You are here: Home / 2014 / Archives for March 2014

Pure Michigan Longing

March 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Every so often it hits me like a ton of bricks.

Maybe it’s because I still, mistakenly, call it ‘home’ when I’ve lived in Southern California for 15 years. My children are California natives.

Maybe it’s because my Mom was just here, my brother and father just spent a few weeks there, and my Dad is now here to help out.

Maybe it’s because everyone is talking about the new parody ad featuring Pashon Murry, Detroit Dirt entrepreneur and mistress of awesome.

Maybe it’s because it’s Spring Break time and I can’t help think about how we would escape the cold and drive to my Grandmother’s in Florida, stuffed into the back of a station wagon with my cousins while the weather went from gray muck and sleet to sticky, hot swamp.

Maybe it’s because of March Madness, and my school is playing and we’re all cheering and I’m longing to see that frozen tundra I was forced to walk from Holden Hall to class in East Lansing.

But mostly, it was this photo, part of the website highlighting Murray, that drove me over the edge and pushed me well past the boiling point.

I miss Detroit. I miss metro-Detroit. I miss everything about it and I want to be there to watch it change once again into the amazing city I adore.

I can see the Ambassador Bridge in the background, my gateway to Windsor and Bloody Caesars and shopping and my good Canadian friends.

I can remember those train tracks under the bridge area and how I’d park there, top down on my car, and listen to the Detroit River go by with it’s ‘Frasiers’ (as my brother called them) honking loudly and fishing boats. The stars in the sky, still visible despite light pollution from the factories on the river, and the lack of police- they had better things to do than give a damn about a girl parked in the wrong part of town listening to music by the river under the bridge.

Now that area is part of Detroit renewal. And I long to be more than just an ‘advisory board’ member from afar hoping to help from 3k miles away.

I want to be there, live there, get my hands dirty and say ‘we built that!’

I want to complain about the snow and drive my daughter an hour to horseback riding lessons on I-94. I want to take my son to Eastern Market and show him the locally grown produce and flowers and watch his eyes pop out of his head when he realizes this can happen in a city atmosphere.

I want to take trips ‘up north’ for sledding and fun.

I want family nearby to help when I can’t get out of bed or make dinner or end up in the hospital. And when in that hospital I want to recognize the faces and the friends working to keep me comfortable.

I want my kids to know what it’s like to have roots in Hamtramck – to show them the Catholic Church I grew up in and to have them understand this is their legacy too. They can see the beer tent and enjoy the elephant ears and maybe have some history given when I say ‘and this is where my Aunt gave me this rosary, which I now give to you.’

I want to buy a home in one of the renewal areas and work to build it back up to it’s once mansion like glory.

I want water all around me again, putting out the fires in my heart and mind and keeping me calm. The lake I can see daily out a window or on my drive, the river always there, everything within a walk if needed.

Tis the season for Friday Night fish fries and Saturday morning hangovers. Men leaving to hunt, women laughing at their excuse to go drink in the wood for a day or two.

There is also so much I don’t want, and don’t miss…but I need to be part of this solution in a more tangible way than advising on boards of startups trying to make it in the D. I want so much more.

…but it’s only a dream. My house by the river/lake, my chance to help, my ideas that we’d ever leave California.

Husband’s work is Los Angeles specific. My children are in a wonderful school well suited to our needs and our family, and I can’t imagine something like that exists in the Motor City. And then there is my treatment and my doctor. I’m sure I could find another. But it would be hard. It took me 4-5 doctors to find him. And no, I’m not forgetting the cold and the winters. The gray that sucks the life out of you because you long for the sun and not slush.

I’m also not stupid, I know once the glitter wears off and it’s just life again, I’ll be annoyed we live close to family who probably will just let themselves in the door without knocking. Well, the ones that drive me crazy. The others I will WANT to let themselves in and be grateful they are near would always knock. But then there are the others who will say and do things in front of my children I disapprove of and drive me insane. Giving the kids a glimpse of the reason I left and giving them a reason to leave when old enough.

However if given the chance, if the opportunity were there…I’d lobby to move our little family near where I was born and raised.

In the meantime, I will deal with this gnawing at my stomach that we need the fresh air and cold and water water everywhere. The pit of my stomach churns with the pang of want every time I see Pure Michigan commercials2730188969_92d497aae2_z and I dream of a home built from logs, on the banks of one of it’s purely Michigan bodies of water…small town nearby for necessities but mostly just my family and my loves for the sea. I could heal, I could be calm, I could put the pieces back together and figure out where it all went wrong. I could homeschool. Or try. I could show them such beauty in their own backyard. Oh and the garden we’d have! The joy of seeing Spring peak through the snow and actual seasons.

Maybe someday. In the meantime, I will continue to do all I can from afar. Because I care more than I can put into words what happens in metro-Deroit and the city. I care more than I can put into words about every body of water from the U-P on down. I care about Detroit. I care about Michigan. I care about roots.

And it’s never going to go away.

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus, Feeling YaYa, Stepford Crazies

There is Something Special About 11

March 24, 2014 by 2 Comments

Eleven years ago my husband and I began the greatest journey of our lives. Great seems like the wrong word to describe parenthood, because it doesn’t nearly encompass the ridiculousness of what it means to be someone’s mother or father.

Ridiculous might actually be more appropriate.

When this boy came into our lives, everything changed.

I didn’t know the passion with which I threw myself into my work, my projects, my relationships, my marriage, my family…would be entirely eclipsed by this tiny human who would squeeze my finger and look into my eyes as he nursed. Owning me.

It was ridiculous. It still is ridiculous.

