Category: Detroit

How Becoming a Mom Changed My Nerdiness

Of course I heard from everyone with an ounce of experience that becoming a mother would change my life.  I was prepared for this in most of the big, important ways, but one of the things that’s surprised me is how being a mom has changed my life as a nerd.

First, I obviously don’t have 8+ hours a day to spend writing.  That just ain’t gonna fly anymore.  I was also never a writer who carried around a notebook – I took notes here and there, but never actually WROTE in a notebook.  Now, that’s the easiest and/or only option I have.  When you’ve got one arm pinned under a sleeping monster, straining to reach a nearby notebook is a lot easier than trying to escape and get your laptop.  (In fact, as I write this – on my laptop – I have to keep distracting little hands from pulling out my power cord. And this post will take me approximately 8 times longer to write because I have to keep tossing her over my shoulder to look out the window at the dog, who I’ve just noticed is eating his poop… BRB.)

I also was never a huge phone app person.  I’ve added at least 5 now, all related to being a mom or using baby gear, so in that little way I’m becoming a little more of a techie.

And you better believe I plan to pass along love of my fandoms to the little squirt.  We’ve already binged the new She-Ra, and she at least stared at the transformation hair, so that’s a good start.  I look forward to first viewings of Star Wars and Dr. Who, first readings of The Chronicles of Narnia, and teaching her to side with me over her dad about Hogwarts houses.

Something I didn’t expect was that, for the first time in my life, I’d be able to easily relate to other women.  I grew up on a hunting preserve, writing science fiction – I’m just not wired to connect with most women.  But with the shared experiences of childbirth, babies that just will not sleep, the inevitable poop explosions – suddenly I feel LESS like an outsider and more like one of the tribe.  By creating a tiny human, I too have a non-nerdy thing to talk about that’s actually relatable.

BUT, at the same time, I’ve found that being a nerd AS a mom is a pretty common thing too.  I stumbled upon a couple Facebook groups for nerdy parents, and that’s my new favorite use of any free minutes the mini-tyrant allows me.  Nerdy memes related to parenting, nerdy discussions about our favorite nerdy things, and of course occasional parenting questions – it’s all great.

That’s not to say that I don’t miss being a more active part of my other favorite community, my author peeps.  To those of you who’ve put up with my endless social media posts of baby pictures, please forgive, as it’s the only way to keep our friends and family up to date who live 2+ hours away.  I promise I am reading your books and watching videos and generally lurking as a fan/friend even when I’m too exhausted to comment.

So, until the next time I have a minute free of screamed, nonsensical demands, here’s AI taking in Star Wars the only way she knows how…so far.

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#YesAllWomen

I haven’t really properly blogged in a long time, but I’ve been asked my thoughts on the whole #YesAllWomen movement, so I figured I’d write my response here.

 First, a few reactionary thoughts…

 I’ve read a lot of grumblings against #YesAllWomen, saying that it seems to be blaming all men.  Many of us have loving brothers, fathers, uncles, male friends, etc. who are NOT assholes.  Well, good.  Of course not EVERY man is the problem.  I don’t think the point of #YesAllWomen is to imply that all men are the devil.  The point, it seems to me, is to bring to light what IS the problem.  And there IS a problem, even if the men in your life are all saints.  If you don’t identify with this, that doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t.  There are things men do that are offensive which they might not ever realize are offensive.  There are things we women do that men don’t understand the reasons behind.  The point of acknowledging all of these things is to strengthen both sexes’ understanding and work towards solutions…at least I hope that’s the goal.

 I’ve also read the arguments that #YesAllWomen is a media trend feeding off the tragedy from Santa Barbara.  Some say that it’s belittling actual victims of real abuse – like women stoned in Pakistan or enslaved Nigerian girls.  Okay, some guy smacking my ass as I walk by is not on par with either of those situations. But it’s a part (granted a very small part) of the overall problem.  Different women in different places experience different symptoms of the same sickness.  I would assume most of us realize that we have it better than many, many others.  But, again in order to work towards understanding, talking about our individual experiences can contribute to finding solutions.  And when you tell any woman that her problems and fears and painful experiences don’t really matter, HOW THE HELL IS THAT HELPING?

