Let it Be

A pilgrimage is defined as a journey to shrine of importance in a person's beliefs and faith. Going home this summer was a bit like that. Normally, when the plane lands and the oppressive humid air begins to instantaneously twirl your hair into frizzy kinks, and smears a film across your glasses as you walk from the runway to the air conditioned terminal, I think, "Ugh, I am so glad I don't live here any more." Normally, the airport terminal is dank and grimy, the roads are under construction, buildings are abandoned, lawns are unkept and overgrown, it's 95 degrees with 98 percent humidity, it's raining, and it's buggy. Normally, it's not the vacation I dream of.

But this year...this year was somehow different. Perhaps it was because Michigan is having its third coldest summer in history, which translates to the equivalent of a normal Michigan fall, which is what I believe heaven will be. There is nothing more beautiful than a Michigan fall with the changing leaves, the pumpkins patches, and the cider mills. It is breath taking.

Until now, I believed Michigan to only have one beautiful season. That was before I witnessed a sailboat glide by the lighthouse on the shores of Lake Michigan. Before I listened to the crack of the bat at Comerica Park. Before I heard my children giggle in glee jumping from a trampoline to an inflatable pool. Before I walked the tree lined streets with an ice cream cone. Before I went careening through grass planted sand dunes. And before I was surrounded in a backyard wiffle ball game by people from every stage of my life. People who have all contributed to my faith and beliefs in life. That night I saw the beauty of a state I had forgotten, and I discovered I had made my own pilgrimage home.