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It’s after 1 a.m. and I’m semi-lost. I’m also very sleepy and considering blowing through every red light in this shady town so I can escape its tricky streets that keep landing me in the same intersection. At the last red light, a low-rider packed with trouble and pulsating loud music pulled alongside my family wagon, confirmed this as a questionable, if not outright irresponsible, parenting moment.  I willed us, a car of two women and one young child, invisible.

How did I get here? Driving in circles through the maze of one-way streets in this downtrodden burg? How is it I’m watching the contents of several nightclubs spew onto the streets while keeping a peripheral eye on the vagrants weaving along the  curbs instead of gazing at the heavens above for signs of magic? I glance in the rear-view mirror to see my four-year-old slumped in her car seat, her bowed lips slightly parted in deep sleep.  What are my children doing out on the streets when they should be home in their beds?

Aurora  borealis made me do it.

That’s right.

It started out so innocently. A radio report that afternoon promised a rare view of the northern lights in Michigan. Solar flares and all the other magical stuff that goes into aurora borealis meant I could show my children something special on an otherwise boring weeknight.

I hatched the plan quickly: We’d go around 11:30 p.m. and just head north out of the city. I’d drive until I could see more than two stars.  I had a quarter tank of gas, my water bottle, my digital camera, my cell phone and my keys. Left behind: my wallet and my common sense. I drove with my window down and every so often gazed upward to see if I could see anything glowy or shimmery. That was my whole plan. It was the plan of a 12-year-old child.

See, some of it is based on the last time I answered the call of the hypnotic northern lights. I lived in what once were the outer suburbs. It was easy to drive an hour to a purely unpolluted night sky. Ten years ago I moved close to the city center. I’m lucky if I see ursa major in the sky on a clear night.

I love the northern lights. I love them so much, I lose all common sense to view them. I’ve only seen them four times in my life, which is probably more than most folks who live below the 45th parallel can claim. My husband has never witnessed their otherworldly beauty. Neither have my children.

My first sighting was as a college student.  I stumbled out of the student newspaper office well after midnight, red-eyed and wired on caffeine. I don’t know what made me look upward, but when I did, I had to rub my eyes and slap my cheeks a few times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating on this brisk night. I knew northern lights were awe-inspiring, but I had no idea how much so until I stood in that empty  parking lot staring at the sky. Within minutes, other newspaper staff members joined me. We found a bench nearby and sat, shivering, watching what looked like giant celestial curtains puffing in the breeze.

Over the next decade I saw them three more times: in the outer suburbs of Detroit and twice while camping in northwest Michigan.  Each time the display was bigger, more colorful and dramatic than the last.

I react to the northern lights the way some people do to seeing the face of Jesus on a potato chip or when alphabet soup inadvertently spells your future spouse’s name. I am moved. Moved to stupidity.

I can’t help it. I realize that piling my children into the car in the wee hours of morning without a plan, with less than a quarter tank of gas, and ending up turned around in a dangerous town was not one of my shining parental moments.

Eventually I found the right road to get us home.

When we pulled into the garage and the automatic door rolled down, thereby restoring us to a sense of safety, a let out a heavy sigh. Relieved we’d made it home. Embarrassed that my promises of magic were duds. Annoyed that an hour’s worth of driving didn’t get me any farther away from the urban sprawl and light pollution. Disappointed as hell that I didn’t get to see those celestial curtains blowing in the breeze.

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• Where and when to see aurora borealis¹ in 2012? (ask.metafilter.com)

As I pedaled my 21-speed bike along the streets of Detroit, passing through clouds of sewer steam and bracing against a frigid headwind, I lamented my inability to document every nuance of  Tour de Troit. I’ve never done anything like it; the first hour was a pure rush of energy and emotion.

There was the sheer number of us, rolling en masse through intersections, as stopped traffic honked and cheered. There was the look of utter surprise on the faces of those along the route who didn’t get the memo. There was just no end to us. Oh, and there was this bearded homeless guy, clutching a paper-wrapped bottle in one hand, shouting a pep talk to us like a wayward high-school coach. “Take your time, people,” he sang. “This isn’t a race.”

