A New Michiganer

The Thaw: Letting Go of the Past

I'm not sure which is greyer today - the lake or the sky.  Either way, the first thaw of winter has begun.  Last week the lake was a field of snow, except for the tracks that David & I made on our skis, some random snow angels and the trail of one brave (or psychotic) snowmobile - that ventured over the ice.  Today it's a mass of puddles, water from above and below merging to reclaim the lake.  The thaw has begun.  The snow is receding from my deck, and the packed tundra that used to be on the drive outside our house has reduced to a single layer of ice with a veneer of water across the surface.

It's warm outside - in the thirties and forties for the first time in weeks.  Birds are emerging from wherever they have been hiding their little red feathered heads and flitting about, tweeting. Yesterday the sun came out and it felt like rebirth.  Today a warm wind makes even this grey day pleasant.

This morning I went across the street to the garage that is housing all the contents of my former home.  Furniture, pots, pans, electronics, photographs, clothes that used to fit but don't anymore.  My past is all packed up.  I poked through the boxes, looking for random items.  It's been so long since I've been through my "stuff" - I've been too busy scuttling about in the present, it seems.

People in Michigan assure me that the thaw is probably a temporary respite.  At some point the temperature will drop again and the lake will freeze up for at least one more winter blast - and hopefully one more cross country ski trip along the shore of the lake.  I don't know if I should hope that this is the end of winter - the groundhog has spoken and its over at last.  Soon the ice huts will disappear, the docks will be rebuilt, the boats will be back on the lake and the excitement of almost-summer will be upon us.  Or if I should look forward to one more deep freeze - one more silent glide along the pristine, frozen, snow-coated lake, with no one but David and the swans in sight.  Letting go of the past is never easy - even when it's a cold one.

Get Me Outta Here!

I'm back in Ann Arbor.  I so don't want this blog to turn into a gripefest but this transition is so hard for me.  The only thing I love about Michigan so far is my husband.  I would follow him to the ends of the earth.  And it seems, I have.  And I try so hard not to remind him daily that the only reason I am here in this cold, cold place is because of the warmth of his soul.

I spoke to another former New Yorker who moved here for her significant other and she told me the first couple of years she was all piss and vinegar - like me.  But somehow, she said, the fight got knocked out of her.  And now she is happy here.  It took some resignation, she admitted.  But now she is at peace.  Will that happen to me?  And at what cost?

How do ex-New Yorkers live with the contrast of being here?  New York brims with opportunity on every corner.  Businesses spring up like aquifers all over town.  The best I saw on my trip New Year's weekend was the Charmin' Bathroom storefront on 42nd Street.  Plastered with sayings inviting people with bursting organs to drop in, signs boasted, "The Number One Place to Do Number Two."  Michigan, in contrast,  is depressed and dead.  If you have no University affiliation - or tie-in to healthcare - or to the auto industry - there is nothing here.  It's miles and miles of wasteland - no public transportation and each municipality is spaced just far enough for people to get lost on the highways en route to wherever.

Yesterday I took a long walk - to pick up my car, of course.  I saw exactly four other people walking while I was on my 3-mile jaunt.  FOUR!  Do you have any idea how many people shuffle past you in New York as you walk the city from top to bottom?  Even the piles of snow and slush didn't stop me from tearing up and down those streets, stopping in stores and restaurants and enjoying all that New York has to offer.

It's all about the attitude I tell myself, trying to cheer myself up.  But how can I live in a place that seems so bleak?  If anyone has anything nice to share about Michigan - now would be a very good time to do it!

 

Back to Brooklyn

Going back to Brooklyn, for me, represents so many things. Brooklyn, the city I landed in as a teenager during the Saturday Night Fever era when it was everyone's goal to "get the hell out of Brooklyn!" is not just any city.  It is Israel, Chinatown, Little Odessa, Saudi Arabia, Punjab and Ethiopia, depending on what block you happen to be visiting.

It's a place where "Hey!" is the greeting of choice and nobody bothers with niceties - people simply cut to the chase.  It's the land of filthy streets and pigeons circling buildings - and every kind of ethnic delicacy imaginable for sale at reasonable prices.  The pizza crust is crispy, the shwarma is authentic, the restaurants include the gratuity on the bill so their waiters don't get stiffed, and there is no item that you can't find for sale within a 10-block radius.  It is a crowded, huddled mass of people bursting with bargains galore, cement playgrounds and lots and lots of noise.

And for this Michiginar, Brooklyn was the perfect holiday getaway. 

