Detroit has taken me in like no place I have ever lived.
Photo Credit: Unsplash @gerogia_vis
Having left Buffalo at age 5, I don’t remember much other than glimpses of my Kindergarten classroom, the nearby Tops grocery store, and the red-haired girl named Dina who lived next door - who was both my first friend and someone I will likely never hear of again.
Rochester was where I lived for most of my childhood, a well-to-do northern suburb of Detroit. It was a good place to grow up, but there were enough glares that I received in public - which I realize now were from a place of discomfort and skepticism, probably about race - to never allow that place to feel like one I could be from.
Ann Arbor was nice - lively, intellectual, and inclusive. People there were kind, even though I was a shrimpy college kid, and therefore loud and usually irritating to the locals.
Living there, something funny happened. The same, race-based, alienation I felt in Rochester made me feel exotic in Ann Arbor. It was as if the town was so oriented toward inclusion, people so willing to be kind, that my race felt extra salient.
That attitude of inclusivity that seemed to permeate the town was so generous, and I am grateful to have lived in place that was so midwestern, in the purest sense. But alas, Ann Arbor couldn’t feel like home for the same reason Disney World cannot: Ann Arbor is among the happiest of places, but it’s too magical - just beyond what feels real - to feel like I could actually be from there.
I never expected Detroit to be the place, the first place, to feel like home. And yet, here we are.
One of my favorite things to do while running is to wave. I wave at everyone I see. When I used to live nearer to the City center, I would go jogging, often ending up downtown. And no matter who it was I waved at - whether old, young, rich, poor, without a fixed address, or a young professional walking a dog - almost everyone waved back at me. This place, Detroit, I thought, was different.
When started working as in intern in City government, later joining the Police Department I was in the most diverse workforce I’d ever been part of, and not just on the basis of race. But also by age, professional experience, creed, sexual orientation, educational background, family origin, and likelihood to use profanity.
And yet, no matter whether I was talking to a career public servant, a political operative, a cop, a returned citizen, a pastor, a basketball coach, or an activist - people were cool with me. Citizens I met because of my job were cool with me. Everyone was cool with me. It wasn’t that people treated me in any special way - they were just cool with it.
It was precisely that I wasn’t special, that made the interactions I had feel so uncommon. For the first time in my life, I was just a guy doing a job. I was treated, just like a regular guy. If I was a decent guy, they were decent back. If I was respectful, I got it back. I was given the chance to just…be a guy doing a job. Detroit, I thought, is different.
When we moved into our neighborhood, I realized this Detroiter kindness wasn’t a coincidence or an unusual deference paid to me because I was a political appointee.
When Robyn and I walked down the street, first with our pup, and later with our sons, people would smile and wave back. Our neighbors, irrespective of our obvious demographic differences, actually wanted to know us. We would talk on the street, and everywhere we went, we got to be Neil and Robyn, that young couple up the street with the black dog and those three sons who were always rolling around on a stroller, tricycle, or scooter. This could be the last place I ever live, and that’d be nice, I thought. Seeing myself in this one place, for the rest of my days was different.
And then there was Church today, which reminded me of all this Detroit kindness and brought these memories about place back to the forefront of my mind in a surge.
Gesu is a Catholic Church of the Jesuit tradition. It’s a place where every week, during church announcements, any one who is a guest is invited to stand and be recognized. And the applause that follows is unfailingly sincere. I know many churches do this, but it just feels so sincere and never something that is just going through the motions.
In the pews there, I can be there and listen and pray. I don’t feel the searing eyes of the congregation, questioning why I’m there, when I don’t come forward to take communion. At that point in the service, when it’s time to give a sign of peace to others, people give me a sign of peace, warmly. It feels different.
There is an usher at the 8:00am Mass who is always at the door near where we usually sit. He is dressed well, usually with a brown overcoat, brown turtleneck, and a thin gold chain. He is older, but what I notice more is that he’s always smiling. At the end of mass today, he came over to say, “you have a beautiful family, such nice kids.”
“Thank you, we are blessed,” I said. And after a pause I added, with the slightest trepidation, “I’m Neil.”
“I’m Fitz. They call me Fitz. And this is my friend Walter.”
This type of interaction, genuinely kind and without any frills, pomp, or reservation, has only ever happened to me at Churches in Detroit. Detroit is different.
If you’ve never been here, I must admit that I don’t know quite how to describe Detroiter kindness. It’s genuine, but not from a place of bubbly energy or naïveté. It’s warm, but never given with waste or haste. It’s a no frills, meet-energy-with-energy, this is just how we do it, sort of kindness. It’s a kindness that seems like it can only be given by a person that’s lived in a City who has seen some things. It is a kindness that is not flashy and lavish, but is also not meek, and because of that it feels more sincere and is somewhat disarming. It’s a kindness that can only be earned, I think, not inherited.
Detroiter kindness is different.
I am so grateful for this place, and for it’s kindness. For many years I felt like a nomad in my own country, my identity caught between geography, ancestry, demeanor, and race. When someone asked me where I was from, I didn’t have an answer I actually felt comfortable saying or actually believed.
But now, I can say, “I’m from Detroit.” And it’s actually true. I actually feel it, and feel it in my bones. What a gift it has been for Detroit to have taken me in. What a blessing it is to finally be home.
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