light of a clear, blue morning

michigan

A perverse joy of mine is managing to appear effortlessly capable, a real Elle Woods, “What, like it’s hard?” demeanor. This is the attitude — determined, faux blasé — with which I fly across the country on a red-eye splintered by a layover that constrains my sleeping blocks to four hours.

In the city of Detroit, I bonk my head on the low ceilings of my attic Airbnb where they slope downward and develop a sandal tan as I walk miles and miles in search of tasty things (pierogies, plantains, pie with its own Substack) and contemporary art with actual merit. I read Fruit Fly while dining solo and practice being a person at The Schvitz, Detroit’s counterpart to San Francisco’s Archimedes Banya. I make small talk with an entrepreneur type whose chattiness indicates being well-loved by his mother, and members of the Democratic Socialists of America, who for some reason hold their meetings in a sauna. I wander down broad, gravel-lined streets clearly designed for automobiles rather than pedestrians and spam my eardrums with Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” hoping her triumphant, maternal belt helps me believe that everything that’s been all wrong really will be all right. Passing tall green lawn after tall green lawn where homes used to stand, I reason that if this city, ranked the most dangerous in America from 2008 to 2013, can turn itself around — can blossom into a new, good thing that shows both its wear and its promise — then so can I.

A great and terrible phrase is “pregnant with anticipation.” It’s great because it’s evocative: swollen, uncomfortable, bursting. It’s terrible because it’s jarring enough to pull the reader out of the text. Here we were, reading about mystery, or drama, or thrill — and now here we are, contemplating babies and all the tender and pinched thoughts that accompany that line of thinking.

The weeks prior to Michigan, I was unwell. My relationship was on the fritz because of the newly surfaced possibility of indefinite periods of recurring long distance, and my mental health was on the fritz because I am a fragile girl with the majority of my hopes wrapped up in the promise of a romantic, optimal forever.

Aware of my sensitive state, I did what any sensible person is wont to do: self-isolate in an empty house more than an hour away from any of my friends, for five days running, bringing only screens for entertainment. I passed the time by torturing myself with thoughts of my worthlessness, and then workshopping them for my tight five: What Bay Area woman hasn’t been dumped for the siren call of AI safety?

After two straight weeks of crying, consuming the bulk of my calories via liquid carbohydrates, and interrogating Claude for any plausible cause behind the mysterious, likely stress-induced hives pocking my thighs, hands, armpits, and the creases behind my knees, I am too emotionally flayed to lay this rosy version of the rest of my life to rest. Instead, when we reunite in the Motor City, I fold. Instead, we have sex.

I text my friend, who is surprised by the duration of my trip, that I need the time to say goodbye. She says she is sorry; she didn’t know that was the purpose of my trip. I didn’t either, really. I wasn’t aware I was holding this intention, or bracing for this outcome.

Like Chaka Khan, I am every woman: churlish, retributive, understanding, dutiful, moony, strong. I dislike them all, though in therapy, I attempt to catalog the finer points of each. How great that my inner child is expressing what she wants! It’s healthy to admit I feel scorned, and hurt, and discarded and unwanted and deprioritized. Simultaneously, I am called toward the womanly grace that is standing by your man, even when things aren’t perfect — especially when things aren’t perfect. What is more divinely feminine than being an unconditional fount of love? And beyond that, why center romance at all? Real feminists look beyond their love life — perhaps even inward (gasp!) — for satisfaction. It is totally respectable to be a woman who yearns, and it is totally respectable to be a woman who suffices!

We visit the Eastern Market, a sprawling affair where the produce looks like a Fruit of the Loom tag. We eat crisp, colorful food designed for the health-conscious and marvel at the craftsmanship of the hand-molded pottery it’s served in. We allow ourselves to be loving, though cautiously, encouraged by how proximity makes it easy to dole out and field affection. We are decidedly cute and affable; we are so spry we skip through crosswalks; we are inquisitive and conversation-savvy to the point that people we just met invite us on weekend excursions, and we are doe-eyed and grabby to a degree that prompts passersby to ask if we want our picture taken. I am scared, but I am happy.

There is joy again, like before. And there is strain, a melancholy that understands its precarity. Having accumulated goodwill throughout the course of our storybook day, I spend it immediately by sobbing through the evening, speed-sharing the self-abnegating, despairing thoughts I chewed on in the preceding stretch of absence. We finally go to bed at 4 AM, another echo of the early days, but for less thrilling reasons than in times past.

The next day, though we are weary and my eyes well with every pregnant glance (see, I told you!), we visit Greenfield Village, a Henry Ford-funded recreation of old America that inspired this incredible Google review:

In 1800–1900s America, we learn about Ford’s fondness for the soybean, ponder what our occupations would have been had we been born at that time (me, homemaker [slim pickings]; him, pastor), acquire a newfound appreciation for the achievement that is the Merriam-Webster dictionary, ooh and ahh over the miscellany of the time (Hard tack! Taxidermied bird hat! “Pain-killing magic oil”!), prepare donuts at the local Y for our troops stationed in France, impair our lung health by breathing the smog of the many hundreds of period-appropriate automobiles that bounce and wheeze around the main square, and LARP as protesters at a women’s suffrage march. Out of the kitchen! / And into the voting booth! I chant, before quipping that I, for one, am keenly interested in both domestic and civic life.

