Back in the City

I had forgotten how small you feel beside the city buildings, a crumb of bread along the kitchen floor waiting to be seen. I always rather liked the city; the pace, the sounds, the anonymity of it all.

It has been some six months living back in my hometown and I still cannot come to terms with its reality. At some point in my late twenties, my sense of home shifted from where I was born to where I identified. I liked to use the word, “originally”. “Originally, I was born in Northern Michigan,” I might say, “but now I live in Grand Rapids.” What made me who I was was that I left my hometown. And now I have returned. I have come home to the town not tucked between buildings, but instead resting very quietly beside the bay.

So, we spent the weekend in the city and it was the stuff nostalgia is made of: twinkling lights on darkened streets, ice skating in the cold, a warm hamburger with a dark beer. The best part about returning to the city for a whirlwind weekend is the joys of doing only the best of the best. And so we did just that. We also gave our exchange student an hour-long driving tour of Grand Rapids while our crabby daughter took a nap in the car, because well, we were desperate for her to sleep. Perhaps maybe years down the road our minds will not hold on to this memory, but when you are traveling with Littles these are your realities…

The city along the river was cold last weekend. Deep, bone-chilling, toe-curling cold.  To escape, we walked among the palm trees and cacti at Frederick Meijer Gardens, carefully combing through their Trees of the World display to find the Peruvian tree. It was the brightest and happiest of all the trees and we took several moments (and pictures) to admire our student’s reflections of home.

I felt so much joy returning to the place where I spent all of those years growing. While Childhood is often a storybook you flip back through, your Twenties become the stone pavers that take you where you need to be– some broken, some strong, but all of them lining up in a pattern that ends in today. I trace my years and my path around the city and cannot help but smile. It has been long enough now to laugh at my misfortunes at 22 and 23, and yes, even 24… you know what you were for me 24. Looking at the buildings, I remember all of the stories that happened here. These same walls that built the city built me, too.

Yes, this… this is where I am truly from.