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Theres
nothing more frustrating than looking at the street you’re supposed to be on
from a street you accidentally turned onto. I can get most places these days
without google maps or GPS, it just
might take me slightely longer to get there. That said, as I looked down on 94 from a random overpass in
Allen Park, I begrudgingly turn on the GPS on my phone that reassures me, SHE knows exactly where we're going. I think about where this new maker journey will take me. I have no idea. This is not Harry Potter. I don’t get to know the end
before I even pen down the first chapter.
At the end of my junior year of high school,
when I began applying for colleges and looking for a major, I searched through
every moment in my life. Searching for that pivotal moment that would tell me
what I was supposed to be for the rest of my life.
I have always been blessed with wonderful music teachers…
…so I chose a
musical moment. I’ve seen Wicked twice. At the beginning of the play, all the
chorus members of Oz join on stage to sing ‘Good News’ that the wicked witch is
dead. Together they created a wall of sound that is so pure and so full that
goosebumps erupt onto my arms and I cried. Without hesitation or self-conscious I cried. I can think of many of these moments. Where the sound is so
full it fills me all the way up to my eyes, even System of a Down's Chop Suey. So I thought I should be a musician
and I found a school that could help me become.
I soon
discovered, however, that I did not want to learn
music. I was not willing to
dissect something so precious to me because when I found it in pieces it felt
foreign. I wanted to sing, I wanted to make beautiful sounds without overthinking
them. I was left at a loss. If my magical musical moments (a phrase coined by
my middle school choir teacher) were not the moments that would lead me through
the journey of my college education then what was I doing in a college with an
excellent music program?
So I changed my major to theater just trying to sing and write but I was still dissatisfied. I hated acting. Hated making my body estranged from itself. Had to find something else. I had signed up to take CRTW200, Introduction to Creative Writing, thinking that it would help me in writing song
lyrics. I was incredibly nervous. I never let people read
anything I’d written before. It felt too personal. I could jump onto a stage and sing
in front of hundreds of people but I didn’t like people listening to the songs
I’d written. I put myself out for rejection. But it didn’t come.
Her name is Mary Choral (pronounced Ch-o-ral
ironically) and she blew my mind.
One of the first things I remember is her creating our ‘jumping off points’
turning off the lights and makig us write like we were underwater. Weilding off
centered phrases like “She is startlingly gorgeous. She is beautiful and her
teeth grow everywhere” Which became the first line in my first book of self
published short stories. She was
wacky, she was talented and best of all she believed in me in a way that made
me believe in myself.
Writing on clothing, setting up outdoor
installations, creating pieces inspired by dead French poets. I fell in love
with the Eastern Michigan writing program. Right over the tops of my handlebars
and into the real world like a rocket. I decided that I needed to be a writer.
The program taught me not only valuable approaches to writing but to art itself.
The physicality of it, touching it, tasting it, moving with it. It wasn’t all
about the words, it was about material itself. It wouldn’t be surprising then that when my friend from
Detroit Derby Shawn, alias Uniballer, told me all about Tech Shop Detroit, the
machines, the capabilities, and the friendly community of wacky maker’s that
inhabit the building, that I was more than excited to be a part of it all in
any way I could weasel my way in the door.
And I’m ready to get messy.
