All of these photos were taken in a single six-hour window, leading up to and right after a pretty normal-sized summer storm.
Sometimes I forget exactly how large and powerful Lake Superior is. The bay we're on (Waiska, pronounced "whiskey," no lie) looks and feels huge; sometimes I forget that it's not the entirety of Lake Superior. But in reality, it compromises less than 0.5% of the lake's total size. I get glimpses of understanding what that means whenever a storm is rolling in from "the big lake." The water is pulled out and in to feed the cell's movement with seemingly thoughtless ease. It's kind of menacing if I'm in a dark mood, like looking at your pet and realizing that while you may think you have some sort of implicit agreement, they are actually just a wild animal, capable of really hurting you if they ever felt like it. (The list of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes is fascinating yet horrifying in it's breadth.) Sometimes it feels magical; our lake is doing ocean-things, cosmically-sized things, mimicking the tidal power of the moon. I want to put my toes in the waves and absorb some of it's crazy energy (which makes sense, considering I am Scorpio Ascendant).
Regardless of how I'm feeling (which is sounding pretty crazy, now that I've typed it out, but no less real), it's big. It's powerful. It's - Superior. We build houses next to it and brave insane, endless winters because of it's seemingly tidal draw. It feeds us; it sinks our ships. We swim in it; we drown in it.
...and I decide to spend a few weeks here each summer. Working, yes. But also admiring the lake, watching it warily, dipping my toes in it to absorb enough crazy energy to last me until next summer.