The Lake Inside - A musician from the North Country makes a full circle journey home

Where are you from? That is my favorite question to be asked. It sparks instantaneous  positive biological effects in me; warm feelings in my heart area, etc. It also gives me  the opportunity to respond with pride, “I’m from the U.P. (Upper Peninsula of MI). Oh  you haven’t heard of it? Well let me tell you all about it. It’s a fantastical land…” Enter  braggadocious proclamations of the grandeur and ample fresh water supply of the Great Lakes, seemingly exaggerated (but not) descriptions of nature’s beauty, a lesson on how to properly pronounce “sauna,” and tales of mystical creatures called “Yoopers.” If I’m feeling generous, the “lucky” person that asked the fateful question will get an impromptu monologue comedy skit with a practiced Yooper accent that will drop the mic straight on Jeff Daniels’ head.  

I’m proud to be from the U.P., but for 20 years I lived in California, honing my craft as a  singer/songwriter, musician, and music producer; savoring every unique spoonful of life  that I was living, while being perpetually homesick for Northern Michigan. Now I find  myself back home, and the best word to describe it is “magical.” However, it took a full  circle journey to get to this place.  

I was raised in the hamlet of L’Anse, at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula. I have  two amazing parents who have been connected at the hip since fifth grade, plus three beautiful and talented sisters. I love my family deeply, and being able to see them on the regular again is everything to me.  

Growing up in the 80s and 90s in the U.P. was great for the fact we had pristine nature  as our playground, but hard because of the social dynamics often associated with a remote area, which can be oppressive to growth (age old small town Americana conundrum). I loved being an imaginative child cruising through the woods with my sisters as playmates. We had our force-of-nature artist Mom who protected us like a fierce mama bear! She made sure we were supported in our passions and talents and that we weren’t swallowed up in the negative parts of small-town mentality. She united us girls. Consequently, our sister bond is unbreakable and our goddess energy was magnified instead of being snuffed out.  

I wasn’t too keen on being a teenager though. When people say that their high school  years were the best years of their lives, I absolutely cannot relate as mine were 75%  terrible! They marked the beginning of experiencing what I now refer to as “formative  pain.” I’m not knocking anyone who had great teen years and I definitely don’t consider  my experience unique. It is simply what it is, though at the time, it was hard to realize  that when the prefrontal cortex of my brain was still like playdough. 

Two common aspects of small town ethos are isolation and alcohol/drugs. It’s a  gauntlet that every teen and their developing mind in that culture has to navigate, and  you either survive or you don’t. Unfortunately for my community, a handful of my peers  did not survive. They either died from alcohol related accidents or, in several cases,  took their own life. This topic is extremely sensitive and I dive into deep and uncertain 

waters when talking about this, which I have not done publicly since my high school  graduation speech, which was not properly delivered due to high emotions. 

When one of my good friends drove his car off a cliff into Lake Superior, the world  exploded for me. It cracked me open and set fire to my soul. It spurred me to run to  California and LIVE! It helped me understand grief, joy, community, purpose, human  fragility, and love. The years have only added a beautiful complexity to the patina on  this knowledge gained. I can only imagine what the adults in my community must have  gone through as well, every time they lost a young person. My heart aches for every  human who’s experienced this kind of loss.  

So yes! I packed up my 1994 Ford Taurus and moved to Los Angeles straight after  graduating from Western Michigan University, in pursuit of rock star fame and fortune, blasting Tom Petty all the way across the U.S. I never once regretted leaving Michigan in the rearview because everything I experienced while away made coming home more magnificent. Also, I don’t believe in regrets, only lessons learned.  

My Dad told me something when I was young that has stayed with me always; “People  just want to tell their story, so listen.” My Dad was a beloved dentist, now retired, in  L’Anse. I know, “beloved” and “dentist” isn’t a common description but he truly was. I  think I intuitively knew why when I was younger, but now I totally understand. If you can  look a person right in the eye and nonverbally communicate to them in the first instant  that you care about them and what they have to say, it means the world to them. To  truly “see” people is a gift which my father naturally possesses, and to be truly “seen” by  someone is a gift he freely and easily gives. Now I’m not saying my Dad is a saint, and he’ll probably read this and think it’s way over the top, but it’s a true observation  attested to by many people, and a living example for me as his eldest daughter.  

