On a recent night, I sat by some trees on Lake Michigan, the waves crashing so loud on rocks below me I’d have to yell to be heard over them. Fireflies flashing all around, clouds and stars swirling above, crickets chirping between crashes, mosquitos buzzing. A calm night with only a gentle breeze yet so much noise and movement: the bugs and birds, water, even the stars seemed loud.

I dissolved into it all. Nature so loud and always moving, changing. Not still. I’m part of nature, always moving, changing, transforming. My mind swirls with clouds and stars, flashing thoughts, nerves buzzing, moods loudly crashing and slamming into awareness.

It’s all one dance and I’m part of it.

Night after night, day after day, for 13 days, I experience the water’s constant change. Exploding loud and crashing waves or gentle ripples like a rocking cradle. Sometimes bright blue or shimmering green or moody grey.

I am a moody, moody person. Even by myself, on retreat, no conversations or internet or news and here comes a crash of joy, a wave of anger, a ripple of sadness. Ha! How freeing to let the waves roll over me, laugh at their bluster, see them dissolve on shore leaving behind either nothing or maybe a pebble, a rock, something to take a look at and see what its message is.

Every day and night for 13 days, I watched, prayed to, swam in and learned from the water. And not just any water: MY water.

How funny to be a visitor to this town in Wisconsin, my first time here, and yet this is MY lake, the Lake Michigan water that flowed through the pipes of my Chicago childhood home, hydrated and cleansed me. The sprinkler water my friend and I jumped through on hot summer days. The lake I told my problems to as a teen as soon as I could drive the 20-some minutes there, or as a young adult when I lived close enough to walk. The lake I swam in with friends or cried to alone. The very lake my grandfather fished, my great-grandparents lived by as soon as they got off the boat from Poland.

We recognize each other, the lake and I. This lake knows me, it knows my people, my ancestors and where I come from. It shows me that everything moves and changes, my mind buzzes, my moods come and go. Yet at my core, I am recognizable through the ages, a consistent presence, an essence, a stillness beneath the noise.

Just like the Lake.