29, halfway through '25
lina's life, vol. 20 | nature + art + movement + thoughts
I measure my years now by the milestones of my day job. When June rolls around, I have metro Detroit artists on the brain. I do not leave room for much else, including celebrating my birthday.
If you ask me about my job, I will say that it is a privilege to work for Kresge Arts in Detroit. The labor of administering unrestricted funding to individual artists feels right in my body. With each passing year, this feeling grows like a lush valley I steward in community with my colleagues. I prioritize this care and critical time in our calendar over everything, knowing rest is possible in late summer.
However, this year I wanted to challenge this pattern. My 28th year was a grating descent/ascent into solitude, featuring upheavals that tested my resilience and left me like worn elastic. The less-than-jubilant times we’re living in on a national and global level did give me pause when thinking about celebrating myself. Being with friends I love most on the day of my actual birth did feel like the move though, and with it falling on a Wednesday, I felt strongly about something post-work in the evening. Enter: coastal birthday dinner house party. Everyone was invited to bring a tinned seafood of their choice and I provided the accompaniments. There was also an epic ice cream cake. As it has been grossly hot and humid in Detroit, this was a brilliant choice.
I am waiting on my film from the day to come back from the lab. In the meantime, enjoy a few of the photos Rosie took of the set up.
I will remember who showed up and how I felt a sense of calm and joy I have never experienced before at any past birthday gatherings. I had the perspective that people were present because they care about me, and that’s cool.
Caring is the coolest thing we can do.
Now, I have been 29 years old for almost three weeks. I am the most single I have ever been in my adult life, and yet, I feel the most loved. 6 years ago around this time, I was sobbing in the Philadelphia airport because the person I was dating/visiting at the time dumped me the day after he told me he loved me (for the first time). He was insane for that, but he too was 23 years old, so, I extend grace to him. I recall this moment because it was the first time I felt crumbling heartbreak. It felt like death. And now I get to laugh that rejection by an architect named Steve (STEVE!) made me feel that way. As Nora Ephron’s mother once said, everything is copy.
I experienced more romantic delusion/manipulation/humiliation a couple of weeks before my birthday. My quota of dates with silly, unhinged men in their mid-30s who own lofts in Detroit is bizarrely high, and at this point, the quota has been met! Rich bachelors with fake jobs who move to Detroit for the vibes! I wish for peace.
The one thing that this cartoon character villain of a man did for me was give me grist for the mill. He also motivated me to write. When I mentioned the screenplay I was working on, he gave me an “…oh” when he asked how far I was in writing, and I said “not far.” Once I was in full humiliation-mode, post-romantic involvement, I recalled how much this response bothered me, and knew I needed to get back to myself, because wow, I was so looking to be lost in someone else. May I never do so again.
When I came back from Madison, I was unwell. Madison was a good time for about three days and then I was ready to bounce. Profound loneliness, spiraling hard. Visiting a sweet friend in Chicago on my way back was temporary respite, but I returned to Detroit as a version of myself I didn’t know and wouldn’t have been friends with. Familiar patterns (of pain, mostly self-induced, woofa) surfaced. As I am the woman of my dreams, the alarm bells were RINGING. So what did I do? Write 50 pages of the screenplay. And spend time with friends. And walk and climb. And remember who I am, and remember my why.
Now, I am 29 years old. I’m still figuring out if I like rhubarb and I get excited when I see funky shells. I love when things are described as craggy and craggily, because it reminds me of the rocks, and rock climbing reminds me of how it could feel to be free. Walking is my favorite thing to do. I’m currently taking care of 4 cats for neighbors on vacation. I cried yesterday watching a movie at the Detroit Film Theatre. I think of my sisters, mother, aunts, grandmother, family, friends, all of the time. I love the artists of this city. I look forward to more swimming this summer. And I have never been more grateful to be alive.
May my 29th year be a year of great transformation.
Thank you for being here,
Lina