Facing the fall of Detroits empire and realizing the potential for meaning

My only affiliation with the state of Michigan is the few young years I spent growing from an infant into a toddler. I grew my first teeth, learned to walk, learned my first few words, was potty trained, and had the first of many fights with my older sisters, in a little ranch house with a large basement, three houses down from the Gottlieb's who only took baths once or twice a week. But this was all in Holland, MI, not Detroit. So where my affiliation, deep interest, turmoil, and unwaning grief for this lost city comes from, who knows? But. There is a reason why, Detroit lingers, hidden beneath the everyday stack of “to dos” and “life lists”, in the darkness of my mind. What is the reason?

Is it because of the people, so displaced.

18th floor dentist cabinet, David Broderick Tower


Is it because of the 60,000 parcels of abandoned land.


Former Housing Plots.


Is it because of the buildings, schools, libraries in need of repair. And the beauty I find in these ruins, in a place that some say has been “left to die”.

Classroom at Saint Margaret Mary School


Is it because I see the potential of a city once so deeply enthralled in its industrialized lifestyle, mesmerized by the mechanics of automotives that it missed its own going away party.


Fisher Body Plant No. 21, Interior. Former Automotive Plant.


Is it because decline is inevitable. I speak even of our own species.

Packard Motors Plant


Is it because of revival. My own, Detroit’s, and yours.

William Livingston House


Or maybe it’s because of nothing. Or all of these and none of these at the same time. Or fear. Or hope. Or just plain want.


Melted clock, Cass Technical High School


It is. Does it even matter?

I have been thinking, I know a dangerous thing, but, I have been thinking: how can I help the city of Detroit?

This is what I imagine. I imagine a city cover in dust and trash. Everywhere you turn you can find the beauty and devastation captured in Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre's images. I imagine streams and snow and bitter cold and wind. I imagine land, full of rodents, little mice growing into rats the size of house cats and in the summertime, snakes.

Miles and miles away in North Carolina, I imagine riding a bus to work each day to sit in front of a computer. I write about a city in ruins, but in reality, I know nothing about this city, it’s lifestyle, it’s people, it’s devastation and it’s fears. If I had the money, I say, I’d move up there and buy cheap land, build or restore a little house, tend the land: possibly a community garden, clean the streams, clean the city, work hard to restore Detroit. And little by little, Detroit would transform. If I had the money. . . Maybe some of my friends, those looking for meaning, like me, would come with me. Maybe we’d start a little non-profit, get some grant money, get our hands dirty, defend a city that we have little to no affiliation towards, but a city that helped define America (at least some of it), help the people, help the city. Could it work? Would we help? Could we transform the city, be the next “Dark Night” or “V”? (I imagine Seattle, Asheville, Brooklyn, little bohemians hidden in what was once the automotive capital of the world.) Would this create meaning? Does it matter?

I guess if you need a reason, it’s the octopi the Redwings throw on the ice. What’s yours?

Things to read and think about:

Left Behind: The Ruins of Detroit. http://www.etsy.com/storque/handmade-life/left-behind-the-ruins-of-detroit-11659/?ref=fp_blog_title.

Detroit in ruins: the photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jan/02/detroit-ruins-marchand-meffre-photographs-ohagan.

http://detroitworksproject.com/

http://www.visitdetroit.com/

Skeleton screams and magical dreams.

I am spending my life waiting to do something bold. Speak louder, my inner voice screams. Jump. Run. Split. Scream. Go.

One time I heard it whisper, skeletons hide in the closet. So, I went in there and sat in the blackness waiting to uncover the truth. The light shone in through the crack beneath the door. My skin itched and tingled from the imaginary silverfish that skittered over my milky skin. I imagined them making the most beautiful music as their tiny little legs strummed each string of a harp in a rhythmic wave. They seemed less creepy this way. My eyes made shapes in the darkness. I was frightened and sat there forever, ignoring the indigo button on my watch, unwilling to interrupt the stillness associated with the darkness. But, I never found the skeletons.

Now and again, I go back to that closet, shut the door, and stair into the blackness. I wait for the skeletons to rattle and clomp with their stone-like bones, but they are always quiet. I wonder when they will start to scream. And when they do, will they scream the truth?

THOSE WHO DREAM

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. - Edgar Allen Poe

Do you think one day, when the wrinkles have taken over my body, when I have become unrecognizable even to myself, when I am about to die, someone will find a collection of my stories?

Will they be from an auction of my belongings as I struggle to keep financially alive in the remaining months, weeks, days of my life?

Will they smell like cedar as they are pulled from my chest, brown, crumpled, aged?

Will they do a google search of my name? If google is still around. Will they find anything?

Will they find inspiration in me?

Will they mimic my life's secret passion?

Will they make a documentary about me?

Will they?

Will I ever?

Will I ever become a writer?

Will I?

RIP Vivian Maier. http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/

Predictions For 2011 — From 1931

It's super hard for me to say goodbye to 2010 for many reasons. First of all, because it went by in what felt like a millisecond (can time possibly be speeding up?) and secondly, because 2010 was life changing for me in so many diverse ways. I mean: I graduated, got my first job, got my heartbroken (again), got a car and then had my first accident, moved into my own place and started paying my own bills (well most of them), made up my mind about a few things and didn’t about so many more, lived in three geographically different cities, started to sew, became confident in my cooking skills and started this blog. Can I complain? 2010 was life changing in so many ways, but what will 2011 hold for me?

I don’t make resolutions, but I think this might be the year that I find out: Do I want to open my own bakery? Do I want to stay in Raleigh? Can I decide on a future? Can I be happy? Can I truly love again (or have I ever)? This is what William Ogberg, Michael Pupin, and W.J. Mayo predicted for 2011.

Bring it on 2011 and Happy New Year to you all!