Change of plans. Probably best that my local spirit shrine
wait until the spring anyway. My amazing wife came up with a better idea.
I was born in the suburbs of Chicago, but Michigan will
always be home to me. When I was a kid we had two homes. No, we weren’t rich,
per-se. We were certainly better off than a lot of people, but it was a
testament to the power of solidarity that at one time the American middle-class
could afford a summer home. My grandmother, who came over from Poland as a
little girl, worked for thirty years at General Foods in Chicago. No college
degree, a woman alone in the workforce, but they had a union. The union
demanded that the workers got as much of their fair share as possible. Can you
imagine? I’m glad for the advances in civil rights this country has made, but
racism and sexism are still rampant, and we have lost so much in terms of
worker rights. But I digress.
Our second home was in a place called Sister Lakes. I still
dream about it. Those endless summers spent swimming in the lake. I never knew
how lucky I was.
But my grandmother, a woman who based her identity on work,
died shortly after her retirement. With the pension gone, my mom worked three
jobs to try and keep what we had. A losing battle. She wore herself down to a
nub. Unable to work anymore, she sold the house in Illinois and retired to our
home in Michigan.
I resented it so much at the time. Moving from the city,
after going to one of the largest high schools in the state of Illinois, to a
high school with only three-hundred students. That was a culture shock. I’m
glad for it now, because I can see both perspectives. I know why people in
rural areas think the way they do and I appreciate the more cosmopolitan attitude
of the city. I can talk to people with different backgrounds and relate to
their struggles.
I ended up living in Michigan for twenty years, most of it
in Kalamazoo. Even that far inland, one thing, one power, one spirit remained a
constant—Lake Michigan. I imagine people who live near an ocean understand what
I mean. You seldom look at it, don’t even know it when you’re under its domain,
but you feel it. It has gravity. It effects the weather and the seasons and the
air you breathe. Only the gods themselves rival its power and influence.
A strange thing happened when I moved to Indianapolis a
decade ago. I was never a navigator and always had a piss-poor sense of
direction. But as soon as I moved to Indianapolis, I always knew which way was
North. I could feel the gravity. My blood called out to it. I soon realized
that I always had a sense which way Lake Michigan lies.
Maybe I’m too big for my britches. Maybe I shouldn’t be
trying to build a relationship with a spirit so powerful right now. Yet I feel like
the Lake is family. One of my ancestors. My grandmother bought that house
because all of her friends and family bought houses in Michigan if they
could. So maybe it is family. Maybe this is the bridge for me, the link between
ancestor veneration and the spirits of the land.
Next Sunday, my wife and I will drive to Lake Michigan and
bottle up some of that water so we always have it near. There will be a ritual.
I don’t know what it will be yet. All I know is that as I sit here and write this,
tears flowing down my face, is that I want to go home.