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 Anyway, here’s a brief overview of my experiences and opinions about this whole issue:

I’ve never particularly thought of myself as a feminist.  I grew up as a tomboy, as a daddy’s girl, as “one of the guys.”  In a weird way I guess I always was a feminist, even if I didn’t realize it – everything I did and everything I believed about myself stemmed off of an assumption that I was just as good as my male companions, just as full of worth, just as important and equally deserving of respect as a human being.

This underlying belief of equal worth (what I think feminism should be about) was passed onto me by my parents.  I was a daddy’s girl, so in a large way I owe my “feminism” to my father.  I don’t remember him ever telling me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl.  He taught me to think for myself.  He taught me to stand up for myself.  My mom also played a big part in my self-confidence, and I learned from her example that you can be kind, loving, generous (“feminine,” in short) but also have biting wit and an internal drive that spurs you to succeed in whatever you’re tackling.  I blame my hyperactive self-esteem on too much good parenting, honestly – I was encouraged constantly by their belief in me, and there were never limitations because I was a girl.  (Growing up, the only way I was treated differently from my brother was that I wasn’t allowed to run around with my shirt off or pee behind trees.  Whatever.)

I will say that even my “perfect” childhood was tainted by a very minor episode of what so many more unfortunate girls have experienced.  I thank God that I’ve never been truly abused, raped, assaulted, etc.  But there was a time when a creepy older boy wanted me to do something I wasn’t comfortable with, and I tricked him and ran to tell my mom.  My parents never spoke of it again, I’m sure hoping/assuming I’d forget about it, but I remember even then realizing how scared other little girls must be who didn’t have anyone to tell. This episode, however minor, at least taught me sympathy for girls who found themselves in situations where they had no control.

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Growing up on a hunt club, with scores of men around all the time, was an interesting education in how men treat “the fairer sex.”  I truly believe that a lot of men from older generations honestly don’t understand why women get offended.  To them, it seems natural that women do the cooking and cleaning.  It never enters their minds that it makes us uncomfortable when they put a hand on our back to guide us through a door.  I don’t know what can really be done to change older men’s understanding of “feminism” honestly.  My deceased grandfather (whom I did love dearly despite infuriating moments) would be horrified to know I’m still single at 32, and he just never understood that a girl could be happy and alone…for example.

  •  I remember the first time a man didn’t believe me about something and thought he should ask my little brother. (I immediately thought of that part in “The Boxcar Children” where the one sister isn’t allowed to use a knife and instead they give it to her little, 5-year-old brother, because he’s a boy.)
  • I remember the well-meaning assistance when men assumed I couldn’t lift something heavy, which always made me feel put in my place…and a little defiant.
  • I remember older men telling me I was pretty when it had absolutely nothing to do with our discussion, which I always thought ridiculous because my brother’s looks never had anything to do with anything.  (I still get annoyed when interviewers comment on my looks…as if that has anything to do with how I write sci-fi.)
  • Then I turned 18.  Some – and I must stress that this was not the majority of hunt club members – started treating me differently.  I remember a few times out on the Sporting Clays course when I was honestly very uncomfortable. Once I was wearing shorts and a tank top, and so they laughed at me when I said I wasn’t interested, telling me I must “like the attention” – never mind that it was 95 degrees outside and I was doing physical labor.  Sometimes I would be a little afraid to be out in the middle of the woods with these men.  If they ever wondered why I walked so quickly back to the clubhouse (where my dad was), that was why.

And here’s something:  I’m a tough girl.  I grew up on a farm so that I’m strong enough to usually feel I can defend myself if I have to.  Still, there are times when I’m afraid around men.  If I feel that way, I can only imagine how powerless some other women must feel.

Another thing:  I read in another #YesAllWomen post about how men submit and back off when another man is involved.  I never thought of this as a pattern, but it makes sense.  Back with those creepy hunters, they would back off and act like they didn’t even notice me the second my dad was around. (I think THAT is actually a big part of why I’ve always preferred the idea of eloping, honestly.  I hate the idea of my dad giving me away – I’m not HIS.  No one should have to ask his permission to have me. I don’t know if that makes sense or not, but it’s all a part of the same thing in my head.)