I visited a local supermarket to run some errands - and was shocked back into the thrill of the kill in the parking lot when I scored a good space by racing someone who saw the spot at the same time as I. As I pulled into the spot, I resisted the instinct to gloat, remembering that most Brooklyn people use "The Club" in their vehicle.  The Club is a heavy theft deterrant metal bar - that locks the steering wheel, but could just as easily be used as a device to bludgeon people who grab a coveted parking spot and gloat about it.

Inside the store were more surprises.  Unlike Michigan, where the supermarkets take up lots of space with wide aisles and a select number of products on the shelves, this ShopRite store crammed merchandise into its aisles.  The shelves seemed endless and stocked to the rafters.  And hordes of people poured in and out of the store grabbing the bargains advertised in the ShopRite circular.

There were about 16 checkout lines open.  None of the cashiers were chatting--or sharing pie recipes as they do in Michigan.  They were busy scanning and getting their lines of customers out the door as efficiently as possible.

As I approached the checkout line, I decided to do a Michigan experiment.  A big young man with a "Brooklyn" tattoo on his forearm was scanning items in a mechanical haze.  I put on my very best Michigan cheerleader peppy smile.

"Hi," I chirped.  "How's your day going?"

His brow puckered as he looked up from his scanner.  I kept the smile pasted on my face even though he was looking at me like he was ready to call the cops on this crazy woman.

"Is it going good?" I persisted.

"No," he grunted, turning his attention back to the items.

"Awww," I clucked sympathetically.  "So, what's wrong?"

The poor dude didn't know what to make of this customer who was playing cashier's therapist in his busy store.

"I got two more hours of this," he muttered.

"I'll bet it's tough at this time of the year."

He just shook his head, grunted and completed the sale and went on break.

And I went home singing the "I love New York" theme song.

Promise Me You Won't Write About This...

Thanksgiving has come and gone and I'm not sure what precisely I am allowed to write about.  You see, my husband has finally come to grips with the fact that he married a writer.  So, now I've got a laundry list of things he has forbidden me to blog about.  ("You can't tell me what to write!"  "Yes, I can, I'm your husband!" Hmmm...can't argue with that one, that you are!)  So, tabu topics aside, I'll try to keep it interesting nonetheless!

I am getting ready for the most amazing Shabbat ever - up at the cottage, where the sheen of the thinnest veneer of ice is glistening on the deck and snow is flurrying over the lake.  The sun is shining through puffy clouds.  Tonight I am planning a romantic dinner - perhaps with a fire in the fireplace - but definitely with Shabbat candles, great food and amazing wine we bought yesterday in Southfield. 

It is our first Shabbat up here at the cottage and I am excited about being shut-in for 26 hours with nothing to do but converse, read and take warm walks in my fur coat.  The dough is rising for my challah and I may even attempt to make a lemon meringue pie just to make things extra special.  It's funny - Black Friday - when most people are out shopping for clothing - I will hit the food stores.  Since we opted out of yesterday's traditional Thanksgiving festivities, dining at the Mazel Tov cafe in beautiful Windsor, Ontario with friends instead, my cooking day is one day off from the rest of the world's.  Welcome to the crazy calendar of Jewish living.  Instead, I will be cooking today--and LOVING IT!

I have spent the past week or so laughing more than I ever have.  It started with the movie, "It's Complicated" which sent both my husband and myself into paroxysms of uncontrolled laughter until we were both crying.  And the laughing has continued.  My husband is excellent company.  It isn't that he is funny - in fact, we are both pretty serious by nature, but somehow we share the same very quirky sense of humor.  And when he starts laughing, lately I can't stop.  They say that laughing is very healthy.  So, hopefully, this will begin our new health and fitness program.

So, it's off to the food stores -- to the chatty cashiers--and to the garage to hopefully dig out some of my cooking utensils - they are in there, I know, somewhere...along with my winter boots - which I think I may need sooner rather than later!

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend to all!  And sending everyone gales of laughter to make your days happy and healthy!

 

 

Am I an Old Fogey?

We sat in the nightclub on Saturday night, surrounded by people our age and older.  In a truly beautifully executed jazz rendition of an otherwise funny song, the singer onstage spewed a stream of invectives.  I cringed each time, while most of the audience laughed. I counted at least 15 "F" curses in the song.

"Quiet crowd," the performer complained.  "Must be a conservative bunch. I hope my use of the F word didn't insult you.  We all F after all, so what the F is wrong with it?"

