Five Days

Two potential University of Michigan students are crashing at our apartment for a few days so they can have a lesson with a member of the music faculty before they decide to audition here. So yesterday I took them out on a tour of the school and the town of Ann Arbor. Having lived here for three years now, I forget just how huge and impressive the campus is (although I never forget how cool Ann Arbor itself is, especially when the fireflies are out). The Diag, the Law Quad, the Big House, Main St., the hospital complex, the endless corridors of practice rooms in the music building - they literally "ooo"ed and "ahhh"ed at everything. They kept saying, "I can't believe I'm at Michigan!"

All of that made me feel really cool that I came to school here. And it made me pretty sad that I'm leaving.

On Monday I'm heading out to meet my parents and my sister Julie and her family to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant, Kirtland, etc. I will not get back to Palmyra until the evening of the 22nd. The "notice to vacate" form which I signed requires me to move out of my apartment by July 23rd, the very next day. After that I'm off to start a new adventure in California.

So this week is it. Only five more days in Ann Arbor. I can't express how sad it makes me to write that sentence. Back in January I had a dream wherein I couldn't stop crying because I only had one week left in Ann Arbor. Dream Brian was riding a bike up Bonisteel towards the music building and I had tears streaming down my face as I rode up the hill. That dream pretty much nails the way I feel right now. I've become one of those people who tears up when watching the "Pure Michigan" commercials, like this one I saw on TV the same day I got back from a trip up to Ludington, a gorgeous little beach town on Lake Michigan that has a pair of beautiful lighthouses:



Man, this state is gorgeous. As I leave it I'm proud to say that I have very few regrets - I can't think of very many "Pure Michigan"y things that I wanted to do but never got around to doing. I've been to Sleeping Bear, a Tigers and Pistons game (the latter a double-OT loss to the Jazz), the U.P., the Heidelberg Project, Mackinac Island, the Zingerman's Tour de Food (four times), the Henry Ford, Frankenmuth/Bronners, and most of the bigger cities: Lansing, Grand Rapids, Flint, Saginaw, Traverse City, Kalamazoo. (One regret: I wasn't able to visit Kellogg's Cereal City USA, but only because it permanently closed down in January 2007, about seven months before I moved here.)

It sounds really cheesy, but what I'll miss the most is the little stuff: my fence mural and water tower, the Kroger down the street, the Traverwood branch of the library, the Institute building, the pond behind the music building, and especially all the folks from the Hill Street Ward - it's the most amazing ward I've ever been a part of and I'm going to miss everyone so much.

My time here is almost done and soon I'll be making scrapbook memories in California, but for right now I intend to fully enjoy the next five days.