dated: 9 August 2015

 photo credit: Hope

photo credit: Belle

there are fewer poignant moments than last night - sitting by the dam with friends I've come to know so deeply over the past year. I lay next to Tricia, who had just gotten a life changing boy haircut that makes her look so badass and cool, under the night sky. I could count the number of stars. Our city is too bright. The water spread out beneath us, with the reflection of street lamps and flickering of lights on small boats. The beach wasn't the prettiest sight, with washed up rubbish left behind by the tides that had receded - car bumpers, driftwood, trash, bottles, cans - and amidst all these, rats scurried about, seemingly busy. Sonia came and sat beside Tricia, hope and Ryan were taking a walk somewhere down the pavement, belle and Joseph were next to Sonia. prior to this, Joseph and Tricia were attempting to skip rocks. But the rocks by the shore were huge boulders that mostly just plonked into the water body, sinking deep down instantaneously. Sonia and belle attempted to take photos of them. I think it was too dark though, I tried. I balanced on the rocks, some shaky, at times stumbling. I watched, as my friends continued with the picking up of huge rocks and plunking them into the water. I crossed the two roads to the other side of the water and sat by myself. There is something about water, there always has been, that makes my heart still a little, letting peace in a little, and I feel like the world stops. 

Tricia sat down beside me and I told her that sitting by the dam felt like sitting by Lake Michigan, but different. Lake Michigan feels more lonely, the dam felt local and home yet along with home comes the noise of familiarity, the baggage that growing up in a place leaves - weights on your shoulders and a strain in your knees. But it's home nonetheless. The peace in Lake Michigan is liberating, and of independence, yet there is a sense of foreignness and loneliness that is hard to rid. I'm always thankful for water bodies though. I'm somehow always attracted to them - the gentle ebbing of the waves, the way the waters reflect yet blur things, making them at times more beautiful and enigmatic, the sound of the waters crashing on the shores or the rocks that fit perfectly in the gaps of conversations, that soothe the pains of misunderstanding, that fill the loneliness, albeit temporarily.