Sunday morning it was my turn to walk the dog. I grabbed the camera because the park has been this magical spring dreamland the last couple weeks. The park is particularly dreamy before the city gets around to cutting the grass. It reminds me of my favorite books as a child where bunnies frolicked with little girls in fields filled with dandelions and long grass. As I was looking through the lens, the bleeding hearts and the pink dripping from the trees and covering the sidewalks like a wedding procession was so sugary sweet that it is almost too much. Mother nature has her bold way of announcing the renewal of life with each trip we take around the sun.
While I shot photos, across the expressway in Greektown a church full of people celebrated Orthodox Easter, singing hymns about Jesus rising from the dead while the trees and flowers did the same.
There are quite a few days living in the city that I bemoan how I never feel like driving out to go to a nature area, even though hiking in the woods is about my favorite thing to do. But on other days I just look up and down and around and it's enough.
Matt and I have been rolling this concept around for awhile, to each pick our favorite shot of the week. We've been thinking it could be an interesting challenge and a new way to see the year ahead of us. Some of what we see in a given week is the same, but we see it differently. Other days and even weeks take us in completely different directions. He's taking photographs more than me lately but I miss the camera. We've talked about starting a new site for this little project, but until that happens, I'll post here.
mje/spe 001
Our friend Andy Kem's design work can be found here.
I had the good fortune to go on a day-long tour of Detroit neighborhood history the other week, and then I took my husband on part of the tour route, followed up the two of us taking his parents along for a ride as well. While my father-in-law drove, I captured a some photos to share here.
One of my favorite aspects of Detroit is the amazing typography and signage. In other cities signs like these went to the junk yard years ago, or the buildings were painted over or demolished. There's also a strong tradition of painting signage on the sides of brick buildings that continues today. I'm certainly not the only one to appreciate the vintage and creative typography that threads through the city. Someone even set up a Facebook fan page for detroit urban typography. There is a good collection of Detroit signage on flickr too.
In addition to the beautiful vintage signs, you'll also occasionally run across funny little nonsensical signs like this one.
I've been working my way through the end of winter and the overwhelming local, national, and international news with...
1 - A little knitting.
A ruby red and pink swirl hat for a baby I want to finally meet soon.And a couple mitered squares for a blanket my knitting group is working on. I found this yarn on sale and used a gift certificate I got for Christmas. The colors are my favorites, all in one! Luckily I have a couple more skeins to hoard or use up soon. I can't decide which.2 - A little scrapbooking.All the bits and pieces for this page came from an awesome craft supply swap I attended at the Blue House in Ann Arbor. It's a really cool art and crafts space that I discovered after connecting online to a local crafter in the aftermath of this annoying post on Etsy's blog in January. (I read this post on my phone while I was driving along the main drag through downtown, in the passenger's seat, thinking about how much I love it here. I love you Etsy but I don't love Detroit bashing by rubberneckers who don't check their facts. They're at the top of my pet peeves list. I think my comment went something like "last gasp my ass".) Anyhow, I turned a negative into a positive, and hope to make it back to the Blue House sometime this year to take a class. It takes a lot of energy to drive outside of 8 Mile these days, but I'll make it back to Ann Arbor eventually for a little craft escape.I've also been getting ready to jump into a Project Life album and have been gathering supplies for a photo mounting project. More on that soon.3 - A little break here and there. I even squeezed in a couple beach walks when I went to Florida for work. I added 'try kite surfing' to that bucket list on that trip! Walks. Naps. Spending time with family and friends. Space to reflect and process thoughts. Time to shop for and cook some good food. All are necessary for sanity in these troubling times. I am praying for peace and renewal as we approach spring.P.S. Jen is auctioning a Noro hand knitted scarf for Red Cross Japan relief fund. Great idea. Check it out.
This place has this crazy ability to completely surprise me. To make me do double takes and to scratch my head in total wonder. Truly. I think it's reorganizing my whole view of the landscape and my place in it.
I see this view of Canada almost everyday. What's amazing about it is that I'm standing in the good ole' U.S.of A. but I'm looking across this slow moving river at another country. It's close enough that I could swim for it, but I'm sure that border patrol would nab me halfway across. I do fantasize about it though.