Now that he is becoming, well, himself, I’m learning to let him take over his own life. The life we gave him, the life we help guide as he learns about the world. The good. The bad. The wonder with which he sees everything.

He is so much braver than I am and so much stronger. His heart is so pure- and I know people tend to say that about children a lot-but his heart is truly so pure and loving that he weeps with joy when the sky is full of clouds and feels total elation that is contagious when seeing stars. He makes you look out the window of your everyday car in your everyday life and actually watch the mountains go by and the sun set below the horizon. And then he’ll say something so simple it hurts.

Mom, isn’t the world just beautiful?

His current obsession is flight. Planes. Shuttles. He’s thrown himself into learning everything about how a human might reach the heavens so he can witness Earth’s beauty first hand.

So naturally we bought him a flying lesson for his birthday.

The intensity and fierceness with which I wanted to stop him nearly overwhelmed me. But after ELEVEN YEARS I finally am working on becoming the mother I had always hoped I would be, at least, in part.

I didn’t tell him I was petrified something would go wrong. I didn’t show my nerves. I simply continued to encourage his dream. I wanted him to know I was behind him 110% if this is what he wanted.

Over a decade of parenting and I’m still trying to figure this whole Mom thing out.

When my son arrived in this world, after weeks and weeks and weeks of bed rest…monitor strapped to my swollen belly, sending my preterm contractions to a nurse over an old school modem, we were just happy he was healthy. Then, like every mother before me, I worried and fretted about milestones and motor skills.

Keeping our kids safe seems to be forever on the mind. Protecting.

Yet at the same time, we tell them they can be anything. They can do anything. If they find something they love we will happily help them achieve their goals.

My son wants to fly. In a way, he always has been flying. He’s done it in his mind and daydreams a million times. I’ve watched him. I can see the wheels spinning as he runs through our house flapping his arms.

His first goal as a Kindergartner was to retrieve the rovers from Mars. We wore out one ‘Roving Mars’ DVD and had to buy another before he was reading or writing. A documentary.

It just never occurred to this mother he would need to leave the safety of the ground.

He’s smarter than I am. He has a plan that involves learning to be a pilot young so he can get it out of the way and amass his fortune in order to fund his other obsessions. Inventing his dreamworld filled with creatures and robots and fun. All while making sure Spirit and Opportunity return to Earth not to mention making sure his many hobbies are equally tended to-most of which involve other worlds. Other galaxies. Dark matter, black holes, the beyond.

He figured out long ago he’d need to take this step and didn’t even ask if he could, knowing Mom and Dad would be there to support his dreams.

I adore this child and am glad he’s challenged me to be a better person, a less selfish woman, more of an adventurer, less of a panicked mother.

I always knew he would touch the stars, I just didn’t realize it would take everything in me to let go in order for him to spread his wings and fly.

 

Happy Birthday Jack.

Filed Under: Count Waffles, Feeling YaYa, Stepford Crazies

I Was Called “Bossy” & What They Meant Was “Bitch”

March 11, 2014 by 7 Comments

Here is why I’m loving the #BanBossy campaign:

Not because I think banning a word is the end game or point. Not because we shouldn’t “reclaim” the word “bossy” and make it a positive, leadership-affirming word for girls. No, I am loving the campaign because when I was a kid and I was called bossy…they really meant “bitch.”

)

I am not the biggest fan of the entire Lean In movement (another blog post for another time) nor do I think you can solve the world’s problems with “banning” anything. But if we can change the narrative on “Bossy” if we can TALK more about why girls are called “Bossy” and boys aren’t…if this means #BanBossy gets it started than WHOO HOO.

Think about it, #BanBossy is already generating a ton of social media buzz. A ton of talk. A ton of discussion about girls and leadership. That means IT IS WORKING.

Now some of you don’t have the negative connotation that I do with the word “Bossy.” I get that.

However, I do. This speaks to me, directly.

Bossy was never meant as a compliment. It was never meant as one of list of things I was, and still am, that anyone would put in the “positive” pile in the pro and con sheet of my life.

But I was just doing what the boys did. I was simply taking charge, just like the boys were. And for those who would argue “Well, Erin, maybe you weren’t nice.” Were the boys “nice” when they told everyone what to do? And if they were mean, were they called anything even close to “bossy” or were they heralded as a “strong leader that didn’t take anyone’s shit?”

Exactly.

I’m raising a son and a daughter and my husband and I try VERY hard not to pigeon hole them with gender stereotypes, but sometimes things slip out. For instance the other day I told my daughter to “act like a lady.”

What the hell does that even mean? I can’t even remember what she was doing, and I quickly backtracked and talked to both of my kids about what I had said.

Which is just another reason why I think the #BanBossy campaign is exactly what we need, because I know when you call me Bossy, you really mean Bitch. And I’ll be damned if you are going to call my strong, independent daughter a bitch.

Filed Under: #suckit, Feeling YaYa, Stepford Crazies

My Son, the Filmmaker

March 8, 2014 by

There may not have been a red carpet, but last night my son premiered his first (for public consumption) animated short.

I am very proud of his work, as he is 10-years old and entirely self-taught. He wrote, directed, animated, shot, acted…set design, you name it… all of it…for this witty and fun stop-motion extravaganza.

The 4th and 5th graders all showed their shorts to an audience packed with parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and family at the Shakespeare Theatre of our school.

You really haven’t lived until you’ve spent two hours watching the imagination of kids shown on big screens- there were monsters, lots of monsters. Cats with laser eyes. Lego men and women who seemed to lose their heads a lot. Barbies being mean to each other and eventually making nice. And of course, the story of Bill.

Awesome job by all!

Filed Under: Feeling YaYa, Stepford Crazies