Today has been a weird day. Not bad, at all; just weird. Let me tell you about it.
It all started as I was heading back to Hummingbird's Music Together for the first time in a few years. I had gone through the entire MT program with my daughter Abbey, who is now eight, and then I tried it again with Brooks when he was about fifteen months. It didn't go so well. Mainly because, well, we were never there. Much like the awesome Signing Time classes we signed up for with Momcat Kelly - we were just never there. And you'll be shocked to know that you can't really experience music or sign language when you're in a doctor's office some forty miles away. Makes it hard.
But here we are! Two years later and Brooks's EoE is controlled enough that we're currently NOT spending every waking moment shuffling from appointment to appointment. So we're doing the music thing, which brings me back to this morning. As I was hurriedly leaving the house, I randomly grabbed a purse I haven't used in a few years. (Sensing the theme here yet?) When I parked at the Music Academy, I realized I didn't have any change in my car, and so I went shuffling through the pockets in that bag I'd grabbed. No change, darn it. But want to know what I did find? My husband's (prescription) sunglasses that I swore HE lost two years ago this fall. Uh huh.
So I called him, we laughed, and I pretended not to remember blaming him for the missing sunglasses. When we finally walked into class, I immediately saw familiar faces. One of them was a Music Together friend that we had a class with when Abbey was two or three, and her son was around the same. How fun, right? Now she has a new gloriously chubby little boy, and here we are almost seven years later in another class together. But it doesn't stop there! Oh NO, because this is Grosse Pointe! Wonderfully small, insanely interconnected, and sometimes absurdly random Grosse Pointe.
Another Dad in the class, this one dressed in scrubs, also immediately stood out. I smiled warmly (I hope!) but didn't offer up the trip down memory lane - and not because I'm rude. No, this Dad I not only remember from Music Together; this Dad I remember from when I found myself in his Emergency Room, under his care when I had the flu four years ago. I was so, so sick that when I got to the ER, I was already presenting with symptoms of sepsis. Really, I should have been woefully embarrassed about the way this fellow GP Dad had to see me that night, but why bother with that? I was sick, and he was a wonderful doctor who helped get me well. I owe him a lot, but maybe not in front of the other parents at music class, right before we get down with egg shakers. Ya know what I mean?
But there it is. My really weird day, centered around the things of yesteryear, and around how small this community really is. That's why I love it so much. Growing up, I spent most of my childhood in southeast St. Clair Shores, and then relocated in High School to Macomb Township. As far as community dynamics go, SCS is pretty much like GP, or at least it was in the Eighties. You knew your neighbors, and your neighbor's neighbors, and your family's family, and your friend's friends. It wasn't like that so much in Shelby/Macomb, although I know some subdivisions (here and there) are closer than others. I love the closeness. Even the physical closeness of some of our neighborhoods; I just find comfort in it. I love that I see friends everywhere I go, even if at times I should be downright embarrassed for walking out of the house looking like I do, with a wild preschooler still on my hip.
I love the community events we have here, and the things we gather to celebrate together. We're entering into the best time of year for that, and it makes my heart happy. Soon it will be time for trick-or-treating in the Village, and in the Parks. Then we'll gather to light the Christmas Trees - whether it's the one in the Village, or in front of the library in SCS, or maybe we'll see each other at the tree during West Park Winter Social. After that we'll welcome Santa as he parades down Kercheval, we'll ice skate at any of the handful of rinks, go sledding at Balduck, and pig out at a chili cook-off or three. And before we know, spring will be here again.
All of that is why I love Grosse Pointe, and the "Eastside" in general - not forgetting where spent my childhood alongside the Milk River. (But did you know for some reason us SCS kids called it the Milk*y* river?). Now it's your turn. Tell me why you love YOUR town, here, and be entered to win tickets to the Michigan Renaissance Festival, going on now through the end of September.
