Hsu

Benjamin Hsu
benhsu@umich.edu
Professor Emily McLaughlin
English 125-069
23 September 2015
Essay #1 (Close Reading)
Hesitation and Lake Michigan
It is very difficult to capture what a place truly means to a person, but Steve Amick does
so remarkably well in his essay Cold Comfort. In the essay, he describes a piece of land on
Lake Michigan that has been in his family for decades and how his family is connected to that
land. It is where he learned to swim and where he spent a lot of time during the summer. He
proposes to his girlfriend Sharyl there, and she accepts. The very last line of the essay reads I
knew she was one of us, the hurling-forward kind (Amick 17). This seemingly simple sentence
brings closure to the essay remarkably well. Amick uses very specific words to link that sentence
to previous parts of the essay, and in doing so reminds the reader of all the small elements that
make the place special to him.
Amick begins the sentence with the phrase I knew she was one of us (Amick 17). He
means that Sharyl is very similar to his family: a group of vivacious, ebullient individuals who
arent afraid of jumping in and feeling alive (Amick 16). When Amick talks to a wealthy
woman about the area, she says that All [she] could do was ride around in a boat and look at the
water because the water was too cold (Amick 16). Amick details this exchange to show that his
family is unique in that they dont mind the frigidity of the water and jump in without hesitation.
In the essay, the familys philosophy of jumping in applies to life as well as the lake. He writes
that the true antonym for summer [is] not winter, but hesitation (Amick 17). Because Amick
associates his land with summer, this line links the land to a lack of hesitation and makes it a
place where freedom reigns.

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Towards the end of the essay, Amick describes how most of his ex-girlfriends hesitated to
jump into the water. He says that anything that wasnt working came to an accelerated
conclusion once wed been up there, once Id rolled my eyes at their hesitation (Amick 17). We
never learn if Sharyl was one of the girls that Amick describes, but we know that Sharyl was
different, since he proposed to her on the beach outside the cottage instead of breaking up with
her. It is also notable that she said yes after knowing Amick for less than a year!
The fact that Sharyl said yes to Amicks proposal illustrates that she is indeed one of the
hurling-forward kind. But, what does that even mean? Earlier in Cold Comfort, Amick
mentions something about lanky teenagers [hurling] themselves unequivocally into the blue
(Amick 16). In that sentence, he is describing some of his family members lack of hesitation and
fear of jumping into the icy waters of Lake Michigan. The use of the word hurling in that
sentence and the concluding sentence connects the teenagers lack of hesitation jumping into the
lake to Sharyls fearlessness in saying yes to a chaotic bachelor almost 40 years old. The
choice of the word hurl implies that the action was done with great force. The teenagers (and
Sharyl) didnt carefully slide into the water; they took a running start and jumped in.
The way that Amick describes jumping into Lake Michigan in the summer is similar to
the way people talk about newness. Some people prefer to ease into the water, and some will
quickly wade in while screaming. But there are others who dive straight into the water, because
they are used to its icy temperature. They feel that their lives are defined by that frigidity, that
change and newness. And they embrace it.

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Citation:
Pollack, Eileen, Chamberlin Jeremiah, and Natalie Bakopoulos. "Cold Comfort." Creative
Composition. Independence, KY: Cengage, 2014. 16-17. Print.