What the lake gave me

Navy Pier Oak Street Beach Lake Michigan

My title is influenced by Frida Kahlo’s What the Water Gave Me. Lake Michigan has a magnetic energy that pulls me in with every glance. I’m like a moth drawn to the flame. It is mesmerizing, energizing, and always inspiring. But despite my love for all things aquatic, this is the first year I saw the lake up close and personal in winter daylight. Frozen in time. Usually in a Chicago winter, the last place I go to visit is the beach. But with the COVID slowdown, I explored.

I came up the Division underpass. The snow contrasted with the happy pink. It cause me to pause in awe. The beach transformed into a movie set of Mars. A world so different than assumption. And it was an extraterrestrial delight.

Ice Lake Michigan January 2021
Iceberg in Lake Michigan January 2021
January 2021 Lake Michigan
Frozen Lake Michigan Oak Street Beach Chicago January 2021
Oak Street Beach January 2021
Lake Michigan January 2021
Different textures of Lake ice
Drake Hotel Hancock Oak Street Beach January 2021
Sandy ice

And it caused me to think and reminisce about the Lake in general. I remember long bus rides along Lake Shore Drive, watching the dawning anticipation of a fresh day in the colors of the sunrise. I remember the curtains of pastel sunsets drawing the day to a close with such beauty it silenced an entire rush hour bus crowd. So I dug into my archives and found pictures of the lake at night from a few years ago along the Edgewater shore. What are your memories of Lake Michigan?

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: