I’ve been beginning to miss familiarity. Although I’m having an amazing time exploring Detroit and meeting so many new people, there are times that I miss my life in Ann Arbor and school. I miss waking up to my four housemates, catching the bus to campus and seeing my Gladies around campus and in rehearsal (if you want to learn more about the University of Michigan Women’s Glee Club, feel free to talk to me or Anna and/or click this link here #GoGlee!). I miss slumbies at my house with my friend Katherine, creating change with SAPAC, and being surrounded by people who have known me for years and know my experiences and identities. While we’ve been here for 6 weeks (wow!), and my familiarity with Detroit has grown, I realize for myself that transition is hard, and it’s easy to miss what is wholly familiar.
But as I catch myself missing familiarity, I wonder what native Detroiters feel. As gentrification has worked its way through the city, familiar landmarks, nooks, and crannies are gone. It is like an exercise we did at our first group meeting where we imagined s scenario where someone has moved into your house and completely redone it without your consent. Some solutions we had were to move everything back, but we realized that it would be a time consuming endeavor. But if you don’t have the time or resources, you’d just have to live in your home that is filled with someone else’s vision. You’d open up a cabinet for a glass and realized they’ve moved the glasses to the shelf furthest from the faucet. And you would wonder why on earth would they do something so illogical, when you know that it works best in the cabinet across from the sink and above the cutlery so that you can grab everything you need in one foul swoop. But that’s because the person who tacklessly invaded your home did not truly have your interests in mind. Although, they may have been well-intentioned (and they very well could have malicious intent), they didn’t have your thoughts in mind fully by failing to see where your values, thoughts, and opinions lie. Inherently, by not consulting with others, they only catered to people like themselves. I miss familiarity but I will never know what it is like to miss your home when it no longer feels like home.
I find myself missing Ann Arbor too! The ending of this program, like most endings for me will definitely be bittersweet! I am so glad that you connected the exercise we did in one of our first meetings to not only how we used it by entering community organizations but the larger issue of gentrification because that is something that I have been thinking a lot about too as we learn more about it. P.S. I have really enjoyed getting to know you this summer and I hope that I become part of your familiar in Ann Arbor! 🙂
I was telling someone the other how much I missed being home with those that I am familiar with. I kept saying that I want to go home, but after reading your post I keep thinking about the people who don’t feel at home in their own homes. You did a great job with connecting the idea of familiarity to gentrification. Great post!