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Nostalgia hit me late last night in a fit of anxious insomnia, and quickly and almost deliberately turned into homesickness.

Nighttime is the worst, it's when I miss home the most.

When I first moved to California, I used to pretend that the ocean was Lake Michigan. It wasn't hard to do; granted, the waves were a bit bigger and spread further apart, there were shells that littered the beach instead of rocks, and the seagulls here are about 75% bigger, but if you screw up your eyes, palm trees can a look a lot like a diseased cedar.

There are a lot of things that remind me of home. Some make me long to go back, others just bring a smile to my face.

Home is a James Taylor song or a George Winston riff. Home is an oak tree in someone's yard, defiant and out of place in a tamed desert. It's that elusive whiff of fresh air, the one you weren't sure you really caught in that constant olfactory drone of exhaust and people and asphalt. Home is the nasally accent of someone passing by. It's the pounding of the waves on sand, deeper in voice, but lacking the clausterphobic rage of a sea contained. It's the weather report that has no bearing on you, but that you check anyway. It's putting on baggy jeans and a fleece and looking out of place. Home is the million or so stars that you can't see but know are there anyway.

There are probably places (arguably) more beautiful, more popular. Places with more to offer and places easier to find. But northern Michigan is my home, and while I defend it because it's in my blood, I love it because it reminds me of the place I like to think about.

Home is where the heart is. And mine may beat in California, but in Michigan, it sings.

"The whisper of the forest tree, the thunder of the inland sea; unite in one grand symphony, of Michigan, my Michigan." -- William Otto Miessner & Douglas M. Malloch