Other than inspiring my imagination to go a little too far, Canada's shore provides, on an average day, a less-than-inspiring view of some houses, a few factories and an ugly casino, which after dark shines these Gotham-like search lights across the sky that just accentuate its garishness. Kind of like in Back to the Future 2 when Biff screws up1985.
But this particular evening while I was rushing to my car to head for a yoga class, I stopped and did that double take thing. I thanked my lucky life because I had my camera on me for a change.
For those moments, the mother of sky and water transformed this scarred urban landscape into a place of total wonder. The river was just barely frozen over. Just enough to wash the surface with a watercolor reflection of the clouds above and all those lights on its shore.
A few weeks before I'd listened to Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk on nurturing creativity where she talks about how we need to think again about creativity as not something you own, but as a gift that passes through you. She talked about a poet, Ruth Stone, who said that she would "feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape and she said it was like a thunderous train of air" and at that moment the only thing to do was to run like hell to find some paper so that she could collect it before it disappeared. I felt the same way this night when I pulled my camera out of my bag in an excited rush.
When I got home I ran inside and told my husband I couldn't believe the shots I got. Was I really the one to capture these? How incredibly lucky that I was there at that moment, paying attention, and ready to set my camera down and open the shutter. Capturing these images was a gift to me. They transformed my entire perspective on this place that I see almost daily. Now I see a place where nature - water, sky and light - holds enough power of me over me to make me stop and change my plans.
The New Year gets you thinking, you know. Since moving to Detroit, I haven't been feeling quite like me. And, honestly as a result, this blog hasn't been feeling quite like me. I've been busy so I didn't have much time or energy to figure out what was a little off. Then the other week while couch ridden from a long drawn out cold, I stumbled across this lovely blog called Resurrection Fern and I realized clear as the sky what was missing from this space.
I settled on the name wanderCRAFT because while posting to my first blog (which I started over six years ago - gak!), I gravitated towards crafts, nature, and things I stumbled on when I'm out wandering or traveling. That combination felt like me. Since moving to Detroit, I haven't felt the same inspiration to photograph and it made blogging not quite as fun. The spark was gone. I was okay with the lapsed inspiration as we settled in, but as three months turned to four then five, this gap kept nagging at me more.
After stepping back, I finally owned up to what I think was holding me back. I'm not inspired to photograph abandoned factories and derelict urban scenes but I admit they abound. Others are capturing that side of this place very well and I'm fascinated by what they see through the lens, but it's not my muse. My calling is to find nature again, even in this very urban place. That's what makes me feel whole. In Boston it was pretty easy to escape to the woods or theocean or even themountains, but here I'm going to have to try a little harder to seek out new places. Finding my connection to nature here is part of this place feeling like home.
Sunday I was still sniffling and coughing from this terribly drawn out cold but I insisted we take off for an hour to a park not too far outside of the city. You see, this weekend we were scheduled to drive several hours up north for what I'm sure was a wonderful celebration of one of my closest friend's parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Compared to where we're living, they live in the wilderness. Stars. Woods. A river that does not have a casino on its shores. My heart broke at not having the energy or health to get away.
Sunday, before the sun made its departure for the evening, this walk was the best remedy. When we stepped out onto frozen Lake St. Claire, I felt a little bit like Maria when she stepped out onto the mountaintop.
I need to find more and soak it in. My one little word for 2011 is 'stretch' and part of my challenge is to stretch my boundaries. Over the last five months I've managed to cocoon myself into this little comfy nook and routine in the city where I don't often stray. I really love it here. But I need to get out too.
Here's to finding myself outside in 2011. Stretching myself up to the wide open sky.
In the spring I participated in the Week in the Life project. You can see a few of my pages here and here. I knew then that I wanted my mini book for 2010 to include a week in the spring when we were in Boston and a week in the fall when I expected we would be elsewhere. When October rolled around, I luckily remembered my plan but had to really remind myself to pick a week to document before the year was up. Two weeks ago ended up being the week.
My life is so full right now and moving at an incredible pace. It was harder to find space in the day for the camera, especially during the weekdays when I sit behind a desk during the good light hours. But somehow I managed to take at least a few photos each day. Now, as I look back through them, I'm struck by the incredible amount of activity I managed to fit into those non-office hours.
