when we first moved into the city eleanor would say -
“these houses are too old, mom. they’re too old.”
and what of the suburbs with their houses too new?
i prefer old, i guess. i prefer houses that mirror the human heart – or at least what seems to be the state of my own.
run down, needing help – desolate even on the best of days, plenty of opportunity to fix things up. hoping for renovation from someone with enough capital, someone willing to invest.
that’s the way of detroit. she asks too much of you.
but what do i know about the city?
i was raised in her.
i navigated her public schools from kindergarten until my folks decided to move to dearborn heights when it was time for high school.
i grew up in detroit.
i guess i know some.
detroit isn’t terribly clear about what she wants. that’s the way of love. you know you’re needed, but it’s going to take a while before you even understand how to give and how to receive.
a big part of life is just showing up, a big part of love of staying put.
mazzy walks backwards down the sidewalk. she’s not ready to go inside. the snow absent winter has got her thinking she’d like to ride her bike. i tell her it’s too cold and she doesn’t believe me. it’s not really true anyway. a man walks past us and we are quite a sight.
a small girl with down syndrome in a pink tulle ball gown and her mother in the middle of the city. he looks at us like we’re a television set.
“she’s practicing for her swan song.” he says laughing. and i know he means swan lake.
i agree and he smiles at us and keeps walking.
i know what he meant to say.
a swan song is a final gesture before dying. and i guess there’s a lot of talk about detroit as if that is what is happening now.
but i knew what he meant to say. he was talking about swan lake.
swan lake is a story of sacrificial love that that gives itself up to death with the hope of resurrection.
i’ve lived here five months and i’m still not sure how to write about it yet.
i don’t know how to put the city into words. i need to try and to be brave, to say what i see. i need to walk the streets alone at night when it hurts and remember that a perfect life is an oversight, a curse.
maybe it’ll take nine months to birth the life we’ve begun here. maybe i need to stop caring about what my take on detroit will sound like. maybe i’m chicken.
well, there’s no maybe about that one.
but you’ve got to be chicken before you can be brave, so it’s okay. the time for the hard work of telling my side of the story, of hoping that someone hears what i meant to say, is coming. but for now it’s just this beginning of the road towards home.
yesterday she turned ten.
i drive back into my city. detroit. fresh from ohio. fresh from the farms and the fields of the drive from there to here. from the fresh air to the incinerator. from the church of thousands to the church waiting to begin.
let’s just roll up our sleeves today. let’s get down to the hard work of trying to love. this is going to hurt, but what else are we going to do?
