D
riving
back
from
the
beach,
from
my cousins’ house,
from soccer games and swim
meets, I always knew where
I was. The familiarity of
the
Pennsylvania
woods,
the highway signs of 95
and Route 1, and the Eagles
stickers on the backs of cars
reminded me I was never
far from home. I had always
considered Philadelphia and
the East Coast my home,
and although I still love it,
the concept of “home” has
changed significantly for me
over the years.
I was moving into college
when I took my first road
trip by myself (well, with my
dog in the passenger seat),
and I knew I would not be
returning home from this
trip. Michigan was a foreign
place with new interstates
and different woods. I was
driving from Philadelphia to
Ann Arbor –– a 10-hour trip
of mountain ranges, farmland
and tunnels.
I remember driving past
Toledo when it became dark.
My mom and my sister were
in another car, which was
out of sight at this point, but
I knew we would be in Ann
Arbor within the next hour.
Even with that in mind, it
was dark and I was lost. I hit
Detroit traffic, and I realized
how far away I was from
Wawa and Phillies fans. I was
alone, distant from everyone
and everything I knew.
To calm my anxiety, I
remembered the rubies and
diamonds.
The story goes as follows:
When my mother was young,
the long drives home from the
Jersey Shore to Montclair, a
town in northern Jersey, sent
her into a daze of boredom.
My grandpa would watch the
cars move with him and past
him on New Jersey Route 4.
Trying to pass time, she
asked my grandpa how to
entertain herself to distract
her from the swallowing
darkness of night and bright
lights of the surrounding
cars. He hold her, “Imagine
the lights in front of us are a
string of rubies, and the lights
coming toward us are a string
of diamonds.”
I like to think that my
mother pictured the highway
full of zooming, psychedelic
gems. But maybe she rolled
her eyes and drifted off to
sleep.
The story of the car gems
was carried from my grandpa
to my mom to me. Maybe it
was just something to pass
time, but to me it’s so much
more. It’s a mechanism for
grounding,
appreciating
and
acknowledging
my
surroundings.
Although my first trip to
college consisted of driving
through unfamiliar places
just to arrive at another
unfamiliar
place,
not
everything about this moment
made me feel alienated.
The string of rubies and
diamonds
in
the
Detroit
traffic was the same string
of gems I’d seen many times
before. That same string
reminds me that this is still
life, just in a new place; no
matter where I drive, there
will always be the same cars,
the same traffic, the same
routines.
The concept came to me
again the first time I flew
alone on an airplane. Once
I took off, I looked below
at highways of rubies and
diamonds,
and
I
looked
into the sky, where blinking
airplane lights became rubies
and distant stars became
diamonds. I wasn’t in one
single place, on the ground or
in a home. I was alone in the
vacant space of the clouds,
building a place for myself
because that was all I really
had and all I really have.
I don’t believe I have a place
to consider home. My family
lives in three different states,
and a college apartment
doesn’t really suffice. As a
kid, I believed I could only go
back to one place: that home
on Fairhill Drive. By moving
to Michigan, I distanced
myself
from
everything
I knew and everything I
thought was true. And with
that, I was able to — I’ve had
to — create a type of “home”
in myself wherever I go.
My grandpa’s message of
rubies and diamonds is a
way to ground myself in my
familial roots, creating the
feeling that I have family and
familiarity no matter where
I am. It’s something to hold
on to.
During my adventure in
Detroit, I remember looking
over to my dog, Wesley, curled
up on the passenger seat. The
red car lights shined through
the car windshield and onto
his black fur. I was hundreds
of miles from Philadelphia,
but maybe I wasn’t as far as
I thought.
2B
Managaing Editor:
Lara Moehlman
Deputy Editors:
Yoshiko Iwai
Brian Kuang
Photo Editor:
Claire Abdo
Editor in Chief:
Emma Kinery
Managing Editor:
Rebecca Lerner
Copy Editors:
Danielle Jackson
Taylor Grandinetti
Wednesday, February 8, 2017 // The Statement
Little Things: Rubies and Diamonds
BY ERIKA SHEVCHEK, DAILY ARTS WRITER
ILLUSTRATION BY KATIE SPAK
statement
THE MICHIGAN DAILY | FEBRUARY 8, 2017