its been a while...so i hope this compensates :)

A Gem

I’ve always found an interest in walking around Detroit. When I was in high school I walked two miles down Greenfield every day after school. It was not that I couldn’t get a ride home, or that I couldn’t catch the crowded DDOT buses. It was simply that I preferred to walk. These daily saunters served as a small form of meditation. As I strolled down Greenfield, I was greeted by the warm laughter of carefree daycare children in the neighboring playgrounds. On occasion I would walk past a fellow pedestrian, whom in their rush home from work, would offer a slight head nod as a greeting. I walked past several brick houses, houses where young families and grandmothers lived comfortable lives. I knew their lives were comfortable because they had enough time to precisely mow their lawns into perfectly parallel strips of perfectly greened grass. To accompany these lawns were pots or plots of flowers, flowers that were cared for often. I enjoyed the bouquets of yellows, oranges, pinks, and reds. All which had grown amongst one another, creating a warm happy glow. At the end of these walks, I would return to my mother’s house, a place, where I had comfortably resided for 13 years. There would be no fourteenth year.

When I moved away to school, I initially feared that I had lost my only form of meditation. Driving down Woodward towards my new school, one would assume that there was nothing to look at besides broken down buildings, abandoned churches, liquor stores, and a few fast food places. I remember hesitantly beginning my walk with a left turn onto Woodward. That was instantly changed as I passed the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DIA’s familiar green rows of grass and pampered flowers gave me the usual ease and comfort I’d encountered on my walks down Greenfield. I continued my walk past the traffic and Wayne State students. For a short period I felt right at home. My comfort began to shift as I approached a giant church.

The church seemed to be engulfed in its own massive shadow; a darkness which loomed over its passersby. One passerby in particular, whoever they were, decided that they cared not enough to throw away their trash. Instead, he or she had decided it easier to smash their bottle in the middle of the sidewalk, directly in front of the church; the church which had innerved me so easily. This nervousness was, in some mysterious way, was soothed by the spectacle of the smashed vessel. The broken glass glimmered across Detroit’s hot pavement. The little speckles of what was once the possession of some inebriate, shined proudly like priceless jewels; illuminating the darkness of the unpopulated Woodward sanctuary. I was at ease.

As I continued my walk, I ran into an abandoned lot. This building, carelessly boarded up, slumped on the street corner emitting a sense of emptiness. Peering through the entrance created by the wood board and what appeared to be a hole, all I could see was darkness. Directly next to this building was an empty yard. This patch of land was covered in tall, untended stalks of pale yellow and brown grass. It was my surprise to find that, in contrast to what I’d previously thought, the stalks were not desolate. In the thick of this brown grass, grew weeds and wild flowers. In the midst of this mass of dry, harsh brown bush stood the alluring grace of soft purple petals. Bees danced amongst the violaceous magic. The sound of the blossoms seemed to whisper a soft laugh amidst the tickle of a warm Detroit summer breeze. Again I was at ease but more over, I was inspired; inspired by the ability of those flowers to grow in such a place. Flowers which, unlike those surrounding the houses on Greenfield, were not cared for by little old ladies nor were they aided by the gentle trickle of streams from watering cans. No, these flowers had persevered amongst the harshness of their environment. In their bravery, I found beauty; a beauty I had not seen elsewhere. As I continued my walk down Woodward, I ran across more abandonment and in this abandonment I found more beauty; more new reasons to smile. Then something profound occurred, it smiled back.

The man reeked of what could have been eight years of urine, blood, sweat, saliva and tears. His clothes all appeared brown, although at one point his shirt may have been red, his shoes may have been white, and his pants may have been black. His greasy brown skin had obviously been through more than mine, as it had many scars and cracks. His nails were crooked, dirty, and black, as if he’d scratch the film off of a freshly laid bed of tar. In every crease of his rough palms, which gently swayed at his sides, I could see old settled layers of dirt. The man’s body had obviously not been cared for in a long time. But that speaks nothing about his spirit, which despite his appearance, was noticeably lighter. Undeterred by the bitterness of his story and the apparent neglect in his life, this man parted his large dark swollen lips, and smiled. Though his teeth were crooked, stained, and void of any whiteness, the sight was enlightening. This man (whose appearance was the epitome of desolation, loss, and abandonment) had enough of something in him which had allowed him to smile. I returned the smile but felt that my gesture was nothing compared to what he had shared with me.

What that man had shared with me was the same thing that was given to me by the purple flowers. What was given to me was a sense hope. Hope is not something that exists amongst rows of perfectly mowed grass. It doesn’t exist when life is going “the way it should”. No, hope is a brave and rare form of beauty. Hope exists in the glimpse of light reflected from a piece of broken glass, a gem, that shines against the darkness of an empty church and reminds you that happiness is temporary but so is adversity. What a gem he is missing, him who hasn’t walked this path.