Internally, I never feel like I fit enough in. It's this thing I have. Call it ambition. Or an appetite for living. Or just plain foolishness. I don't know. One of my occasional mantras is a line from the Indigo Girls song Get Out The Map... "Why do we hurdle ourselves through every inch of time and space? I must say around some corner I can sense a resting place." It pops into my head from time to time, especially when I'm hurdling too much.
The photographic evidence suggests I fit in plenty, even when I feel like I've been napping a lot more than usual. With family and friends nearby to fill up my spare time, I've been recognizing the very fullness of my life lately. I've also been recognizing that I need stretches to sit or to lay down and nap. For this reason, knitting has re-entered my routine because I can sit and accomplish something on the couch.
I'm sure I'm not the only one hurdling myself through time and space. Here's just a slice of what kept me busy one week this fall.
Saturday:: An afternoon of napping followed by an epic 4-mile walk to get hockey tickets for an evening's game. And another walk to take the train to the game.
Sunday:: Visiting Matt's family for their Sunday routine. The evening back home included trick or treaters and prepping the bathroom for a coat of paint that was applied around 10pm (just squeezing in that one last activity before the weekend was over).
Monday:: A quick dinner of pierogies while cleaning up for a few visiting neighborhood knitters.
Tuesday:: A birthday dinner and a concert with and for my mom, who also has also fallen for one of my favorite bands. There was also a little side conversation at the concert with a friend from way back and his wife.
Wednesday-Friday:: The rest of the weekdays disappeared into a swirl of migraine, taking it a bit more slowly, dog walking, chasing fat squirrels up trees, and adding another layer of lime green paint to the bathroom. Monday night I framed and hung that photo that my grandpa took. Thursday night I went for a run, of sorts, since I'm trying to prep for a 5k in December, again with friends from way back.
Saturday:: Matt drove me to the airport and saw me off for a week away. I slept for 2/3rds of the flight, and then woke to manage an hour of work and a little knitting before landing. I packed four different knitting projects, as if I could somehow invent the time to finish three projects and start a new one. I did finish one and came close on a second.
I spent the next few days blissfully reuniting with my newly two year old niece.
She goes goes goes too. Her approach to life is pretty much to jump when she wants to jump (and when her adults let her). The second she's done jumping, she runs, or swings, or reads a book, or dresses up, or talks to her family, or plays with her friends, or listens to music, or paints with watercolor, or savors a popsicle.
Two year olds are great at hurdling themselves through time and space, followed by a nice long nap. Maybe it's just a stage I never outgrew.
After moving back to Michigan and working my tail off for several months, I was aching to get out of town for awhile. My standard daydream included a road trip and climbing mountains in the fall.
At the end of October, I finally got my chance. I started the week by flying to Boston to put my dissertation proposal hearing behind me. Dropping back into my home of 6 years for less than 48 hours was dizzying. Four months can really change your perspective on a place. I had to quickly reorient myself to the world of public transportation, triple deckers stacked as far as the eye could see, and thousands of 20-something students with lattes in hand, all of which seemed so strange after adjusting to life in Detroit where cars and single families rein. I stayed with a friend whose house was perched high up on a hill (also strange). Their guest room allowed me to wake up to the sun rising over Bunker Hill, which was pretty spectacular again to these Midwestern eyes.
During my short visit, I took a cab, rode a bus, grabbed a latte (I'm normally a coffee girl but I was feeling caught up in the excitement of it all), took the commuter rail, and then a shuttle to the university. After I took care of business and quickly caught up with as many people as I could in such a short visit, I was back on a flight back home. Home. As in back to the flatlands.
I was overdue for a couple days off with no work and a friend's wedding was the perfect opportunity. The morning after Boston, we jumped in the car and headed an entirely new direction. South for the wedding in Charlotte. In the last 6 years while living in the Northeast, I'd been to the south a few times but never by way of car and definitely never through Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. Just as going back to bustling Boston seemed strange, going on a classic midwestern road trip to North Carolina also seemed exotic.
Our route took us through the back roads of Ohio for a few hours, which was all so quaint and delightful after years of New England scenery. Driving behind tractors and past winterized ice cream shops named "Twist and Shout" was a lot more exciting to me than it probably should have been. "Oh look, a field full of pumpkins!" "Oh look, Mrs. Johnson sells greeting cards out of her garage!" "Oh, look, an Amish woman in a horse drawn buggy with a baby in a car seat bouncing along on the front seat!"
