Water Girl.

I'm a water girl. The water speaks to me, the water releases me. Some people love the city, some people the farmland, some the mountains, but me: the water. I love the sound, the feel, the air, the atmosphere just because it's water.

I grew up on the water. Every summer to a week-long stay at the Fremont cottages with all my cousins. Nothing like it - bouncing from sleep-over to sleep-over, junk-food to junk-food, and attempting to ski three times a day until the quest was conquered. And ah, what sweet victory. And the loud chants and cheers from aunts and cousins lining the docks.

Or the Saturdays at Gun Lake, crested under a bowed lawn chair playing Cabbage Patch Kids and then being bonked around on the toboggan behind Grandpa's old blue boat, my Uncle snorkeling down to be an "Indian" and all the cousins strapped in the bright orange life jackets. Those were the days...

There were weekends at hotels, just for the pool. Mom sitting by the side with the magazine and dad on his millionth donut and stroll while we frolicked and played for hours. Which then graduated to a pool in our backyard and hours on end with the diving board, hand-stand contests, and my sister on a raft.

My family makes the best memories at the water. It's where we are free. We let loose. Being pounded by the waves on Lake Michigan, crossing to Milwaukee, daring the Mackinaw Bridge, or tooling down the Grand River. We smile, we pack coolers, we ye-ha, we are family. We've skied and tubed, wake boarded and sunbathed, withstood lighting and thunder storms, and super-soaked every person in between. Water. It's what Wever's do.

This last week, I went to the water, just to think. I do it often. If I just need to process or relax or let loose or be me, I drive somewhere where there is water. My aunt's cottage, Saugatuck, the Grand River, Grand Haven, Reed's Lake... You name it, as long as there is water. Why? Because it is me. It relaxes me, it strengthens me, it calms me. There are never bad memories by the water, there is only good. There are only happy people, smiling and tossing around towels. There are only still moments were the seas settle and calm themselves and me. This is water, this is what it means to me.