long it’s taken for me to become a stranger to the state where I grew up. I can still navigate pretty well, but I catch myself surprised by landmarks I’d forgotten, and looking out at all the trees feels wrong somehow, as though I should be able to look out at the horizon. It’s not exactly a sense of claustrophobia, but it’s more the sense that space has its borders.

   

I’d decided to take a well-earned week off work in order to visit my mom and dad up in northern Michigan. There wasn’t really much we were planning to do, but it’s been months since I’d seen them, and our family is close. Not really close distance-wise, but close as in if you’re feeling lonely, you can pick up the phone and nine times out of ten have someone on the other end of the line you can talk to for at least a half-hour. It’s one of the best things about my family. So I packed up my car and drove off into the distance, the sun setting behind me.

The vacation itself was wonderful. I arrived in northeast Michigan and then drove with my parents to their cottage even further northeast, about a half-hour from the shores of Lake Huron. It’s in an area almost surrounded by trees, mostly pine it seems, with a series of lakes created when a river was dammed. For the next few days we would kayak out on the lake, take out the pontoon boat, play board games and occasionally go out to eat. We went for an art walk through the town of Cheboygan and had scallops at a restaurant overlooking a marina. It was fantastic.

I’ll be honest, I have a hard time thinking about what to write here. The vacation was beautiful and relaxing, but it was not eventful. This is in part because the community around the lakes works to keep it uneventful. No high-speed boating, no disturbing the local wildlife, and they frown on anyone being too loud, even if there’s no noise ordinance. I can’t see anyone with a Type A personality lasting for more than a few minutes here.

What really stands out, though, is that I actually miss the state of Michigan. I even take a certain amount of pride in saying I’m from Michigan, although I can’t honestly tell you why. There are a lot of great things about Michigan that I love and want to point out to people in Iowa, even though I’ve had about as much to do with them as I’ve had to do with the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle. Detroit, for instance. I’m proud of the city’s musical history, which has produced sounds as diverse as the Four Tops, Alice Cooper and Eminem. And my gift to the Detroit music scene? Singing karaoke a few times. As I said, it sounds kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

So I miss Michigan, and I’m reminded of what I left when Mom, Dad and I go out on the pontoon boat in the evenings and see the setting sun reflected in the still waters of the lake as though it were a mirror. I’m reminded of what I left when I go down to Ann Arbor and drive past the house where Lee used to live, hoping a little bit that it’ll be mysteriously gone and knowing that the cold reality is that life goes on, even when someone dies. I’m reminded of what I left when I get together with my friends and play games with them, and I’m reminded of what I left when I drive past the sign that says “Welcome to Indiana!” which is the most goodbye-sounding greeting I have ever received.

I’m not saying that Iowa is bad. I want to make that very clear. Iowa is like a coworker you befriend in your thirties, where Michigan is the friend you’ve known since you were in elementary school and left when you graduated. But there are times, after getting back from Michigan, where I look around at Iowa, at the town of Cresco, and I know it’s just not the same. Not that it should be, either. But sometimes the best thing to do is to keep your eyes focused straight ahead, even while you’re looking around. Looking back can mean missing some things in the past you really, really liked and you didn’t know how much you liked them until they were gone.

That being said, I’m back here in Iowa. I’ve been looking for some things to write about, and a friend of mine rightly took me to task for not posting anything up for a while because the only things I could think of to write about were touristy. She pointed out that yes, they are touristy, but touristy can also be cool. So we’ll see what happens.