By the Lake Anonymous

There’s a beach at the end of my street, squished between two houses with boulders for seats and dirty sand that gets stuck in between your toes. I find myself drawn here often; there is something different about the space and how the days unspool in a rhythmic sort of way that allows you to think clearly. As a young girl, I would ride my bike to this place with my hair flowing against the muted indigo sky.

To the human eye, Lake Ontario might as well be an ocean. The great lake stretches all the way to the horizon, with a faded line drawing out where the air and water meet. Here, the Great Lakes form a third coast for the Midwest, saltless and sharkless, with a personality of being slow-paced and complacent.

The horizon line is the most important part of the lake to me. I remember, as a kid, wondering what would happen if you sailed out to that point, where the world ends. I knew the world is round and that there was really no end, it just seemed that way. I would sit in my shared kayak or on a boulder simply observing. My small arms would attempt to paddle out to the line, to somehow reach it and find the edge of the earth but I was always held back by disbelief. Truthfully, it was equal parts fear of being lost at sea and my...