Last Wednesday was the first day that I started walking to work again since the warm season returned. When I first moved to Detroit, I walked to work from September-November, because I saw it as a great way to get in some exercise, and quite frankly because I hadn\u2019t driven in over 4 years; getting used to driving again in a city like Detroit, where the driving culture is a bit aggressive was a lot to deal with. So when I first moved here, I wanted to drive as little as possible.<\/p>\n
As I walked to work, I reflected on how different the journey was for me compared to at the beginning. When I first moved here, the walk was full of challenges and discomforts. First off, I kept getting lost once I entered downtown and was unsure of the quickest route to get to my office. Also, the new sights were overwhelming. Not only was I getting used to Detroit, but to living in the U.S again; I lived and worked in South Korea for two years before moving to Detroit.<\/p>\n
I was also hyper-cautious on the journey because at the time, I was still in the process of separating fact from fiction regarding safety in Detroit. Like most people unfamiliar with Detroit, I too was impacted by what I had heard on the news about Detroit being unsafe. I noticed that almost everyone I walked past greeted me. This threw me off, because in Korea this didn\u2019t happen. Actually, in most cities across the U.S I don\u2019t experience this. Detroit has a unique sense of community.<\/p>\n
Walking to work last week was a completely different experience. I felt at home walking through my community. Everything was familiar and I was at ease. I had navigated these streets many times before via car, bike and by foot and felt confident in my direction. I was able to truly enjoy the experience. The people I saw on the way felt like my neighbors, and not like strangers. I even recognized Maurice Cox biking past me, enjoying the sun on his journey to work. I bumped into colleagues once I got into downtown and had quick \u201ccatch up\u201d chats with them.<\/p>\n
This journey symbolizes my overall experience of living in Detroit. It\u2019s been almost a year now, and I recall feeling very uncertain during the first few months here. I felt like an outsider in a new world. But now I am getting to a point where Detroit is starting to feel like home. The discomfort I experienced to get to this point makes me even more appreciative of where I am today. Cheers to an even deeper connection to the city in the future.<\/p>\n
Gabrial Taylor<\/p>\n
Year 5 Challenge Detroit Fellow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last Wednesday was the first day that I started walking to work again since the warm season returned. When I first moved to Detroit, I walked to work from September-November, because I saw it as a great way to get in some exercise, and quite frankly because I hadn\u2019t driven in over 4 years; getting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}