The friends and students I know who chose to stay here say that this little slice of Michigan feels like a twenty-year-old’s utopia. We get to live in the same place where we learn, and operate as real, job-having adults, knowing that the cushion of our beloved university is there to catch us if we fall. | J. Adrian Wylie
Last summer, I ditched the comfort of my parents’ home and a five-minute drive to Lake Michigan for a summer in Ann Arbor as an editor at the Michigan Daily.
When I moved into my Z Place apartment last May, I expected to make friends with my neighbors, of whom I assumed there were plenty; I dreamed of late-night ice cream runs and hiking the Arb with a posse behind me.
After a week or so of strolling aimlessly through the city, I concluded that almost the entire crowd of people my age vanishes before June 1 rolls around.
My only company seemed to be the baristas at M36, the kitten I adopted, and the construction workers who never seemed to go home. I shopped for produce at the Kerrytown farmers market with headphones in and no one to talk to, and concluded that this was, in fact, adulthood.
A select few people I knew stayed on campus to take classes, and I had a friend or two who didn’t live too far away. But the realization that campus was just about well and truly barren came when, on a seventy-five-degree May day, I walked through the Diag and saw no more than five people lounging in the sun. If it had been late March or early April, I don’t think I’d have been able to find a spot among the sea of my peers vying to tie their hammocks to the trees.
I stayed in town again this summer, editing at the Daily and interning at a2view, the Observer’s email newsletter. The majority of students in my class have disappeared from campus again, but instead of returning home to their childhood rooms and parents’ cooking as they did last summer, they’ve taken internships around the country and, in the most enviable circumstances, the world.
I know fellow Wolverines who’ve taken positions as legal interns in congressional offices, relocated across the country to fetch coffee for bigwigs, and chosen to study at universities in Spain. Those of us who stuck around, though, are no longer fighting for a spot on Commuter North at 8 a.m. or dealing with lines out the door for Joe’s. Instead, we’re adapting to the Ann Arborite way of life.
What I have learned from my second summer here is that the city is only quiet if you’re looking in the wrong places. Campus may be quiet, but the city most certainly isn’t.
On select Tuesday nights, I’ve seen Burns Park residents, fingers sticky with ice cream, jotting down trivia answers at Argus Farm Stop’s Packard café. On any sunny day, regardless of the temperature, I’ve found Main Street’s outdoor seating filled to the brim (and landing a rooftop table at Palio harder than a study spot at the library during finals).
I’ve learned that Bandemer Park’s rowing docks on Argo Pond are an OK substitute for Lake Michigan’s beaches, and that Madras Masala will give you free cakes if you sit down before rush hour. It’s true that I no longer have to fight for a table on the third floor of the undergraduate library when I want a quiet place to work, but life hasn’t ceased to bustle just because the U-M students depart.
It’s taken me two summers to appreciate the beauty of the city when it’s quiet. Not the quiet of 2 a.m. February nights before midterms, but the quiet that comes when the South U apartments are dark and there are no more freshmen sending pictures of the Harry Potter–esque Law Quad to their parents.
The friends and students I know who chose to stay here say that this little slice of Michigan feels like a twenty-year-old’s utopia. We get to live in the same place where we learn, and operate as real, job-having adults, knowing that the cushion of our beloved university is there to catch us if we fall.
Like Ann Arborites who live here year-round, I’ve come to appreciate the calm that settles in when classes let out. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a part of the student community. But, sometimes I want to talk to people whose biggest milestone this week wasn’t getting their official, unrestricted driver’s license. I enjoy the freedom to grab a slice of pizza from NYPD at 9 p.m. on a Thursday without weaving through a crowd fresh from Skeeps.
There will always be something intoxicatingly beautiful about a city woven into a university campus, the entwinement making for a vibrant, ever-awake city. But in the quiet hours before the sun sets on my Ann Arbor summer, I’m happy for the peace and quiet of a campus with fewer students.
In their absence, I’ve had the absolute pleasure of meeting residents from all walks of life. Between attending city council meetings, navigating the ever-present Diag construction, trying every downtown restaurant, and having the space to meet some of the people who make this city what it is, I have only deepened my gratitude for the four years I am privileged to spend here.
I’ve loved being a student on this magnificent campus in this equally magnificent city. But I must admit that I like pretending to be a townie more.
Your writing is excellent