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In Detroit, I worked for a while as a model scout.  This whole time period was a personal experiment to study people anyway, and the ways men treat women was certainly a key part of that.

In another #YesAllWomen-related blog, the female writer talked about how she and her boyfriend were watching a woman at a bar.  A creepy dude sidled up to the woman and talked to her, obviously making her uncomfortable, but the woman gave bare minimum responses and chuckles. The writer’s boyfriend said something like “I can’t believe she’s putting up with him. You’d never do that.”  The writer admitted to thinking, “I do it all the time.” There is so much truth in this.  As a woman who’s been hit on at bars by many, many creepy men, you learn that the safest and easiest response is to…put up with it. It’s awful and feels like you’re encouraging bad behavior, but the truth is that sometimes you just don’t know how a guy is going to react to a flat out “no.”  Putting up with it until he takes the hint, gets disinterested, or goes away is quite often the safest way to go.

Also during model scouting, I again saw the truth that unwanted “suitors” (the most polite term I can think of at the moment) would back off if another guy was around.  A good friend of mine knew my “get over here and help me” face.  Whenever I couldn’t get rid of a guy, I would give my friend that look and he’d come over and stand by me protectively.  Every single time, the creepy suitor would bow out immediately.  I HATE needing a guy for that.  But it always works – men will hear men say “no” every time.  It’s infuriating to not have that kind of power yourself, as a woman.

Here’s a problem:  We women do like SOME attention.  Being told you’re pretty is nice when it’s said respectfully. We do not, however, like to hear “You’re hot!” when shouted from a dark alley.  This doesn’t mean girls are fickle or teases or leading you into some kind of trap where we’re going to shut you down after you buy us 3 drinks.  I have been accused of being an Ice Queen, but I’m perfectly willing to give someone attention who treats me like more than a piece of meat – WHY IS THAT SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND?

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Here’s the pretty basic bottom line:  Respect people.  Respect women, not because they’re women, but because they’re people.  Respect men, not because they’re men, but because they’re people.  If we want equality – acknowledging that there are differences, but equal – then just treat everyone with the same level of respect and decency.  And understand that women put up with a lot that we can’t control.  Sometimes men can be offensive without even realizing it.  Sometimes we’re outright afraid of men, and there IS male behavior that is sick, misogynistic, and needs to be addressed.  Some of my favorite feminists are men who are working to change the way men understand their behavior in relation to women.

I for one choose to see that as the purpose of #YesAllWomen – acknowledging that we all need to work to fix the gender issues that affect all of us.  Even me.

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From the Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Sunny M. Somerville

The problem with realizing that you spent your college degree on a hobby is that you have to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.  Vocational success not important?  Okay, then, what to do?  Life doesn’t exactly stop at 22.

After graduating from college, I took a year off.  Off – I didn’t work, I didn’t do much of anything.  I did watch a lot of movies.  I also worked on my next novels, being productive in that least productive kind of way.  But mostly I did nothing.  This downtime was mostly because I suddenly realized that, although I was no longer a mess as a person, I still had no direction.  I had no schedule anymore, no homework aside from what was self-appointed.  So, what to do?  Where to go?  What did I want – oh, yes, that old question still floats around, doesn’t it?  I was happy, but the longer I sat and looked around me, the more I realized that I was basically where I’d always been.

I get restless easily.  I hate ruts and the thought of settling.  As a kid, I’d always told myself that I would explore life and soak up as much as I could before getting married, having kids, and settling down in a “normal” life.  I think I always planned to have those things eventually – family, community, etc.  – but I have this thing deep inside me that always needs to be different somehow (think Claudia of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler).  I always knew I would want to go to college, live on my own, and experience Otherness first before I could be even mildly content with settling down.  I wanted some life on my own terms for a while.  Then, I would always have those memories and experiences that were different from those around me.  I could live perfectly normally after that, and be content. 

