Return To Ann Arbor

I know, I know... it's been too long since I've been blogged. What can I say? I've been busy. I went back to Ann Arbor last week to see Edgefest and visit old friends. I was a great experience. I'll do a separate post about Edgefest shortly and focus now on what it was like to be back in Ann Arbor.

I lived in Ann Arbor for about 21 years, other than the (almost) year I lived in Vermont for most of 1992. Now I've been in Berkeley for 3 months and returned to Ann Arbor to visit. I feel like I'm still trying to sort out the experience. On one hand I felt like I was returning to my home; It was so familiar and full of friends and acquaintances. On the other hand I also felt like a visitor since I was a guest in someone's house and my life is now 2500 miles away. Overall, it was a strange feeling.

After flying all night tuesday night, then renting a car wednesday morning, I made my way to Eric & Anica's house, just a few houses away from my old house. In my slightly sleep-deprived state, I really had to focus to not just drive to my old house, park in the driveway and walk inside. After a few hours of sleep, I met up with Stella (who flew in earlier Wednesday) to have dinner at Pacific Rim, my favorite Ann Arbor restaurant. Their seared tuna is outstanding.

The next day I paid a visit to the people who bought my house. There is a group of five lesbians living there and they were quite receptive to me visiting. Of course I had a legitimate reason - I had some info on the house that they needed. I had left it on the counter when I moved, but somehow it got packed and moved to Berkeley. The women seemed like a great group of people and they loved what I had done with the garden and seemed genuinely interested in maintaining it. It was also nice to catch up with a couple of my old neighbors who happened to be out when I went by.

The rest of my stay was a crazy whirlwind of avant-garde improvised music and seeing old friends. It was fantastic to reconnect with old friends and I felt very at home while simultaneously being aware that I was just visiting. It was an odd sensation - part of me looked forward to being back home in Berkeley while part of me longed to be home again in Ann Arbor. One thing that really struck me, however, is how small Ann Arbor felt. It was all so familiar that it made me more aware of how much I loved living in a new place with so much to explore. The BayArea, and even just Berkeley, is so much larger than Ann Arbor. There is an endless amount of new things to discover here and I love being in such a radically different environment. If only I could just move all my Ann Arbor friends here too. Then I would REALLY love being here.