4041.2 Miles Total
In September 2023, I bought an e-bike, and I named her Zelda Zoomie. Since that time, I’ve been biking to every street in Ann Arbor in alphabetical order. I just finished the G Streets. Every time I complete a letter, I write a reflection on place.
“You tend to have future thinking,” someone once told me. He meant it as a compliment, but he was also encouraging me to become more rooted in the present moment. That was good advice.
He wasn’t wrong in that observation. I do think about future outcomes often, and I tend to engage the present moment as a springboard toward what is possible. In life chapters that are overwhelming, that can take the form of anxiety. But most of the time, when I’m grounded, I am often thinking about what can be built — what can be created based on what’s happening, who is present, and what visions seem to be emerging.
While that is more typical for me, over these last few years, I’ve tried to challenge myself to think in the opposite direction: How many past moments have led to this present moment? How many paths are meeting up right here? How does this moment represent a variety of culminations?
That’s always true, too.
And so with that in mind, as I’ve biked around streets beginning with G, I keep thinking about all the culminations that Ann Arbor has brought into my life. All these past moments — 13 years of them — have brought me to a place of identity, and I’ve discovered that most clearly in the connections with people who have shaped me. There are innumerable culminations.
A mentor of mine sometimes says this about his own mentors: “There is no me without [insert person’s name].” In other words, he would not be the version of himself that he is without the care and influence of people who have names, faces, and histories. So if I am thinking about time, and I am thinking about people, I also have to think about place.
There is no me without Ann Arbor.
A zillion moments — gifted with, by, and for people — have led me somewhere. And culminations are interesting because they don’t always land you in the place you planned.
I initially moved to Michigan for a job I wasn’t able to stay in. (Thankfully, in the end, I kept those relationships, too.) And I now have a vocational life I never expected to have. Twists and turns led me to the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan. I didn’t expect nonprofit work to be a new career. I didn’t expect that alongside the work I get to do, it would heal my own younger heart and provide me with a community that has revolutionized my life. A gorgeous culmination.
I didn’t even expect to have a bike and be pedaling around so much beauty. Or have the friends that I have. Or know people who inspire me with their activism. Or savor meals and treasure the summers I get to eat them outside. Or have bunnies in my backyard.
And my Ann Arbor life hasn’t all been puppies and roses. Barriers, unexpected turns, and far too many “unprecedented” and “out of an abundance of caution” moments in this era could have undone me. While living here, I can name four different experiences that would each have been the most painful season of my adult life had any one of them happened on its own.
And you know what? That’s about place, too. Culmination, too. Formation, too.
There is no me without Ann Arbor.
And while I do keep thinking about futures and what is possible – my friend was right; I do like thinking that way – I’m also grateful to reverse that process and think about how the present became possible because of the past.
I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes. It’s from Frederick Buechner in his book Wishful Thinking: A Seekers ABC. He says,
“In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another day just like today, and there will never be another just like it again. Today is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious today is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.”
Time. Relationships. Place.
Grateful for them all.
—Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 