The problem was, Cornerstone University and Grand Rapids weren’t that different from everything else I’d ever known.  I hadn’t really experienced the Otherness that I felt I needed.  Here I was, already settling in one year after college, and I didn’t feel like I’d ever moved.

So, after a year of doing nothing, I made a break for it.  July 2005, I plopped myself down three hours away from every home I’d ever known and moved to the Detroit area.  Honestly, that is why I moved – it was an experiment of getting away from my comfort zone/bubble.  I needed change.  I needed drastic.  I needed surroundings that were fresh and new and completely disconnected from everything back home.  I needed something that was different which was just mine, my own experience.  I’d always said I absolutely did not want to live in Detroit, so naturally this seemed like the most drastic move I could make.  I wanted a place different in setting, feel, tone, and perspective so that I could explore and also maybe figure out what I wanted for the rest of my life.

On a Tuesday I had no life plans; by Friday I was living in the suburbs of the D.

I liked it immediately.  There was an artistic, creative energy about the place – Birmingham, Troy, Royal Oak mostly – that I loved.  I’ve never been heavily addicted to urban-ness, but the variety of places to go was great.  I liked how one city blended into another like a puzzle, and yet each city was distinct.  Birmingham is money, Troy feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up and so is focused around the mall, and Royal Oak is a little niche strip for hipsters and artsy types.  Detroit itself, let’s face it, was kinda clinging to life, but it’s still so big that even with half the city functioning it would be a force to be reckoned with.  There were concerts and art exhibits and restaurant openings and book readings and baseball games, etc. etc. etc.  And young people really seemed to be far more numerous over there, or maybe I just noticed them more because of the job I took as a model scout – youth were our marks, so of course I picked them out of every crowd.  The sheer volume of younger people somehow seemed to control what happened in a city, if that makes sense.  Events and places catered to young people to keep us entertained, to draw us in.  Our VIP status as model scouts (ha, what a joke…but anyway) didn’t hurt either.  I saw all the good sides of the clubs, bars, etc.  We never had to wait in line.  I never, in the 6 months I lived over there, paid for my own drink (this was for a variety of reasons, but it did make learning to drink easier).  And because my coworkers were a tremendous bunch of fun natives, they showed me the places to go, the people to meet, and the food to eat.  

Here’s another big difference I noticed about the east side of Michigan – people go out to mingle with people other than the people in their party.  There was a more inclusive, communal approach to being social.  It didn’t hurt that, as model scouts, we had to talk to like 50 people a night.  But, even when we weren’t scouting, I noticed this different approach to socializing.  I don’t know if I’d say people in Grand Rapids are less friendly, per se, but the most you get out of most people here is a reciprocal smile of acknowledgement.

Anyway, because the Detroit area is considerably less church-infested than Grand Rapids, I encountered people who had very, very different worldviews from the average person in my Cornerstone/Grand Rapids bubble. It was wonderfully refreshing.  I made friends with openly flamboyant homosexuals, one of whom was the best Christian I met over there.  My closest friend was a self-proclaimed “pot-smoking, experimental nymphomaniac.” I made friends with Buddhists, Catholics, and Kid Rock fans.  Overall, I liked the variety of people I met, and they forced me to question things I’d always believed but never been forced to questions.  I’ve always hated white noise and people who can’t think outside their box, so this gave me an opportunity to prove to myself that I was stronger than that.  While interacting with these people, I found I was able to hold to what I believed but maybe growing it a bit.  I found that all this interaction solidified in my mind that not everything that is Other is bad, and not everything that doesn’t agree with what I believe is to be hated or feared.  At the end of the day, you can fundamentally disagree with someone but still love each other.  Maybe that is what Detroit did for me more than anything – it widened my experience of humanity just a little bit.

