Our Memories

Over the past month or so, I have absolutely done more non-graded writing than the cumulative sum of all the other non-graded writing in my entire life. On a personal level and beyond the message of the writing, I wanted to prove to myself that I am capable of more than doing my job, jogging, and watching reruns of The Simpsons. I am really, really good at watching reruns of The Simpsons.

This blog has its fair share of failings, but I think that the most significant shortcoming to date is that I haven't done a good enough job yet to answer the question 'why'? Why does Michigan matter to me? Why do I care? Why do I think you should care? Why I am spending my time and effort writing and writing and writing in the hopes that somehow, in some way, I can impact the way you feel about our home.

The unfortunate thing for an untrained writer is that when I try to develop a cohesive answer to this fundamental question, the mind instantly explodes out into thousands of directions and I can't reign in the different threads. Maybe that is the answer, and trying to answer the 'why' in a cohesive series of paragraphs does a disservice to the many 'whys'.

Instead of directly answering the why - something I have convinced myself I am absolutely incapable of doing - I am going to take a bit of a self-indulgent path. I don't really know if this will appeal to everyone or anyone, but I am going to use this space from time-to-time to reminisce and reflect on the prior Michigan events of life that have brought me to this place and this time and this blog.

With some luck, these reflections will serve many purposes - but for anyone who takes the time to read them, I hope with every hope brain cell that I have that my memories will reconnect you with your memories of this place, remind you of the reasons why you are or were happy here, and will continue to strengthen your ties to your once, current, or future home.