// Freshwater Calm

Location: Chicago, IL - Navy Pier + Chicago Yacht Club

That summer evening, I walked along Navy Pier with a few friends. We'd spent the day talking, laughing, drifting through the city like it belonged to us. But what I remember most clearly wasn’t the noise of the crowd or the glitter of the skyline, it was the masts.

The Chicago Yacht Club sat there, quiet but proud, every sailboat docked in stillness. And for the first time in a long while, I felt completely at peace. There was something sacred in that moment: the shimmer of the water, the rhythm of the lake, the soft creak of hulls in their slips.

I think that was the moment I truly connected to water, not as a backdrop, but as something active. Something alive.

That experience rewired something in me. It wasn’t long after that I started paying closer attention to the coastline, to harbors, to towns with salt on their walls and shingles bleached by the sun. And eventually, it led me to the ocean itself.

But it started here. With Lake Michigan.