After a couple hours of trying and trying to put some miles behind us, we couldn't resist anymore and took a sharp right turn into the parking lot of an antique mall. I have no idea what town it was in, but it was a little piece of vintage heaven.
Being the wander lover that I am, this little globe came home with me, along with a 50 states board game. Matt also scored a vintage children's Noble and Cooley drum. I wanted to take it all home.
I'm still thinking about the left-behind U.S. Presidents wood burning kit and the 'Travel the U.S.' coloring book from the 1930's.
After the slow drive through Ohio which allowed us to make it almost all the way through Amy Sedaris' "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence" on audio book, we called it quits for the day in Charleston, West Virginia. We planned to camp on the way down, but the early nightfall and 30 degree temperatures talked us down from that ledge. Instead we got a hotel room in town and tried to find a dinner spot for a picky peskitarian in a town full of steak joints. We ordered the asparagus tempura sushi and were amused when it arrived fully deep-fried.
We'd arrived. We were were in the South. The New South. Where there is deep-fried sushi and Rogue beer.
For over a year, my 'just finish your dissertation proposal already' incentive was that I would go on a big hike after the ordeal was done and passed. Probably laying on a beach would have been a more sensible reward, but for reasons I can't pinpoint, I prefer to take the more demanding way through life.
Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia was not too far off our route to Charlotte, so we headed west. The state park was not only near the highest peak in Virginia, it also connected to the Appalachian Trail and had wild ponies. Matt was really keen to pet a wild pony. But then he was disappointed when we were instructed in rather explicit language not to mess with them. They are wild after all.
They had no intention to move out of the way, so we decided to chose another route and got ourselves a bit lost for awhile. It was a pretty spectacular kind of lost where you're out in the open with 180' views of the Blue Ridge holding on to the last of their fall leaves.
Eventually we found our way back to the trail and hiked up to Rhododendron Gap and a little bit past it.
We sat for a spell and looked up to see a guy taking a piss off the top of a peak, which was both amusing and repulsive. Maybe that's been his daydream. Or maybe he just had no manners. Hard to tell.
Leaving the Whites behind in New Hampshire was on the hardest parts of leaving New England, so being back up high again was a thrill. I love the Midwest but I'll be leaving as often as possible to escape to the mountains. This stretch of the AT would be the perfect beginner backpacking trip and a great camping spot. Huge views. Open skies. Some decent climbing to keep it interesting but flat stretches too. I wanted to keep going all the way to Maine.
The wild ponies made it a great spot. I will admit they scared me a little, but then on our way out, a fearless little girl was walking up to them and petting their manes. Matt gave in, against all warnings, and pet a wild pony. It was definitely a highlight of the road trip. I'm not one to break rules, but I reached in for a little pat before we headed back to the car.
We left the mountains, reluctantly, and got back on the road. We crossed over into North Carolina and passed tobacco drying shacks on the way. We stopped in a small town, and walked into a pizza joint where everyone in the place turned around to stare at us northerners. The pizza was terrible.
A few hour later we arrived in Charlotte, the shiny new "Queen City". It's truly the New South, with financial centers Uptown, design boutiques, fish taco joints, and organic farmer's markets. It's really lovely there.
Saturday morning we bopped around town to check out the South End and the NoDa arts district. Ironically, we chatted a bit with a guy in a furniture store who was quite enamored with the fact that we lived in Detroit. He said he was fascinated with urban decay. Driving through the shiny streets of Charlotte, urban decay seemed about 670 miles behind us.
It got Matt and I thinking and talking quite a bit about where Detroit is headed. Sure, we want to see our city transformed, to "rise from the ashes" as its motto hopes for, but hopefully it'll find its own path to regeneration so that whatever fascinates people about Detroit's industrial past won't be transformed beyond recognition. Mainly I think we hope for people to feel safe, to have the means to raise their families, and for more green resting spots in the midst of the hardness of the city. Like every good road trip, it had us thinking about home in a new way.
In the afternoon we headed to the park for the wedding, which took place under this beautiful willow on a little island. As all good weddings, it was the perfect reflection of them as a couple. It was also a very etsy.com decorated wedding, which made it all the more lovely. We celebrated, enjoyed a big Southern brunch Sunday morning, and then got back in the car to complete our journey. After a week of traveling, it felt really refreshing be back home.
