love this city

i. LOVE. the. city of ann arbor. the weather has been unseasonally warm this week, and i've been taking full advantage of it, spending every moment i'm not mandated to be indoors, outdoors. and all of this has been the icing on solidifying some things i've been feeling recently. i've even picked up a new hobby: WALKING! instead of sitting like blobs in a cafe and talking to another person across the table, something about being on the go forces us to unload more issues and thoughts while other parts of your body are also moving. my two favorite times to go are at sunrise (around 6:45am) and sunset or after dark (around 9pm). between walking with friends and training for my marathon, i've been clocking in AA miles like whoa this week. and also, seeing more parts of the city that i haven't yet upturned in the near six years i've been here. let me know if you'd like to join sometime as my walking buddy!

two things i learned on my recent trip to St. Louis:

1) ann arbor is an AMAZING city. i don't know how else to tell you except to tell you to leave ann arbor. it was the only way i realize how good we have it here. one of many reasons why i left for st. louis because i was itching to get out of Ann Arbor, but ironically, i found myself missing AA almost every moment of the trip. there, i realized that the open atmosphere in Ann Arbor was something i took for granted. as a commuter city, it was impossible trying to meet locals or students on the WashU campus of 12,000 students. this is a stark contrast to UofM's 42,716 students, where everyone walks and it's easy to "run" into people. nothing similar to kerrytown was to be found-- a hangout where you can go to meet local residents of AA and have interesting conversations.

2) i need to learn to love my city even more. i met a new friend on my trip to St. Louis who moved there after rotating through st. louis as one of four cities in her AmeriCorps placements. aside for her affinity for the city, she had no other reason to move there. no job, no friends, no family, just a genuine love for the city. for 5 or 6 months, she actually worked a bunch of temp jobs-- waitressing, catering, gardening-- until she found a permanent job.

her situation looked very similar to what my friends do: stay in Ann Arbor, to outsiders, for what seems like "no logical reason". to my friends, the only reason is a heart for the local church and a calling to serve God. except, rather than stay in AA, she went. rather than God... well, there was none for her. and i as i was listening to her story, i thought to myself, "if someone can do something that radical and not even stay in a city they're comfortable in -- just out of a pure love for a city, without even having a hope from God -- what then, am i doing here?" how do we set ourselves with our actions apart from them? (cause, it really looks no different...)

ann arbor, i love you.