There was the cussing van driver, who balked at the 3,000 of us cyclists clogging her Saturday morning route. There was the postcard view of Detroit’s skyline from Belle Isle. There was the scary beauty of urban forest devouring the remains of houses and factories. Did you know: Trees are growing inside abandoned warehouses?

Tour de Troit is a ride not a race, as the scruffy stranger in the park reminded us. In its ninth year, the event is sponsored by the Southwest Detroit Business Association. The ride-not-race also is a fund-raiser for the Corktown-Mexicantown Greenlink, a planned series of bike lanes and off-road pathways that will connect the neighborhoods of Corktown and Mexicantown to each other and to the Detroit River, according to the Tour de Troit Web site.

The sights. The sounds. The smells. The observations. The feelings, those elusive feelings that if not captured, vanish like mirages on the highway. My emotions ran the gamut as I gazed up at stunning architecture of historic churches, swerved to avoid an oncoming truck, and gaped at utter ruin.  I wanted to stop and chat with all the people living their lives in neighborhoods close to my home but a world apart. I pondered the state of Detroit: what once was, where it’s at, and where it might go. I marveled at all the hidden treasures. One, a baby-blue mural dotted with puffy white clouds marched across on a crumbling viaduct.

As I steered along the 30-mile route over choppy brickwork, cracked concrete, and smooth asphalt, I realized some things are meant to be experienced and then let go. So, I tucked my camera into my pocket, closed the mental notebook, and  just pedaled. I felt the wind  burn my cheeks. I listened to the city as it whispered: Look at me. I inhaled the scent of fresh baked goods and barbecue barrels carried on the breeze, of freeway exhaust, of the sweating guy ahead of me. At times, totally lost in the moment, I forgot where I was, although I’ve traveled most of these roads in my lifetime.

For four wonderful hours, I was part of something larger than myself, a shared experience, that opened my eyes to my city. I’ve been here all my life, but this ride showed it all to me through a new lens.

Related posts: David Byrne’s view of Detroit

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Via http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com

I’m a book junkie.

I have my reliable suppliers to feed my addiction. They are the ones, with their colorful displays and come-hither promotions, who entice me to open my wallet and empty it in exchange for hours of reading pleasure. The heavy-duty pushers, otherwise known as independent book stores, have me weak in the knees, not only with their eclectic inventories but also their knowledgeable staff and peripheral products (stationery, pens, coffee cups, paper weights) that further deplete my capital resources.

Thankfully there are low- to no-cost options for when the wallet is light. There are used book stores, yard sales and online book exchanges.

The public library, of course, stands ready and waiting to lend to those of us on really tight budgets.

Beyond the search for books is the need, on occasion, to gather information about a book before buying it or to find new authors and titles when you’ve exhausted your reading list.

Here are a few online resources I’ve used:

Books Are Pretty
Bibliodyssey
The Millions
DeweyDivas
ALA Booklist Online
Paperback Swap
Book Page

But who is out there to steer a bibliophile away from a bad book or to highlight books that, despite better judgment, were published at all?

My local newspaper alerted me to a new resource,  Awful Library Books, put together by two librarians from suburban Detroit who have created a popular new Web site devoted to bad books, or as they say in their own words: “None of the books presented are particularly awful (okay, maybe some are).  These books are just odd, outdated or maybe should be reconsidered under a current interpretation of collection policies.”

A sampler of titles highlighted include:

• “Driving: How to Get a License and Keep It” (Put down the book and just drive, right?)
• “Clothes Hanger Projects” (Who doesn’t want a holiday gift crafted from an old clothes hanger?)
• “Dating for Under a Dollar” (Or, ‘How to avoid ever having a meaningful relationship’)
• “How Maps are Made” (If you’re not a cartographer, you just don’t care)

See for yourself:

http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com