When I was a daytime bartender in L.A. (The San Fernando Valley to be exact), I had  my Dad’s words of wisdom and years of observing him in action, in my head. I served  alcohol to countless lonely people. Many of them were high on more than just booze.  Some were down right delusional, but all of them had a story, and when I was there to  listen, they told me theirs (fantastic for a songwriter btw). The first couple years of this,  being in my early 20s and fresh off the boat from Michigan, my tender Midwest heart  doors were flung wide open with a neon sign that said “Tell me everything! I am here for  you!” But I learned that this was not sustainable. When you put 3.8 million people into a  city, add today’s society and culture, and shake it up, you basically get a cocktail of  insanity. How I got out of there intact with not only my own sense of self but the ability  to still appreciate the basic soul of my fellow mortals, I’ll never know. However, I have a  feeling it’s partly because I always kept the lake inside of me.  

Lake Superior is, and always has been, with me. I can close my eyes and feel the sandstone under my bare feet and see the driftwood kingdom I built where the cedar swamp meets the shore. I hear my sisters calling to me under the water with our version of a “mermaid call.” (a la Daryl Hannah in Splash—a Summersett kid classic VHS favorite.)

Sidenote: It’s appropriate that Daryl Hannah has ended up dating Neil Young, one of  my musical heroes. Basically, I am the human embodiment of their relationship; an  acoustic guitar and harmonica-toting singer/songwriter who is actually a mermaid in  disguise (freshwater mermaid of course). 

Another question I get asked is “How did you end up in Traverse City from California?” This question also makes me warm in the heart because the explanation is all about the bulk of my time in CA spent in Napa Valley, and the love story with my husband Shawn.  

In SoCal, I was the aspiring rock star who was in danger of being sucked into the L.A.  vortex. I gigged and partied and have great tales to tell from it, but it wasn’t what I truly  wanted. So I moved to Napa Valley in Northern California to live the wine country  lifestyle. I was kind of in danger of being a rolling stone as far as relationships went but  one fateful sunny football Sunday changed all that. Enter Shawn Dougherty. 

Shawn and I met at a Super Bowl party in Saint Helena, CA. He had just moved to  Napa from Texas. We spent the next 12 years living with Napa Valley as the backdrop  to our love affair. It is one of my greatest joys to be able to share my life with a partner  who is 100% himself, likes football as much as I do (Go Pack!), and who treats me like a queen. The bonus is that I also get to learn about a totally different culture (i.e. Texas)  through him. We are an unlikely, but very complimentary coupling.  

When the fires started happening in CA, we watched our environment turn from utopia  to apocalyptic in an instant. There was a veil of trauma hanging over the valley and no  amount of high priced Cabernet was going to wash it away. We wanted out and the  lake called. This time it was Lake Michigan that opened her arms. 

I had been to TC only once before for a wedding in the early 2000s. It was on the Old  Mission Peninsula in July (aka recruiting season). The beauty was magnetic and I  sensed an unmistakable vibrant energy that I hadn’t felt in other places. I filed it away  in my mind as a place I’d like to live someday. I confess, I was secretly location  crushin’ on TC for years. I would press my face against the plane window on my  connecting flights between Chicago or Detroit and the U.P. on trips home from CA, and  stare down at the dynamic geography of the TC area as the plane passed over.  Sometimes manifesting something big requires playing the long game. When I took  Shawn there to scout out our next move, he was sold (because I scheduled the trip in  July, #strategy). Thus, Houston boy Shawn took a huge leap of faith and moved with his  lady to her home state. That is how the Yooper and the Texan made it to Traverse City  from California.  

When you can witness first hand the perfection of nature on a daily basis,  unadulterated by man made chaos, it induces an incredible peace. This is what I’m  looking for at this point in my life and artist’s journey. In Northern Michigan, you can  have this feeling every day if you choose. The ability to convene with the natural world,  re-connect, rejuvenate, find sanctuary in your backyard, is an incredible gift! Now that I 

know what it’s like to be without that, I will never take it for granted, and I will remain grateful for it for the rest of my days. God’s country is anywhere that you can tap into  who you truly are, and for me, that is here. I will forever keep the lake inside, and I will  also jump in it, gaze at it, glide upon it, and LIVE with it all around me. 

BIO

Annette Summersett is a singer/songwriter, musician, music producer, and visual artist living in Traverse City. You can find her music at annettesummersett.com, her music production company at duneflowerproductions.com, and her artwork at “V” gallery in Omena. You can usually find her at a lake or somewhere in the woods.