Memories –

  • At the model scouting office, Diego was responsible for one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard: “Thank God you guys are back.  The most exciting thing that happened all day was when I walked by the mirror.”
  • When trying to get into my car from the curb, Sophie was responsible for one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen:  She fell and slid down the side of my car, making a smearing sound against the glass like you hear in a cartoon.
  • Sophie, as we walked past the nicest car I’ve ever seen: “Oh, f*** men.  Can that have my children?”
  • We ran into Chauncey Billups at a Mongolian Barbecue.
  • We accidentally scouted Jack Johnson’s barefoot drummer in a mall.
  • We accidentally scouted Mario and his friends/bouncers in a mall, and he was so amused that he invited us to his birthday party.
  • I literally ran into John Heffron, the second season winner of Last Comic Standing, in Somerset Mall.
  •  “Cheap Gay Layaway” at Old Navy.  Dominic found a man-purse he loved but could not afford, hid it behind a rack of clothes, and then 3 months later we found it in the same location.  When telling the checkout girl, she said, “That does not speak well of us, does it?”
  • Craig telling the story of when he’d drawn the perfect picture of Sonic the Hedgehog only to have the nuns at his school take it and throw it away.  This had been when he was in second grade; he was still bitter.  I loved him instantly.
  • Troy acting like “Sexy Little Drummer Boy” while walking by the door as we were trying to have a serious meeting.
  • Carmen calming saying like a GPS, “Head-on collision,” as Sophie for no reason drove straight at a van like a game of chicken in a wide, wide parking lot.
  • Various outings with Felix in his car because I liked the sound of his car’s blinker.
  • Once I quit scouting, I worked at People’s Pottery, a high-end craft store (if that makes sense) in Birmingham.  Sarah and I spent many hours playing “Hide the Duck” in the store when it got slow.  This is played by…hiding the duck, a figurine we didn’t like, somewhere in the store and then making the other person find it in a hot-cold method.
  • That girl who came in with her rich husband (it should be a given that there was an age gap of like 20 years) and pointed at things she liked until she’d racked up a bill of $850.  I contributed to $500 of this by convincing her that all the ugly stuff in the store that we were sick of looking at was totally awesome.
  • That semi-hot, constantly-drunk guy who came in repeatedly and one day wondered what the wine bottle stoppers were.  When I told him what they were, he looked at me in almost hurt disbelieve and said, “Why wouldn’t you just drink the whole bottle?”
  • The older Romanian lady telling me that I could get a job at Hooters.
  • The “homeless” guy I encountered in the store’s back alley who held out a bill and asked if I had change for $100.

 Gosh, it was fun.  I know most people (certainly those in my circle of friends) look back on college as the most exciting time of their lives, but for me it was this 6-month experimental period in the suburbs of Detroit.

But, as I mentioned in my “Spiritual Geography” blog post, I didn’t like Detroit enough.  I was so busy most of the time that I didn’t have a lot of time to sit around and think, and this was probably a good break from my usual mode of over-analysis.  But, once I slowed down and started reflecting on my life again, I knew that this experiment was over.  I’d gotten my time away, and now  I wanted to go back to be nearer to friends (whom I surprisingly really did miss), nearer to family, and nearer to whatever idea of “home” I had.  It was just time to get back to normal.  I’d had my “different” like Claudia from The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

So, I moved back to Grand Rapids to start the next chapter.  I will always look back fondly on my time in the Detroit area because it gave me memories and experiences that are just mine. This will give me that sense of different that I need, and now I can be perfectly content living a normal life in white bread, conservative Western Michigan, if that is what happens.  (Also, I have the added fun now of knowing that nobody knows what I’m talking about whenever I say that I can never look at people the same again – I often slip into model-scouting mode when bored in a crowd, taking people-watching to a whole new level.  And, I like confusing guys when they talk about strip clubs and I say, “Yeah. I miss my old job.”)

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Spiritual Geography

Kathleen Norris wrote a book called Dakota about how the land where she grew up and the land where she lived had affected her spiritually – not necessarily religiously, but in her spirit. This got me thinking about the oddity of my own spiritual geography.

The question I hate more than “Is that your real name?” is “Where are you from?” because I have no idea what one or two-word answer is accurate.  Technically, I guess you could say that I’m from Grand Rapids because that is where I was born.  Or, you could say I’m from Cedar Springs because that was our address while I was a kid.  Or, you could say I’m from Morley because that is where our address was when I last lived under my parents’ roof.  However, the truth is closest to saying that I’m from a mixture of Algoma Christian School and Lakeview, but try explaining that.

