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Having a ball in my hometown

by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

A couple of weeks ago, Rob and I attended the Carnegie Centennial Ball in Three Rivers, Michigan, an event hosted by the art gallery located in one of the original Andrew Carnegie libraries. In the basement of the beautiful historic building, one of the workers had written a date--October 21, 1904--and the ball was to celebrate the milestone of one hundred years of artistic appreciation on that very spot. Attendees were invited to enjoy the current retrospective exhibit, make bids in the art auction, dance to live jazz and pop "oldies," and dress in any style from the last hundred years. With one suit that happened to be a 30s-style pinstripe, Rob had an easy choice. And after some borrowing, a little buying and a lot of research, I was ready to go as his glamorous gangster girlfriend--quite a dramatic change from the quiet, four-eyed writer.

"I can't imagine doing something like this in northwest Indiana," I said to Rob, as we parked the car half a block down from the art gallery. Catching our reflection in a store window, I supposed that a seventy-year-old photo could have captured the scene exactly--an antique streetlamp, Victorian era storefronts, and a local couple ready for the dance. It was a very different picture from the suburban strip mall buzz we used to live among.

In contrast to small-town Three Rivers, northwest Indiana and the south suburbs of Chicago are a hornet's nest of traffic-filled highways and stoplight-studded shopping districts. Geography generally fails to unify communities as mere zip codes cannot distinguish the non-stop civilization that lines up along the bustling byways of a busy, busy population. As those who can afford to continue moving south precipitate Chicago's never-ending expansion, they leave behind older communities with clearly defined character, centers and neighborhoods.

Fortunately, a remnant remains that feels some sense of pride at being able to say, "I'm a lifelong resident of the town of Highland" or, "I live in the village of South Holland." A few people remember that history and community cannot be bought or manufactured. They love and own their towns, in spite of their flaws. Unfortunately, this sense of place was too buried for us to find and hold onto before we became charmed by its obvious presence in Three Rivers. And so it was that we found ourselves, nearly two years after moving here, at the centennial ball, spending the evening with many new friends who feel much more like old kindred spirits.

Though the event was a masquerade to some degree, I was amazed at how real and alive it made me feel. Becoming a different person for a little while allowed me to view the community from the outside and the inside simultaneously, especially as I overlooked the dance floor from the balcony above. Boundaries of age, income, and politics seemed irrelevant as we gathered in enthusiastic support of good art, dancing as we were able and smiling as though we couldn't turn off the joy.

Though we live in one of Michigan's poorest counties, though the art gallery sits on the edge of a struggling downtown, though the city is still largely segregated by race and income, a sliver of genuine beauty and hope shone through the evening of the centennial ball. And as I enumerated the merits of Three Rivers to a non-local couple inexplicably dressed in Elizabethan garb, I was fully convinced that the things that keep me here validate all of the work there remains to be done.

In a culture that rarely puts down deep, strong roots anywhere, I'll continue to work at loving this place enough to make it better. I imagine the itch to flee to some imagined utopia will never disappear entirely, but I receive with gratitude a community of people who are willing to scratch the ones I just can't (or don't want to) reach. God is here and the Spirit hovers over the waters of our delightful lakes and the rivers; I glimpse their presence in the love of beauty, the abundance of friendship, the faithful stewardship of creation and the reverence for story and I long to invite them further up and further in.