The Lakes of My Life

Despite living in Michigan, I didn't really grow up on a lake. My home is located not too far from some residential lakes, but I have never lived on one. Growing up, my family had a blue and white fishing boat. Every spring, my parents, sister, and I would pull the boat into our front yard and beginning prepping it for use. We would pull off its winter cover and start by removing the fall leaves that had somehow managed to slip their way under the cover along with presents left by our neighbor's cats. While my dad hooked up the motor to the hose and made sure it was in working order, my mom, sister, and I would scrub off the outside, making it look good for a whole summer's use. Even though I loved taking the boat out to the nearest public lake (about ten minutes away), it always seemed a very stressful task to get it in and out of the water. But, once we were in, we were able to cruise around. If my whole family was on the boat, we would explore the channels and just enjoy the lake. My favorite channel had tree roots growing down into the water on one side while the other side had houses lining the bank. One of the people living there had placed fake (yet surprisingly realistic looking) alligators along the roots of the trees. I've seen people get startled over them more than once. If it was just my dad and me in the boat, that meant we were going fishing. I was never patient enough to cast my line far out and wait. Whenever my dad wasn't looking, I would dip my hooked worm into the schools of tiny blue gills swirling around out boat "Look, I caught one!" Some years passed when we wouldn't take the boat out at all and eventually, my dad sold it.

The Great Lake that I have spent the most time on is Lake Huron. My cousin's grandparents have a beach front cottage in a town known as Caseville (most well-known for their Cheeseburger in Paradise festival). When people ask me where it is, I just point to the tip of my thumb. Every time I go there and walk along the beach, I feel like I'm walking along an ocean. The soft waves are wonderful to fall asleep to and the soft sand is perfect for taking strolls. When I came to Grand Valley, everyone seemed to know so much about Lake Michigan. But, my Great Lake is Huron.

New Arrivals

I still have some bits of memory from my second grade field trip to the Home Depot. We were given small orange aprons to wear and we were showed around by one of the workers. Having grown up with it, I loved the smell of saw dust in the air. After the tour, we were taken back to a workshop where we were each given pre-cut pieces and were helped in creating our own birdhouses. It had a simple design of a long box with a roof placed over the top, a whole in the front with a small perch, and a gap of open space under the roof for another entry point. Once I brought the small birdhouse home, my mom and I painted it. I panted the box bright yellow with green grass along the bottom, a flower around the perch, and lady bugs scattered across it. The roof was painted blue and we took cotton balls, dipped them in white paint, and then used them as sponges to create clouds to simulate a sky. My dad hung it outside for me outside one of our kitchen windows and I eagerly awaited when birds would make my creation their home.

Years passed and no birds came. Every spring we would hang the house up on its designated hook and every winter it would come down and be stored away after having been empty the whole time it was hanging up. It took more than a few years for birds to make my birdhouse their home. I figured that the house was too small for any bird to want to live there. One day, I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my family when I noticed movement outside the window. I rushed to the window, trying to peer into the little birdhouse, but I couldn't see anything but darkness. But, there was a tiny, brown bird sitting on top of the sky-painted roof, a twig in its beak. I watched it fly down and scuttle into the house through the side slots under the roof and add to what was its new nest. I watched the birds everyday and, soon enough, there was twigs poking out of the house on both sides. My dad told me the birds were called Wrens. Ever since then, the Wrens come back every year and sometimes, if the light shines into the house just right, I can see the movement of baby birds inside. When I sit at the table, I listen to them sing and I have their songs memorized. I feel happy that birds are living in the house I made and I'm even more happy that I get to see them come back year after year.

The Middle of Nowhere is Somewhere to Me

Every time I have had a person come over to my house they make some sort of comment about me living "in the middle of nowhere" or "the boonies." What they don't realize is my house is in the middle of everywhere.

My mailing address is a small town called Linden, located on the southeast side of Michigan. When I tell people at Grand Valley I am from the east side of the state, everyone just generally assumes I am from somewhere close to Detroit. In actuality, I think I have only been in or even near Detroit two or three times in my life. Even if I say I am from Linden, I don't really think of Linden as being my home town. It is about a fifteen minute drive to a town in any direction from my house. My home is the focal point for five different towns: Linden, Fenton, Brighton, Hartland, and Howell. Growing up, I feel as though I have spent an equal amount of time in each of the five towns; so, my home town is really all five of them.

I never really feel completely relaxed and at home until I am driving on dirt roads after my two hour drive from GV. Trees form dense woods along both sides of the road, only broken apart by the occasional gravel driveway and cornfield. Everything is colorful and cement is no where to be found. In the spring, the green starts to unfold from the branches of the trees around my house and small blossoms of white and pink speckle the large apple tree in my front yard. Summer brings the darker greens and bright blue of the sky and the pool off the back deck. Fall is my favorite because sweatshirts are one of my favorite things to wear while I smell the crisp air and the leaves turn yellow and orange.  Even winter can be beautiful, especially after an ice storm when every small twig and branch is coated with ice and the woods seem to be reflective. I would never want to live anywhere else than the middle of somewhere close to dirt roads and trees in every direction.

What I See in the Mirror

People have always been asking themselves the question, "Who am I?" There is no easy answer to this simple question and people seem to feel the need to find themselves. When I am asked to describe myself to others, whether it be during a job interview or for a class as it is in this case, my thoughts scramble to assemble the puzzle pieces of my life and personality in order to create the full picture of myself and convey it to others.

Who am I? I am a college student seeking a degree in writing and starting to explore a minor in a technological field. Grand Valley is where I live for huge chunks of the year while I go to class, study, work as a writing consultant, and keep in constant contact with my friends at GV and across the country. Even though its continuously stressful, I am an academic who really does enjoy being in class and learning. I am a dreamer who gets indescribably excited at the thought of obtaining a career in video game development. My love for storytelling and the gaming experience drives me forward in my goals. After being undecided for what seems like forever, it feels like I really did "find" a part of myself when I realized where I wanted to belong.

I am a lot of things. I am a friend, a daughter, a girlfriend.  I am passionate, hard working, goofy, and friendly. I am a girl who loves the outdoors and wouldn't want to live anywhere with sidewalks or a lack of greenery. I am also over emotional and have a temper that can scare even me. As I am writing, I feel like there are parts of me that I am overlooking and are just normal to me. There are a lot of pieces that make up the full picture of who I am, some of them I probably don't even notice. This is just a snapshot.