The next set contained a song that glorified speed, another that described a woman who went to rehab 24 times, yet another about a gay Ken doll and it culminated with a song about sex, whipped cream and belts.  The slightly inebriated Ann Arbor audience seemed perfectly OK with the subject matter. In fact, they called the band back for an encore.

"I feel like I need to wash out my brain with soap," was my reaction when my husband asked how I liked the band.  "What a sad waste of talent."

What's wrong with me?  Why didn't I enjoy the cussing, sex jokes, and references to drugs and alcohol?  Have I become an old fogey?  I guess there were times (when I was younger than twenty?) when any song that mentioned these things might have made it to the Judy Top Ten list.  But I've grown up.  And I no longer like it.  And the thought of exposing myself - or my children - or stepchildren to this kind of so called "art" - seriously bothers me.  I totally get that art should be thought provoking and edgy - exploring the hypocritical social structure and designed to try to get reactions - but this kind of art just doesn't work for me.  Instead of feeling like I was expanding my mind in that nightclub - I felt like I was trying to recapture a time when I didn't know who I was and had to laugh at things that weren't funny, in order to fit in with a crowd I didn't particularly respect or admire.  A kind of baby-boomer peer pressure.  With every "F" curse and joke about addiction, I was numbing my sensitivity. Did I really want to be part of this crowd of mature adults trying to recapture the angst of their youth?  No, I did not.  And does that make me an "old fogey?"  Maybe it does.

At this stage of my life, I'd so much rather bring purity and morality to the fore - strive to go higher - not fall into the vacuum of licentiousness that  pervades society. For me, joining the amoral herd simply sucks the joy out of claiming the dignity of my age. 

The Most Branded City in the World

Every city has its branding - its logo - it's colors, and as a consultant who helps people brand their businesses - and sometimes themselves - I totally appreciate branding.  But living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I must say...the city IS the university - and the university has left its mark all over the city.

I mean, who knows the "color" of New York - or the font - or even the logo and current ad campaign?  It changes from season to season.  Here in the areas surrounding Ann Arbor, even the ROAD SIGNS sport the U of M font - and the blue and maize colors can be found everywhere - on houses, store signs, storefronts, it feels like everywhere you go in and around Ann Arbor, you are surrounded by a blue and maize haze.  It's been that way forever and forever it will be - blue and maize.

Businesses with absolutely no connection to the University or football team have named themselves "Wolverine" - hardware stores, candy stores, toy stores.

"It's all about team spirit," one U of M marketing student explained to me.  Then she admitted that there are days when everyone she runs into in all her classes is wearing the University colors - or worse - she says there are days when she is the only one dressed in say, purple!  Horrors!  Is it team spirit or herd mentality that permeates here in A2?

I mean when even the construction sites are getting in on the act, you feel like you're stepping into some bizarre movie set.

Go Blue!

Michigan Has its Nice MomentsToo

 

 

This weekend was absolutely amazing. I was happily reminded that, although I've been reeling from culture shock, being in Michigan has its nice moments too.  A peaceful and uneventful Sabbath made for respite from the busy week that David and I endured.  We enjoyed friends around our dinner table and after dark on Saturday night, we drove to the cottage, away from the noisy buses, rowdy students dressed in skimpy Halloween costumes and raucous parties. Just the sound of an occasional water fowl broke the stillness of the night.

An early Sunday morning Talmud class got my blood pumping - even though I had to travel 45 minutes to where the Jews live.  I brought back kosher pizza--my first since I left New York, and then David and I spent the afternoon exploring the lake by kayaks, drifting in the peaceful water, and appreciating the decision of the ducks and swans that chose to stay up here so late in autumn.  Fall is definitely here as evidenced by David's pontoon boat, no longer in the water. As we paddled slowly on the still lake, dodging some fallen trees on the shoreline, we were strangely undisturbed.  There were no wakes of big boats, manic jet skis and kamikaze tubes--the distracting elements that had been our nemeses all summer.  It was breathtaking--a brief and welcome honeymoon for our six-month anniversary.  We had wine with our dinner, then built a fire in the fireplace and snuggled on the couch watching a Netflix on TV.  It was the perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

Happy moments like that make it hard to get back to the day-to-day grind of paying bills, and getting things done, but they are something to reflect on when I'm dealing with the crush of Michigan culture shock and New York homesickness that sometimes comes over me.  I can just picture myself back on the lake...drifting in my kayak...the weather just right...the ducks floating by...yeah...