When I moved back to Detroit three years ago November, I truly needed the pause and slowness of the cold, dark season. Even if it felt a bit hard to meet the Midwestern winter, I was too tired to do anything but hibernate. I’d moved across the country, left my beloved California home, and needed to cocoon before stepping into this new life. I slept, grieved, studied, wrote and took care of myself. I created a curriculum and worked a bit, but I didn’t really need to go anywhere outside of my cave. The first winter was perfect.
My second winter was also fruitful because I was writing A Year in Practice. I didn’t have to do anything but focus on the book. Winter gave me its mood of introspection and I ran with it.
But this winter has been a brutal. My third year in the city and I’ve never worked harder in my life. Seasonal depression mixed with true burnout. The nature of this reality has me thinking a lot about my timeline of effort and recently I applied for the Kresge, which caused me to review my entire career. Seeing all of my exertion spelled out on the page, year after year documenting my epic endeavors, has me spinning a bit and inspired me to sit down to write some reflections.
I often think about the immense amount of labor required in order to survive and thrive in this world. There are so many types of work I take into account when I muse on this. For example, the huge volume of work that’s required in order to nurture healthy relationships with friends, family and loved ones. I think of the work it takes daily to maintain the body, the mind and the spirit. When I consider all the variations of effort that go into being here as a human being, it’s easy to think of life itself as a job. But in this ramble, I’m focusing on the work I’ve done for money, the jobs that paid my way, and I’m most likely forgetting some of them because there have been so many.
I started working when I was eleven years old.
My first job was busing tables at Montego Bay, a restaurant on Big Pine Key where I spent many years of my life. This place wasn’t far from our house and my mom and her boyfriend were regulars at the bar. They must have somehow swayed the owners to hire someone so young, but there were many things that happened outside the law in the Florida Keys. This is where I grew up, carrying trays of dishes and food up and down the stairs while the owners sold cocaine out the back door. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me.
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