Love Blossoms at UMich, IP/WordNerd Style

So far, Writing Ann Arbor: An Anthology has been less about Ann Arbor and more about the University of Michigan. It’s safe to say that, without the university, Ann Arbor would be much like Saline or Dexter or Milan in Michigan—small, quiet, far enough away from Detroit to not take on the city’s browbeaten demeanor, but close enough to provide a sort of association to a larger entity, be it through sports, some arts, or simply as a thoroughfare to Canada. The University of Michigan provides Ann Arbor with purpose and distinction, and while I’m the first to admit that the town is much more pleasant in the summer (when the students are gone and I can enjoy lots of sangria without undergrads around, woohoo!), the students and the institution are the town’s lifeblood.

So, it’s no great surprise that a lot of the stories are about being a student at the university. It’s not surprising, too, that some stories are about romances that flourish while students are at college. It’s fair to say that many people find their first (sometimes only) spouse there; with 40,000 of us running around, in our physical and intellectual prime, we’re bound to attract one another and have a few good romances floating around. Stories emerge, the university takes on the image as the silent yet all-knowing creature that brought two people together, and if progeny springs from that union, you can bet your ass that the kids will be encouraged to attend the U of M not only because Mom and Dad went there, but because they met there.

Which is all fine and good and perfectly romantic if that’s how you prefer it; I see no kiss for me under Engin Arch unless IP’s drunk again and my sister’s around to shout tipsy encouragement. (Engin Arch, to me, will always lead to Michael Schoenfeldt’s class on Milton and will always house the street musicians who found South or East U too cold on any given day.) In fact, if I were to ever have to tell tales of how IP and I met, the university wouldn’t loom too great. Will I lobby heavily for Michigan if I have kids? Yes, as should IP. (Because it’s a great school, hon! And a lot of fun.) But if our hypothetical kids were to ask for mushy, gushy details about our idyllic days at the U of M, I’d probably have to sigh and say something like this:

“Well, Hannah, you father and I didn’t actually meet at the university. Yes, we technically met on campus, at the Michigan Union, but it wasn’t really a function of the university. It was certainly fortuitous that your father came here from New York, and it was definitely a coinkidinki that I hadn’t left for Toronto yet, but that’s all it was: sheer dumb luck. He wasn’t my GSI, I didn’t go to an MSA meeting to fawn over him hoping that he’d notice me. Actually, come to think of it, had we met while I was still in school, I probably would’ve been slightly amused yet turned off by the fact that he was in MSA—I mean, he and his fellow officers were so dedicated to it, it was kind of scary. Go and ask him about this; he’ll say the same thing and then rag on me for not having visited Dominick’s while I was an undergrad. And yes, your little brother is named after the bar.”

IP once said to me (and he claims not to remember this) that he wished we had met earlier than we did. When he said it to me, we had just started dating; I was bound for Toronto in a few months and he was on the verge of finishing up his Ph.D. We both thought (though we didn’t say this out loud) that our time together was pretty limited, and it would’ve been a lot more fun it we had years instead of months since we got along so well and were having a blast together. Little did we know, huh?

But even though we didn’t have the university bringing us together (he sort of just stumbled upon me, as it were), we did set our foundations down as a couple on campus. As I mentioned before, we met for the first time at the Michigan Union, and chatted on the Diag while people-watching. Later, we’d meet on the steps of Angell Hall—IP would walk over from his office and I’d be sitting there, reading a book, having escaped the horrors of the appraisal office where I worked. On cold days, I’d wait for him inside, and if you say the words “Benton Harbor,” “capybara” or “heraldic beaver” to him, you’ll be reminding IP of one of the first times I brought him out of an academic-induced funk. When the weather turned warmer, we wandered over to Dominick’s (sweet libations!) and sobered up at Pizza House when we knew the sangria was about to get the better of us. We spent hours in the Arb, searching in vain for the labyrinth that’s supposed to exist there. We’d sit on the banks of the Huron, watching the river and people go by (though we never engaged in nature-centric sex there, it seems like the people in Goldstein’s anthology did). We’d sit outside of the Michigan League, listening to the Burton Tower ring out the time every 15 minutes until I’d finally get annoyed and make us move. I got personal tours of the underbelly of the Museum of Natural Science, and IP once confided to me that the reason why we had never made out there after hours was because he didn’t know where most of the light switches were. In 2003, when IP lived near Michigan Stadium, we could hear the marching band practicing in the summer while we put together dinner—pasta with fish and white sauce in many instances. Even when one of us didn’t live in the area, we’d head to campus to either see old friends or to enjoy what the campus had to offer, be it the museum once again, a coffeehouse in which to sit and plan our next road trip (the October 2004 road trip, to be precise) or a new restaurant that has been the bane of my existence ever since we ate there.

Of course, other places have emerged as top contenders that help us build memories and a place to call ours (okay, that sounds cheesy, but I mean more than vacation memories). There’s Colorado—we get to go there soon, but even though it’s not to the places we truly enjoy, it’s at least to the state where we’re casting an eye on for our later years. There’s obviously the DC metro area—I’m sure one day I’ll be waxing poetic about either running into or purposely meeting IP at Metro Center, with his cheeks poofing out as soon as he saw me. Our time in DC has now probably exceeded any amount of time we spent as couple in Ann Arbor (I mean, both of us living in Michigan), so it’s obvious that new things are defining us as “WordNerd and IP” in addition to “WordNerd” and “IP”.

Maybe one day we’ll tell a kid about what the U of M meant to us as a couple. Maybe we’ll just remember those early days of our relationship during one conversation or another and kind of foolishly grin at each other. Even though I can’t really claim that the university brought us together, IP pointed out to me that we did all the campus things that most U of M couples do. Except hit a football game or two, of course.

Meet you at Angell Hall at around 5:30pm next time we’re in Ann Arbor, hon?