It’s obvious Paul Riggs has still got way too much power over my life. I’m man enough to admit this, but also, a college degree and six years of hard work is a big fucking commitment to just walk away from out of spite.

Walking away because of a woman? That might be worse.

I don’t immediately drive to Le Croix, the quaint Lake Michigan beach town where I’ll be living for the foreseeable future. Kevin isn’t expecting me for another few hours, and I want to take the opportunity to study the area. I need to put on my research lens and tuck away my emotions. I don’t bother with Google Maps. The sun has broken through the morning cloud cover, and while it’s not warm, it’s not freezing either, so I crack open my windows and drive. No radio, no voices, phone on Silent. All my senses are open and ready to take in the lakeshore of northern Michigan.

Everything is still asleep. The grass is brown and matted from repeat winter snowfall. Farm field rows are patches of spiky harvest leftovers. Bare tree limbs clack against each other, surrounding random outcroppings of centuries-old family cemeteries.

This is sacred ground. Families settled here hundreds of years ago and never left. They bore their children in these homes. They buried their loved ones in their backyards. Their blood, sweat, and tears—everything a sacrifice to their crops. Tiny, white clapboard evangelical churches sit every few miles. Wood piles rest on the side of the road, advertising warm homes. Farm-fresh eggs. Winter squash. Union pride. God’s country.

I know what Lyle expects: dried-up and backward and slow. Bingo in church basements and chicken broils. Flea markets and livestock auctions.

And that’s all here, but I vow with everything in me that I will give this area the same treatment I would the cloud forests of Central America; these people deserve as much. I’ll seek out the vibrancy. Gingham-checked tablecloths. Smiling cheeks, freckled in the sunshine. The dark earth speckled chartreuse after early April rains.

I want viewers to smell the earthworms on long gravel driveways. I want them to hear the chirping of western chorus frogs. I want them to feel the moment when the grass beneath their bare feet changes from prickly to soft. I want their souls to lift in praise on Sunday morning and curse the early call of Monday morning’s workload. I want them to feel like they know the good-bad-best-and-ugly about everyone in these towns, without revealing their secrets.

I want to do this right. Even if I’m not the one behind the lens this time, I can maneuver things to capture the big, brilliant heart of this place. My parting gift can be to cancel out whatever garbage Lyle has up his sleeve.