Okay, I will.

My brother and I went to Algoma Christian School while living in Cedar Springs.  I was never connected to the actual city of Cedar Springs because we went to school somewhere else, and the only real interaction we had with Cedar at all was at First Baptist Church…which was educational enough about the Cedar kids that I was perfectly fine keeping my distance, for the most part.  Anyway, despite going to church in Cedar Springs, the only sense of community that I had growing up was from Algoma Christian School.  And although the school’s address is Kent City on Sparta Avenue (which always confused me), the school was in the middle of corn fields so that there was no connection with either Kent City or Sparta.  ACS was its only little bubble world (in more ways than one, but I’ll stick with the issue of geography), so spending so much of my childhood there ended up creating for me a sense of being “from” there.  Even after we moved to Morley, my brother and I continued to go to ACS despite the 50-minute commute.  So, even while living in a land far away, ACS continued to be my home in a daily way — I feel “from” there.

But Lakeview holds ties as well.  My mom grew up in Lakeview, and most of my mom’s family lived three miles down the road when we moved to Morley.  We have always been very close to that side of our family, and I can vividly recall whole chunks of my childhood that were spent at my grandparents’ house, at my aunt and uncle’s house, or at the local church in Sylvester (a bustling village consisting of the church, King’s Trading Post, and a blinking yellow light).  That church specifically holds a special feeling of home for me.  I can remember being very little and looking up during a sermon to stare at the chalk picture of Jesus hanging on the wall, and I can tell you that there are 198 tiles on the sanctuary ceiling.  Even when we lived in Cedar Springs, the church in Sylvester always felt like my home church.  Once we moved to Morley, we joined that church and it became the one place – besides our actual house – that felt like home.  See, because we continued to go to school down at ACS, I had less social connection with the town of Morley than I’d had with Cedar Springs.  I literally can name only one other family in Morley, and that’s only because they go to church in Sylvester.  This disconnection from our surroundings may have been a drawback to our continued ACS education that my parents hadn’t considered – we were isolated by 50 miles from our only friends while living in a community where we knew no one except family.  But, Lakeview is very homey to me for reasons of family — I feel like I’m “from” Lakeview/Morley as well.

So, basically, I feel that I’m “from” an area with a radius of about 30 mile.

What does this have to do with spiritual geography? Every place I’ve ever called home has played a part in how I’ve developed.  This means the lands, the buildings, the quirky cultural aspects, everything.  I have traveled around much of America and I’m sure other geographical locales have influenced my view of existence, but “home” is always a major influence on a kind, and I can see how each geographical home of my life influenced my spiritual development.

When we lived in Cedar Springs, our house was built in the woods.  I grew up surrounded by wild nature – almost literally, because we barely had a yard.  My mom would turn us outside every day during the summer, and I don’t think we ever came inside except to eat or sleep or tell on each other.  I developed a deep appreciation for nature, for color, for animals, and for the way our imagination can take us just about anywhere.  I saw God’s creation every day and loved it.  Because of this, I think I am happier around simple things.  Nature has always been my sanctuary.  I’m a minimalist, a mystic, and a conservationist, and I know that this is cuz of the natural environment I grew up in.

At Algoma Christian School, the building I know affected me.  ACS is what has been referred to as “the pole barn school” and it really did feel like we were cattle sometimes. More to the point, we were isolated.  Whereas I lived in a forest at home, school was plopped down in the middle of fields.  There was no way to escape, and we had to become fairly reclusive because we had no other choice.  When you go to such a small school, being in close quarters with the same people everyday can be dangerous.  (This is the real reason I think cattle stampede.  They’re not easily startled or driven by the herd mentality – they see an excuse to run from each other and make a break for it.  However, we had to cope – the teachers didn’t have lassoes or cattle prods, but they did have detention slips.)  We had to learn how to deal with people because there was nowhere to run.  I think that the ACS building and that place forced me to learn how to be a person in a community.  I’m sure growing up and getting an education helped shape me considerably, but the actual place had an impact too.

