In which nature girl experiences her comedown

September 18, 2026

So I have Lyme Disease, apparently. A perfectly obvious follow up to my wild woodland traipses this summer, in Maine and Michigan before that, two of the globe’s tick hotbeds.

But the symptoms of Lyme deferentially forbore to reveal themselves until after my husband and I returned home from our 30th anniversary trip to Detroit. And this trip was perfectly delightful.

I know what you’re thinking. But let me just say right up at the top here, Detroit is absolutely worthy of a major celebratory weekend. It’s not just an endless vista for a historian, a foodie paradise, a foundational civil rights axis, a dense hub of mind boggling architecture and art, the birthplace of Motown and the auto industry and the paved road and the cageless zoo–it is just a darn fun place to wander around with its hopping downtown nightlife and abundant free public transit. And the hotels! There is an abundance of old historic restored buildings to stay in, if that’s your jam. It’s mine and I chose the 1929-built, former fire department HQ, Detroit Foundation Hotel. It was very fire departmenty, and very hip and charming. And we found an abundance of local coffee roasters–one of our favorite things anywhere we visit–all of which served us memorable cups of coffee.

I need to warn you, I’m on a Detroit jag. If you don’t want to read the gushing travelogue of a newbie with rather too much detail, you can feel free to skip straight to the tick part at the end.

We visited over Labor Day weekend to see the Detroit Jazz Festival, billed as the biggest in the world. The only thing about Detroit I did not love was the festival’s setting, Hart Plaza, a staircase-covered, desperately underlit and hazardous hardscape with hard-edged concrete square risers and depressions that it was very hard to see the point of, besides offering opportunities to trip on curbs or fall in shallow pits. There is also an underground component, not a parking garage but in every other way like unto one, where you can also sit and um, enjoy the music. And the audio–well, let’s just say this place was no Millennium Park. We actually could not hear the performers we came to see. After creeping around gingerly in the dark, hoping not to drop into an invisible square pit, we went back to our hotel to listen to Kurt Elling and Yellowjackets on the computer.

We took a walking tour of downtown, a generous gift of dear friend and Detroitophile Elaine, and gawked at the massive public art installations and ethereally beautiful, soaring 1920’s era skyscrapers. Some of these places need to be seen to be believed, like the Guardian Building (1929), Fisher Tower (1928), and Book Tower (1926), evidence of Detroit’s early-to-mid 20th c. status as one of the richest cities in the world.

Details from the Guardian Building designed by Wirt C. Rowland. He used Native American motifs and local materials in addition to unique marble from all across the globe in this “cathedral of finance.” Clockwise L to R, One of 4 such Tiffany clocks in the world; ceiling of painted canvas with horsehair backing in the banking room to create a hushed ambience; a mural of Michigan; Pewabic tile ceiling vault in the form of a Native American feathered headress

Details from The Fisher Building, architect Alfred Kahn. Kahn contracted the greatest artisans available in the world to create the sculpture, mosaics, frescoes, metalwork, and paintings. Clockwise L-R: some random cherub on a vent at an exit; ceiling medallion detail from a vaulted ceiling; detail of a whole nother painted ceiling; one of several mosaic wall niches; yet another painted ceiling vault

Abandoned by the last tenant in 2009 and purchased by Bedrock in 2016, Book Tower (architect Louis Kamper) underwent a 7 year renovation and has been fully restored, from the stone muses on the exterior, who look just like our MSI muses except without the togas, to the interior glass dome and artwork. A multi-use building fully functional since 2023.

Elaine also recommended John King Books, which, if you like a good used book store, this is that than which there is no greater. Browsers and buyers crowded the four floors of jam-packed joyful disorder. There was a long line at the check out, like at Borders in the 90s, except with a lot more moldering-book whiff.

Gateway to Freedom, a riverfront monument honoring Detroit’s role in the underground railroad. This group is facing Canada. A sister sculpture in Canada also faces Canada.

The Michigan Labor Monument. An arc with a gap at the top signifying work yet to be done.

Two ways to understand Detroit icon Joe Louis.

And finally, the Spirit of Detroit, from 1958, accompanied by 2 Cor 3:17. Symbol of the city and at 26 feet high, still one of the largest cast bronze sculptures in the US. He wears a jersey if a Detroit team wins a national championship.

We rode the elevated People Mover around the city and the electric QLine through it, both free. On the QLine every stop announces who that station is sponsored by.

And this is the curiosity that is contemporary Detroit, that comes out in such a sequence of announcements, and on any cursory study of downtown: nearly every square inch is owned by one corporate billionaire or another. They have bought it up and paid for its rehabilitation, filled the buildings with their workers, and created partnerships with local developers and arts organizations. In 2013 the city declared bankruptcy, never having recovered from the 2008 crash, and hemorrhaging population, and its tax base, for decades prior. But the story of Detroit since is that of local stakeholders coming together to problem solve–from the “Grand Bargain” that saved the Detroit Institute of Arts collection from being sold off work by work, to the “place-based” corporate strategy that has seen local corporations invest billions in reconstruction, public services, and institutions. (This is different, I hasten to note, than the more familiar civic effort, favored by Chicago, to woo outside corporations to come to one’s city by means of fat handouts and tax breaks. That type of corporate investment has a very poor track record.)

