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The Huron River is a stream in southeast Michigan. It runs 136 miles from the Huron Swamp, flows into Lake Erie. Named after the Huron band of Native Americans, the river meanders through the city of Ann Arbor with miles of trails along its mud banks. When I came to the University of Michigan to pursue a doctorate degree in environmental science in 2006, I found myself a small home on the top floor of a high-rise next to the river. And the river became my first friend in this new stopping place of my life. Since then he has always been there by my side. On those 30-minute walks I take every day to school and those 10-mile trips I make every week to Barton Pond on the west or Parker Mill Park beyond route 23 on the east, while patiently listening to me, in front of my eyes, he has manifested so many moods and faces of nature, even in a small place as Ann Arbor; with the heavenly-looking clouds, lit up by the setting sun, in a steel grey sky, at its turn around Michelle Field, he inspires me and bestows ideas upon me; and in its rushing water flows, I hear the steadiness of his steps, and him speaking to me: "You don't need to know where your life will go. So long as you follow your heart and keep going, you will curve out a path that naturally leads to the ocean..." |
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