Then there’s Morley.  Talk about the middle of nowhere.  Our family’s Haymarsh home is on a hunting preserve, where open land stretches all around for well over a thousand acres. As a kid who loved to run around in nature, this was heaven.  As a kid who needed social development, it was not.  But I was happy.  Kathleen Norris describes the open skies and vast stretches of land in Dakota, but there’s a mystical beauty to the wetlands of Michigan too.  There was something to be discovered in every corner of our Haymarsh.  It was wild land, and it is from the land that I understand the need for conservation.  I also understand, from hours of lying on the star-watching bridge, about being still and knowing that God is God and I am just a piece of…creation.  The Haymarsh showed me openness and gave me a sense of something bigger than me, wilder than me.  Because of the Haymarsh, I go barefoot constantly and am most comfortable when covered in mud after a physically exhausting day outside.

For the college period of my life, I called Grand Rapids home.  Grand Rapids has been coined “GR-usalem” because there are probably more churches here than restaurants – and there are a LOT of restaurants, so that’s saying something about the number of churches.  Grand Rapids has always felt safe and comfortable to me, despite the fact that I’m a country girl at heart.  It’s not too big; not too small.  It’s trying to grow and be artsy, eclectic, and mean something bigger in the world; it also seems to know its strengths and not try to be more than it is.  In these ways, it was a good place to live while experiencing all the change and growth that college brings.  I think that is how Grand Rapids affected me most spiritually – it showed me a gentle alternative to my country reality and made me appreciate potential growth.

My post-college home was Clawson, which is a suburb of Detroit.  I moved there for six months for reasons I’ll get into later, but suffice it to say that Detroit had an impact in my spiritual growth as well.  The Detroit area has a feel unlike anywhere else I’ve lived – talk about opposite extremes, Morley to Detroit.  Detroit is somehow up-tempo and bored at the same time.  My theory is that because the whole area is pretty much one big city, people can spread out and get used to the sprawl rather than congregating in certain hot spots and feeding off of momentary bursts of excitement.  They’re just too used to a multitude of options.  Through my own adventures, I soon found that I could be the kind of person living in Detroit encourages, and this chameleon change in me was affected by the fast-paced, brazen, monotonously sprawling urban-ness around me.  And gosh it was fun – which was exactly what I needed at that point in life.  It was like a great RESET where I remembered that I liked things bigger than the world I’d settled for previously.  But I didn’t like it enough to stay.  I came to the conclusion that maybe, since our souls grow so much from our environment, we’ll never feel “home” in environments that are so absolutely foreign.  Maybe all geographies aren’t meant to change us, but rather strengthen in us the things that are already there, untested.  My spirit could be shaped by Detroit’s environment, but I didn’t want it to be.  I’m not built for clubbing; I like to hear myself think, thank you.  I’m not designed for sales; I am too laid back and low maintenance to push something on people just so I can make a buck.  I’m definitely not capable of faking an affinity for Kid Rock, even if one of my friends did make out with him for her 25th birthday (you know who you are).

So, I moved back to western Michigan.  Although I plopped down in Grand Rapids, I can’t say that this one city itself feels like “home” any more than any one place ever has.  But it’s a good base, and I now know for sure that my 30-mile radius area is where I feel I fit and where I feel fits me – there are things in me that just are that way, and they’re there because of the homes I’m from.   Of Cedar – I don’t require much to entertain myself.  Of ACS – I can deal with people where I’m at if I have to.  Of Morley – I like escaping to the country to roll around in dirt every now and then.  Of Grand Rapids – I like being close to social interaction/options. 

I may not have a good answer for “Where are you from?” but I have a better sense of it than I used to.  Maybe this was all a natural process of maturing that a normal, sane person or even Michael W. Smith would recognize as a process of “finding your place in this world” (I just threw up in my mouth a little bit), but I really feel the geographical/spiritual connection played a part in my conclusion that this is where I am from.  I may never be able to narrow down where I’m from any more than to say I’m from an area with a 30 mile radius, but the wideness of the area pretty well illustrates the wideness of my own personality. I am from here-ish, and no matter where I go next at least I have a solid home base somewhere that I know has shaped me, however difficult it is to explain.

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