I got to name drop Quality Dairy, so I count it as a good day. The truth is that what I have enjoyed most about New York is being from Michigan. That’s too specific, probably--I think it’s just not being from around here. I love that where I am from gets to be a topic of conversation. I love that I get to talk about how it’s different in Michigan, or how this aspect of the city surprised me, or to ask for recommendations because I am just not from around here. There is something incredible about being green, about being a yokel from the middle of the country and having the gruffest, most intimidating city in the nation cut you a little bit of slack--he’s not from around here, you see.
There is an impulse to try to hide this, to push it down. The first time I glimpsed this kind of independence, visiting Paul in Chicago, I tried to blend in as much as possible, to pretend I knew everything and fit in exactly. There’s still some of that in me, sure--see: Absolute Bagels. And there is something beautiful about this. There is something extraordinary about the idea that you can pick and leave and find another place to be. I don’t disown anything I said about fitting in for a moment in the line to buy bagels.
But most of the time now I find myself playing the exact opposite role. I find myself trying to highlight my foreignness. I tell people--oh, I’m from Michigan, and show them where on my hand. They think I’m some kind of farmboy, and I do not correct them. (My hair color has something to do with this, I think.) I must sound like a walking Frontier Ruckus record, but this too has something beautiful to it. It is only now that I am discovering what it is that makes Michigan home. It’s summer nights you spent wandering on the south part of Michigan State’s campus, feeling sad and angsty and whatever. It’s the horrible kitschy shops of downtown Plymouth you went to with your girlfriend as she searched for a Christmas present. It’s how incredibly alone you can feel on the path to the Empire Bluffs when you’re visiting your bushia. It’s the dealerships which, even if they’re not not garishly lighting up the parish where you wore Catholic uniforms from K-8, lined the streets of so many high school memories. It’s a hundred things like that.
I don’t think it’s fair to say I took them for granted, but I surely didn’t realize how much they mattered, to what extent they made me me. I suppose I should have. I was warned. When Kevin Powers came to Michigan State, someone asked him about other war books--did he read them, did they influence him? (Kevin Powers wrote a book about his time in Iraq, it’s probably worth noting.) His answer has stuck with me. He said that reading Hemingway and O’Brien, he saw things that he didn’t identify with at all. But figuring out where he wasn’t was what allowed him to figure out where he was. It’s the idea of a parallax, a term I am stubbornly refusing to Google, trusting my ninth grade science definition--using the other stars of the sky’s distance from you to figure out where you are.
This idea is true of fiction, sure. Some of the best most meaningful moments of my life have come reading books, understanding more about myself. All The King’s Men has changed my life not once but twice. But it’s true of places, too. You can’t know what home is until you aren’t home. This could be scary--in fact is, tautologically, it can only happen where you don’t feel at home. It is uncomfortable and difficult to adjust to. But the only way you can grasp the full influence your home has had on you is to leave it and see what comes with you, to see what sticks.
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