My daughter’s fifth birthday is next week. Like me, she will have a watery disaster commemorated on her birthday every year until time dims the experience of it. Or until someone writes a song about it. I share my birthday with the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald; a freighter that sank in Lake Superior on my fifth birthday. A year later, Gordon Lightfoot wrote a hit song about the biggest shipping disaster ever on the Great Lakes; which is played (in Michigan, anyway) every year, over and over, on my birthday.
My daughter shares her birthday with Hurricane Katrina, and because of that I have very little first-hand understanding of what the media frenzy was like. I had, after all, just spent the day prior having a baby. I’ve watched it since, but it isn’t the same. I know how it turns out.
When my daughter was six months old, my husband was laid off from his job in construction. My uncle was laid off from the same company a few years later. Shortly after that, my sister was laid off from her job in manufacturing. And that’s just one family. That story was repeated over, and over, and over. For years.
The obvious question is of course, “Why don’t you move?”. Someone may have had to experience at least some amount of marital hardship to understand the answer, which is, “I know it’s not good now, and getting out would make sense to a lot of people. But I have hope”. Hope that it will get better. Hope, and faith, and love.
And I do love it here. I write, day after day, year after year, about just how much I love it here. And I have hope that my work gives others faith in our state. In each other.
Has the bleeding stopped? We don’t know. We know we have to do things differently, so we started thinking about what we can do for ourselves.
We gathered people together to decorate and celebrate our space. We asked the city if we could raise chickens in our backyards. We decided that the judging of good art was best left to the public, and created the biggest art prize in the country. We reduced our water consumption, built more bike lanes, and became the most sustainable city of it’s size in the entire country.
All of that. In two years.
Not long after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this year, my family took a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I don’t exaggerate when I say that I was stunned by the natural beauty; but also by a place so untouched even the cities felt inherently safe. It felt like what I think 1950 felt like, based entirely on sitcoms from that era. No fear; not from bravery but from lack of danger.
I kept picturing what an oil spill would be like on our Great Lakes. What would be lost. And although the Upper Peninsula and it’s beauty are very, very old – it was the same sadness I’ve had when I think of someone dying young. All of the memories and experiences never realized. What if an oil spill happens here? What if my kids don’t remember what it looked like before?
I took lots of pictures, and went back to feeling safe.
And then, six weeks later, it happened.
A pipeline broke. It leaked oil into the Kalamazoo River, which empties into Lake Michigan. Then it was our wildlife being washed in Dawn Dish Detergent. Our wetlands being destroyed. Our air that stunk.
Some states like to be snuggled by mountains. We like to be snuggled by lakes. Big lakes. Bigger than you think. They are freshwater oceans, and they are dangerous and beautiful and shocking to people who see them for the first time and had the audacity to think they knew what a big lake was prior to meeting the Great ones.
They are ours, in sickness and in health.
And so, we stay.
This post was submitted to the ”Hope Remains Five Years Later” carnival at Story Bleed.
Now this is beautiful writing! Love this post!
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Big Binder Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Thank you Nicol!
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This is absolutely beautiful! What an honor for you to share it with us during our Hope Remains carnival. Seriously, I have read this three times now.
Okay, see, now I want to go back and read it again. This? THIS is exactly the kind of response I hoped for when we designed the Hope Remains campaign. What happens in the Gulf is mirrored in so many places. It’s never just about one place in time. Dig deeper and you find your story there, too.
So grateful that you shared this. Thank you.
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Big Binder Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Thank you so much – that means a lot coming from you Megan! I’m so glad people all over can read about the place that I love so much – and that with your carnival we all have the opportunity to share what it means to us. Write, people. Write!
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Jen, this is beautiful!!! I, too, LOVE living in Michigan. I love the Great Lakes. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. My husband proposed to me in the UP (during peak color up there…..breath taking!) and we went back for our 1st anniversary. I love the feeling up there too! You hit the nail on the head when you said it was 1950′s -esk. Even the pace of living is just a little slower….a little more…..honest? I cannot wait to go back!
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Big Binder Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Thank you so much Sandy! What an awesome memory and association with the UP, I’d love to see it in the fall. Especially Grand Marais… amazing.
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We were just talking about some of these wonderful points this weekend as we enjoyed a rainy night in a tent and then a beautiful day on the lakes of MI up near Ludington. While our big lakes are a sight we also tend to forget about how many inland lakes we have in our great state. I’ve personally fell in love with them this summer and I look forward to camping and enjoying more of them in the years to come.
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Big Binder Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
The small ones are really beautiful too, it’s so nice up there because even the inland lakes have great beaches with all of the sandy soil. Love that part of Michigan!
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I grew up on the Gulf Coast. My husband proposed to me on those beaches, I spent time there with friends who I will never see again, but still hold a huge piece of my heart. Those beaches are a part of who I am. When the oil spilled down there, I was heart broken. It was something so different from hurricane devastation (which I have experienced over the years more than once) Something that has the feeling of malice (even though it wasn’t an intended spill) and causes the loss of a certain innocence. I’m sorry that you experienced the same things.
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Big Binder Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
A piece of your heart – that’s exactly it. It’s harder when it’s an oil spill because it’s such a human error – I agree.
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Breathtaking post. People have no idea what they are missing here in this great state. And I say that whole heartedly as a transplant who prays she never has to leave.
And squeeing right along with you
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Big Binder Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Thank you! And OMG I KNOW.
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