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    • Travelers 40" x 48" Oil on canvas. Available as Giclee on canvas or paper at ChimeraDitto.

    . . . not so different

    People say being in Detroit is like being in the south. A lot of people came here from down south — like me. I left with my family. There was nothing to do there. My family heard we could make a living here — in the north. So, most of the time I live in Detroit — a long way from the south.

    Sometimes I go back. I like it there. Still, it's hard not being from someplace all the time. Either place, people notice stuff about you. They say you're different because you don't know the things they know and do the things they do. They say you don't act like them. You don't sound like them. You have an accent. I guess I don't look the same either. I don't know why it should keep folks from knowing me now. They way I am now is not so bad.

    Sometimes it seems hard to know people. Everybody's nervous. Maybe they're nervous about me. Maybe they're nervous about themselves. I don't know. I care about a lot of the same things they do. I'm really not all that different except — I don't know. Anyway, I can't figure out how to make people feel better about me. We're all here now. I don't know why it should matter where we came from at all. I don't know. It just does.

    Detail — Travelers