Due to the website crashing every time I tried to post a blog, you guys are getting week 3 a week late (which is fine because I don’t think anyone even reads this).
Week three was about community. It was about observation. When I think of observing, I think of listening more than I speak, of trying to understand something without the filter of my own experiences and biases.
Week three was about learning to read between the lines in Jean’s face. Learning that sometimes, friendship is knowing when someone needs a hug, or just needs you to sit and exist with them. That sometimes, friendship is knowing when you need to get up and leave the room. (Just to clarify, Jean has no lines in her face. Her skin is youthful, and firm, and supple. That’s her story, and I’m sticking to it).
Week three was a lot of people watching. It was screaming matches in 308, because we were so beaten down by things we couldn’t change. It was observing that we say the word “dick” way too much for a room full of people with absolutely zero dicks between the four of us. It was a lot of laughter, and a lot of pain, and a lot of cleaning the kitchen.
Observing means changing perceptions, or at least, understanding. I’m starting to understand a city that the news, and my parents, and the people around me taught me to be afraid of. I will never be Detroit born and raised. I will never understand the cultures of the people who live in this city, who were born and raised in this city, but I see parallels with my own city. With my own culture. And for me, that’s enough.
