Michigan on the Bayou

“If you plan to live in New Orleans in the next 30 to 40 years,” said Bob Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental journalist, “this has to matter to you.”

I had already scribbled four pages worth of notes during his presentation on Louisiana’s disappearing wetlands, an ecosystem I had not yet experienced. The notes weren’t really sinking in. This was probably because up to that point, the only time I had spent down on the bayou was watching Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. My five-year-old niece convinced me I had to watch it before making the move from the Midwest to New Orleans last July.

“It will tell you everything you need to know,” she said looking up at me through thick blond bangs, placing her perpetually sweaty, little kid hand on my knee. “You’re going to love it.”

I paused for a moment to consider what Bob had just said. Would I still be in New Orleans in 30 to 40 years?

My instinct said, “Of course! You just got here three months ago, and you already have a regular yoga studio and the barista at the café around the corner called you by your first name just the other day! You are really starting to make your mark here!”

But then my gut said, “Sure keep telling yourself that. You know you’ll be back in Michigan. Great Lakes, Great Times, am I right?”

To which my instinct said, “But how fun would it be to be that friend or that family member. You know, the one who lives far away and everyone makes a big fuss over when you all reunite around the holidays because they never get to see you anymore. Plus, drive-through daiquiris. What more could you want?”

And then my gut was like, “Stop it. You can’t just use a city to advance your level of importance among loved ones once a year. That’s not why you choose a place. Midwest is best, baby. Don’t fight it. Plus, your niece has a growing stack of movies she’s waiting to watch with you.”

I left my instinct and gut to hash it out so my brain could get back to Bob’s presentation. None of the images Bob showed in his PowerPoint appeared to match any of Disney’s. That’s probably because Disney was depicting a thriving Louisiana bayou from the 1920s. While it’s not clear whether The Princess and the Frog is set before or after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, none of the characters appear concerned with rising water levels or disappearing land. According to Bob, Tiana and her pals would have had approximately 1,883 square miles more of land to hop around than if the movie had been set in modern day. Lucky her.

— — -

I sat down in the kayak, adjusted my foot pedals and took off into the bayou. I hovered my oar above the water at first, thinking of my dad, his hunter green kayak and Lake of the Woods in Decatur, Michigan. My parents had just built their new home there, The Lake House, and are hoping to move in to it completely when they retire (which is “soon”, according to them every time I have called home over the last three years). I left the bayou for a bit in my mind and tried to picture my dad’s paddling technique. Over 1,000 miles away, I would mimic this Michigan memory the best I could for the next three hours.

The responses from each of the other kayakers in my group varied when we first entered the bayou. Some seemed more comfortable on water than they did on land, silently slipping their kayak into the neck of the bayou with a Cinderella fit. Others were more vocal about it, releasing a few shy but audible exclamations when their connection with the Earth quickly transitioned from solid to liquid.

These excited cries reminded me of waking up at The Lake House last summer to my niece’s joyful squeals. I rolled over in bed to look out the bedroom window at the sun-soaked dock reaching 20 feet out into the water. Quinn, outfitted in her favorite one-piece and lifejacket, took a runner’s stance where the dock met the backyard and held her right hand up in the air.

“One!” she shouted, pointing her index finger to the sky.

“Two!” she screamed, making a peace sign.

“Three!” she yelled.

Taken over by excitement, she forgot to lift her ring finger. Instead, she sprinted the entire length of the dock, her arms swinging like a Pee Wee League linebacker. When she got to the end, she launched her body into the air and reached her arms wide and forward. She landed in the water and in my dad’s, her Grandpa’s, arms at the same time.

Jump Hugs, I thought. I remember those.

Back on the bayou, we skated our kayaks past tall cypress trees with skinny knees poking out of the water. Long sweeping branches almost grazed the roots’s kneecaps with their mossy fingertips. One of my fellow kayakers released his tan legs and feet from the boat cavity and rested them on the fore end, gazing up into the belly of the tree.

I left the bayou and wound up at The Lake House again. This time, I was walking around the side of the house to the backyard to look for my three-year-old nephew, Oliver. As the second child in the family, his version of Quinn’s mom and dad were more relaxed in their parenting, trusting him to wander and explore safely without constant supervision. Every now and then, one of us would call out his name, and eventually he would come strutting around the corner with a sly grin spread across his face.

“Hey!” he would say, waving.

I walked through the backyard calling Oliver’s name, suspecting that he might be “playing” golf. To do this, he lugged a plastic grocery bag filled with at least twenty of his dad’s old golf balls, throwing them all into the yard one-by-one, and then picking them up one-by-one, and throwing them one-by-one, and so on.

“Oliver!” I called. “Where are ya, buddy?”

I spotted my dad’s hunter green kayak a few feet away closer to the water’s edge. Peeping out of the cockpit, I saw a tiny tan foot resting. When I got closer, I saw that the foot belonged to Oliver. He was inside the kayak, butt naked and fast asleep, his bag of golf balls on the ground beside him. I quickly retrieved my phone to snap a pic or ten, knowing it was an Aunt’s duty to document as many of these embarrassing moments as possible for that picture board at his future high school graduation party.

This kid, I thought.

Back on the bayou, I wondered. If being on the bayou made me miss being in Michigan, then maybe someone in Michigan is missing the bayou. Maybe we could find each other on Facebook or Craigslist or something and switch places for a couple weeks or forever. Maybe then neither one of us would miss home anymore, because that’s where we would be. We would both care with whole heart, soul and roots about the land under our feet and the water under our kayaks.

We could both watch movies with our nieces, take embarrassing pictures of our nephews and maybe convince our dads that our 30-year-old selves were not too old for Jump Hugs.

So, Bob. Will I be living in New Orleans in the next 30 to 40 years?

I don’t know.

But my gut does.