dear grand rapids

Dear Grand Rapids, Michigan:

We've had a pretty good run, eh?

I met you in the summer of 2008. I checked into the hotel downtown, the one across from the Jerry Ford museum, and then walked to find my new place. The street was wide and vaguely urban, and I passed the police department and library. It was a hot evening and I was wearing the wrong shoes, but then I turned down the street and saw the house. I knocked on the door, and my new downstairs neighbor let me in and showed me my apartment, and even though it looked a little worse for the wear, I thought, I can do something with this.

That first year, I lived alone. I slept on my Murphy bed, and I sat out on the back roof and worked at the big table under the umbrella. When the leaves came down in the backyard, I discovered I could see downtown. I loved to sit out there with a beer at night. It was my first year teaching full-time, and most nights I would come home, take a walk or run, fix dinner, and think about the day. They felt exhausting and luxurious all at the same time, those days, and I was glad to have the rooftop deck.

Later, we decided to move downstairs. That summer--2009--was a strange one; we had just settled in, and then I broke my foot, and everything felt like some new adjustment. Sometimes I cried in that downstairs apartment. I missed upstairs then. But I did love the little bar around the corner, and the coney place. There was the night that we walked down to The Mountain Goats show, and in the autumn, there were the leaves.

I'll always think of you as a pleasant surprise, a learning experience. I took a job and hoped for the best for western Michigan, and it worked out okay. Grand Rapids: the people who are from you, who live in you, really dig you. They are your number one fans. And there is a lot to like about you. There are blueberries, and beaches not far away, and a downtown and a river. I liked being able to walk to the library and the coney shop and the downtown campus. You are not on fire. But I can't help but give you some friendly advice: just be careful. Don't be too confident. Don't think you know everything, or what is best for everyone. You're going to keep growing, and you are filled with many good things, but you are not done yet. And I can tell you this because that's what I learned during my three years here. Future me is climbing the rickety back stairs to where 2008 me is sitting on the rooftop, and she's saying the same things.

Or maybe she is not. Maybe future me knows that it won't matter, that the mistakes are part of it. Maybe late sunsets on the fringe of the time zone, and the coneys, and the tough classes, and the lake effect snow, are all important. I became a professor here, and a writer with a book. I learned what I wanted and did not want in an apartment, a city, a job. I perfected my chicken salad and grew lots of plants. I sat out with the dog and a cup of coffee and watched the squirrels run their obstacle course. I failed, I failed better. And I met people that I will truly, and honestly, miss.

It was a good run.

Or maybe here is another way for me to say goodbye and thank you: almost every week in the nice months, when I was working in the front room that doubled as my office, I would hear a strange and plasticky noise. It was coming from outside, and it would get louder and louder. And it was a kid who lived up the street, up the gentle hill of our road, and he would be on a skateboard with his Jack Russell terrier on a leash, and the dog would be running down the hill, his stubby little legs a blur, his pink tongue streaming out one side of his mouth. And both dog and owner would look like they could lose control at any minute, yes, but also: deliriously happy.

And I would stand there, sometimes still wrapped in a bath towel, or paused in answering e-mails, and I would laugh.

Goodbye, Grand Rapids. Thanks.

love,
Christina