I�m worried about my lake. Yes, I share that lake with other people�lots of other people. Yes, I don�t live on the lake but I live within a mile of it. Yes, it�s hard for an individual to possess a lake as big as Lake Michigan which is not even part of only one state. Still, I have a personal relationship with that lake. I love that lake.

Some people love mountains. I love the mountainous look of purple clouds billowing up over Lake Michigan just as the sun comes up. Sometimes, in the winter, the clouds rise up only over the lake because the lake is warmer than the land or the air. One of the treats as I drive to work at the dawn of a sunny winter day is to turn onto I-794 and think I�m driving toward mountains and then, as I come closer, spot the blue lake and remember where I am.

Most people color lakes blue. Some color lakes blue and green. Occasionally, people color lakes brown. Lake Michigan changes colors to suit the day and mood. Sometimes my lake wears single-color dress. Other days, it prefers stripes.

Like an ocean it has waves, large waves, that crest in white and bounce off the rocks and shores. You stand on the sand or the bluff and glimpse infinity. The shore is a place for dreaming big dreams and for thinking nothing at all. Gulls, the sky rats of the lake, demonstrate that even winter paradise has a few mosquitos. (As come to think of it, does the summer lakeshore although black flies can be a more painful problem.)

But my lake is in trouble. The water level is dropping. My lake needs winter, hard winter. My lake needs a winter of snow hills and glassy ice. My lake needs temperatures that make indoors seem the only sane place to be. And we aren�t getting it this year so far, nor did we get it in January, February, or March of last year.

I look at my lake as I look at family members when they are sick. I fret. I hope�and strange as it may be, I pray for snow.

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