This is a new realization for me — learning that I have not outrun the temptations of gender norms. I am not used to being the traditional one in a relationship, being forced to confess that antiquated concepts such as “quality time” and “living in the same city” are non-negotiables for me. I am chagrined to find that, when trying on the identity of “super chill girl who is totally fine with spending long durations apart, such that oscillating between periods of physical togetherness and separation is baked into the nature of our relationship,” it doesn’t cleanly fit. When I realize that this 10-day span could be the longest we’ll ever spend together, my heart breaks like a tiny champagne flute shattering on the floor in a glissando of tinkles.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we have jobs, and it’s an important week for them! The big world outside this small world is also ending, which leaves precious few hours for communing. It seems wasteful to spend our limited time “talking about things,” so we make merry instead: slow-jog alongside the river, permit ourselves sugared beverages at dinner, watch a movie two days in a row, lower the bar for what justifies the purchase of a Pokémon card pack. We could fret, sure, but we could also simply be in love.

On the weekend, we explore mid-Michigan’s finest: a race between 100 scrambling wiener dogs, the world’s largest Christmas store (no, really), buttered spätzle in Little Bavaria, fall-flavored ice cream at the apple farm, handfuls of corn thrown to hordes of honking ducks, crunchwraps, fancy toasts, a jointly curated playlist to soundtrack our home workout. I fawn at the sight of a beautiful man — my beautiful man — bringing me a warm beverage (London fog) to sip between bites of a sweet treat (heart-shaped beignets), my idea of the height of luxury. I am torn between the urge to unpack the situation further and just enjoy how normal everything feels. The dream is in reach again: the orgastic future, the good timeline, faith that we are in one of the 80 out of 100 worlds where our wants and needs eventually converge.

On the final day of my visit, I live up to my tradwife fantasy, cooking giant pots of freezable slop so that my beloved can eat green things even while I am away. When we look at each other, there is a charge, as if we are daring each other to do something drastic and definitive. In effect, we just stare at each other for minutes at a time, an activity the crunchiest of my ex-lovers called “eyegazing.” For a moment, I consider whether I would prefer a relationship largely free from challenge, playful or otherwise. And then I remember who I am — spiky, willful, devotional, script-hating — and know that I prefer things with a little bit of edge.

A second perverse joy of mine is venturing forth where others are afraid. This makes my life exciting, and this makes me stubborn. I want to go where most cannot, and I want to do it without any hand-wringing. This is the attitude — tight-fisted, tenacious — with which I journey home, a 12-hour trek that includes four different methods of transportation.

On the bus and on my walk and on the plane and in the Uber, I read Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Though I understand the author’s intent is not for me to idolize dementedly motivated women, I am awed by Amy Dunne’s discipline anyway. I, too, wish to be meticulous in my pursuits. The best version of me is willing to sacrifice; the best version of me is willing to worship; the best version of me isn’t ashamed of the bigness of my love. I want to be prepared to leave it all on the table. I want to have room to be crazy. I appreciate crazy. I respect crazy. I think you respect crazy, too.

Here is what I am finally brave enough to say: I am looking for love that fells me. Love worthy of the extent of my efforts. I don’t want to be chill. I don’t want to be coy. I want to love loudly and fearlessly. I want to adore and treasure and cherish.

I want to take care of you. I want to provide input on the cut of your pants and the length of your hair. I want to bake you a high-welfare egg quiche seasoned with the salt you made from your own sweat and gave me as a birthday present. I want to exchange opinions about every alternative meat product available in the Kroger freezer aisle, and the executability of a culturally sensitive Underground Railroad re-enactment, and what does or does not qualify as a hangnail. I want to get mogged by you on all tasks that benefit even mildly from SAT-related skills. I want to beat you in Scattergories, but just barely each time, so that you retain your foolish hope that you may one day best me. I want to see you succeed beyond your wildest dreams, in every area and regard that matters to you.

I want to embark on recklessly ambitious athletic feats we’re undertrained for and giggle the whole way through, limping up sandy staircases in between fistfuls of trail mix while roleplaying as a wounded Allied soldier and his doting nurse. I want to go to Disneyland and ride Splash Mountain and regale you with stories of the myriad ways people have died on various attractions. I want to do insane things that most people are too practical or squeamish or wise to even Google how to get started. I want to fall asleep in your arms, and then wake up and squirm away because it’s too warm, and then mostly disentangle except for the back of our calves, which we leave pressed together as a physical reminder of our metaphysical connection.

I want to make good on my wish for fantastical and hyper-specific wedding festivities, like staging a full-length musical chronicling our relationship (directed by me, score by you, co-written by us both) or preparing a pyrotechnics display wherein we crash through the chapel, start a small but impressive engine fire, get jaws-of-life’d out by our officiant, clamber out of our engulfed vehicle straight onto the altar, and then agree to be wed for all time. I want to match your freak, and I want to raise it.

I want to egg each other on, toward the silly, obviously, but also toward the big and the earnest and the impactful, even when that trades off against my personal goal of having nonstop, uncomplicated fun. I want to do the best work of my life serving you, like I told you that night with the stars and the tent and the general outer-space-themed raconteuring. I want to do the second best work of my life enacting values we both share: generosity, integrity, selflessness. I want you to get to do everything you want, and I want to help you do it.

I want to cup your face in my hands and make sure you know how resolutely, acutely, achingly, dazzlingly, mystifyingly special you are, and specifically, special to me.

I plan to have an extraordinary, expressive, joyful, love-drenched life. This, we both know.

I plan to have it with you.