Place - whats significant?

The snow hasnt come yet like it did last year or the year before. It doesnt chill your face as you
walk into it after a long day of teaching and working. Instead, therere scattered patches of
reminders of snow, tossed through the branches, piled to the side of a road. I dont miss the
snow. But, I feel its impact: days off school because buses couldnt drive down our dirt road.
Fives acres of open space and free time to make snow angels, forts, followed with pulling off
layers of snow pants, sweaters, scarves, boots, and rushing for hot chocolate. I dont miss the
snow, but the innocence of dreams that were woven into the years when snow was a given,
constant companion that would return each year. Dreams are still amidst the sidewalks cracked
with ice and salt, the frozen dirt, and half stilled water that I walk over (by way of a bridge) every
Tuesday through Thursday. Theres something less free in these days of transition, as the
months havent decided to shower white coldness or suck up that spell and blossom into some
warmth. Im not anxious for the warmth, no need to rush the process. This space of in between
is not supposed to be comforting. Its supposed to be hard, reflective, and it does it well. Not all
places allow for this natural circulation of moving from one thing to the next (even if the next is
unknown) in quite the same way as this space. Because, some places feel static; routine; and
can cause one to feel the urge to stretch, breath, and change. Some dont believe in change, but
these cities, these walls, these rooms have seen it, felt it, screamed it (sometimes only
internally): either a need for it or the process of change. Change for better? Change for the
worse? Does it even matter? Its change; it doesnt need to be categorized, at least not now. Not
now inside these white walls with a white board and screen, no art. Not now across a table of
food, colleagues (some friends, some not quite as well known). The gray graininess of the table
is like the salt outdoors, little black pieces with white and gray mixed in - if it were blown up,
perhaps it would be like a Jackson Pollock piece? The non-adventurous green of the chairs,
trying to spice things up with pink and white dotes, but not very convincingly. And, I sit. I sit on
the dull, softness of the chair. My own excitement for the day drained from unwanted lack of
sleep, energized by the memories of snowy landscapes form past days. A longing for something
that will come again, but wrestling with the unknowing of when? How?
Point of View
Get up out of your chair, walk out of the door and directly to the nearest exit. Turn left once you
get to the Red Cedar River (hear the water as it slowly moves, the cars will pass by on your left
as you go over the bridge and cross to the Erickson parking lot. Youll get in your car and head
out of the parking lot. Turn right because its the only way you can go. Turn left at the first light
and then turn again at Shaw lane (left). Turn left at Farm Lane, which youll then take to Grand
River, where, guess what another left at Grand River. Lots of lefts. From here youll get on 127
South, to 96 East, to 696 East, where youll exit for Royal Oak - youll get off at exit 17
WOODWARD! From there youll take a left at the second light onto Woodward, once you reach
Nellos - the restaurant where I first learned to like soup. it could only be there lemon rice soup

that would bend my stubbornness about liquid slosh as something that is tasty. You take a right
at Nellos and then travel for a few miles until you reach Longfellow on your right. This is it. The
street where I began the park where a police officer yelled at me and friends when we were
there after hours trying to find a sweater wed left behind we were harmless children, you rude
man the street where we had annual block parties with water fights, watermelon eating
contests Halloween parades that my dad would lead playing Seventy Six Trombones Led The
Big Parade!
This is where the directions go a bit off. I start describing the shape I made and it is kind of
chaotic. Here it goes for the shape: Take half a small circle and cut off the bottom. Then take a
larger circle and mark a hole large enough for the bottom of the small circle to fit into. Next,
make a small slit at the bottom and attach one corner of a star at the very end.
The end result will be a star corner at the bottom, a circle with slits in the middle and a half circle
at the top.