Winter Blues and Damn the Statistics

In some respects there is nothing quite so ugly as any town in early spring. Snow is still packed wetly against the earth but is besmirched with mud, particularly along the gutters beside the road. Lawns lie half naked of their cold coverlet, exposing the pale grey stubble of last year's grass. People trudge around in a motley assortment of clothing - cast-offs from last spring combined with the weary remains of their winter wardrobe. Their faces are tired and grey, like the grass.

In my car, I pass the same two girls I always see in the corner yard, their ripped jeans muddied up to mid-calf, their hoods pulled tightly over their reddened faces as they talk on their cell phones and to each other. A woman in a parka walks her scurrying little beagle. A large man in long shorts nods as he brushes by with his Labrador.

I'm driving around the curve along the outskirts of town where the houses aren't so nice and the only view open to them is the wall of empty-looking factories and warehouses beyond the guide rail to my right. I wonder if it's true, as someone had once told me that they read, that there's more air pollution in this little town than in Detroit or Lansing. I know the poverty level here is 9.9% greater than the state average, only a point better than in Detroit, and that the neighborhood I am driving through is a reflection of that statistic. It reminds me of the barren houses my family left behind when we moved from Flint when I was twelve years old. Lots of cracked pavement, scattered with the debris of people who no longer care what their yards look like. Some of them, I suppose, are working two jobs and have no time for lawn maintenance. This is where the people go who can't afford to live anywhere else, and so many of them are unemployed or ill or old. I don't actually see much sign of life at all. A balled-up empty bag rolls across the road like a tumbleweed.

I'm not certain how long I can afford to live in my own small apartment, just a few blocks up from this one. I'm substituting right now, and looking earnestly in the paper each week. There's an average of five new jobs available weekly, none of them in my area. I apply for anything remotely feasible, and some of the jobs I apply for are quite the stretch. Welding? I've watched someone do that before. Maybe? Maybe not.

I would like to stay here. Most of it is a pretty town, and it has a beautiful history. When the snow finally melts and soaks into the ground and the plants begin  to bloom, an amazing transformation takes place. As more people populate their lawns, the houses begin to look less lonely and neglected. I love the trolley rides and the tours of all the Victorian homes, sidewalk sales and ice cream, and fireworks on the shores of Lake Michigan. In the summertime, it seems as if the town has shaken off its stricken look and developed the confidence of a debutant. More than likely that will be the very time when I must go. I have family here who need me, but I can hardly help anyone if I cannot first do something to help myself.

 

I'm at one of the many points along my life where I'm not quite certain where I will be going next. Perhaps I will go back to college and take the last two classes toward my Master's Degree. I have no idea where that might take me, but I feel I'm too close to let it go. Perhaps there will be a job elsewhere in the state. I keep working and looking and hoping, because I have no choice. Like the town where I came of age, my past seems to have had more opportunities than my future, but I believe that is an illusion brought upon by too many months without enough sunlight - maybe too many years, for me. I dare to believe that statistics are merely numbers that reflect what's past. They are not necessarily a reflection of the future. I drive through cold, bleak-looking neighborhoods, scanning my surroundings for some familiar sign of spring.