Detroit’s moments at the brink of collapse over the decades, its gritty persistence, and the perseverance of its tough citizens lend it a quiet undertone of poignant fragility that had me on the verge of tears more than once over the weekend. The city is a survivor. It emerged from bankruptcy only 17 months after declaring it. And in an economic report released this week, Detroit’s labor market is strengthening and wages are growing, despite high inflation and costs; yet, only one third of residents earned a living wage last year, which shows how much work the city and its corporate overlords have ahead of them. But in the meantime, Detroit has tapped into its native resilience and, helped by 15 years of at least $7B in corporate cash, is a living, breathing, blossoming perennial, wonderful to see.

Yes, I’m on a Detroit jag now. I have always hated the way people talk about it; Detroit and Chicago share this aspect, that everyone else in the US who doesn’t know anything about either city berates them endlessly, in covert or overt racist terms. In Chicago this can compound when politicians threaten us with the cudgel of “Detroit” as the very thing Chicago will become if we fail to elect said politician. It’s all ignorant and worth understanding the racism that underscores the rhetoric. But this is a post for another time. (Whew.)

Back to the present, and to my tick situation. Last week at this time I had been feeling sick and fluey for a couple of days and wondered if I picked up something nasty in our travels. Nothing to worry about, I felt sure. But when a creepy loud rash broke out on my torso, I began to google my symptoms. [Note: don’t do this.] Many options came up, none of which were Lyme. Some were storied, exotic almost, like meningitis. My dear niece suggested that if it were scarlet fever I’d have to burn all my toys. And West Nile seemed perfectly plausible given the fact that we are submersed in an ocean of invasive zebra mosquitoes around here 24/7. The nurse I saw on Friday was cagey, verging on coy, asking me if when we were in Detroit, we had gone outdoors. She was Very Concerned about my rash but would not give me one clue about why. She thought I should go get tested at an ER because they could not test me there. After 3 hours at urgent care I could hardly face the inevitable many more in the ER, so the next day we went to another urgent care she suggested. By then my rash had morphed.

I now had several patches. Except they weren’t patches, they were distinct circles, like perfect circles, the biggest one being the size of a Costco pie. I felt like a Kandinsky. The doctor took one look at me and said, it’s Lyme disease, no question. This was baffling to me because I was a tick hunting maniac in Maine. My tick protocol was over the top. I knew I was safe from the little devils because I was thinking about them and checking for them all the time. Didn’t I do the most, and the best, right down to throwing my hiking clothes straight into a hot dryer after every walk around the island?

Nevertheless, bloodwork later confirmed the diagnosis. And I began immediately on doxycycline. And the prognosis is great. But wow, let me tell you, I am as tired as a puppy on a walk who is over it and just lays down right in the middle of the sidewalk, refusing to go. I can nap for 4 hours, easy. I can’t do much of what I usually do yet. It’s highly annoying. But I know this won’t last and I can be patient and just rest, an unusual state for me.

And I’m so grateful for the rash! Many cases of Lyme have no rash at all; those folks think they had a short intense flu and then they’re over it. But the longer Lyme is left untreated, the more the bacteria is off to the races inside your body, bringing on arthritis-like symptoms and a whole rash of aches, pains, heart problems, brain fogs, and other mysterious complaints. Left unchecked, this bacteria is a bad dude. This is one of those diseases that until relatively recently doctors were telling folks wasn’t a thing, or was something else, or was all in their heads, such as in the town of Lyme in the 70s when an outbreak of pediatric rheumatoid arthritis left doctors shrugging and mothers angry, left to do their own research. It’s a fascinating story.

I’ve learned a lot about ticks in the last week, most of which is disgusting so I’m not going to share it. But one important thing to bear in mind about them is this: due to climate change, their range and seasonality have blown up just like an engorged tick. So wherever you are, when you go a-wandering in the woods, keep those pants tucked into your socks and shirts tucked into pants.

As for me, next time I think I have everything under control and handled, I need to remember the lesson I somehow have to relearn over and over and over: I don’t.

All photos taken by Peter Vassilatos, as I somehow put my phone through the wash and no it did not survive.

For further reading:

Good info on ticks and Lyme disease at the Mayo Clinic site

A short snappy piece on the role of immigrants in the creation of Detroit.
A great interview with the judge who came up with the Grand Bargain and saved the Detroit Institute of Art.

Books I’m reading on Detroit history:
The Dawn of Detroit by Tiya Miles
Once in a Great City by David Maraniss
Detroit: A Biography by Scott Martelle
Guardians of Detroit: Architectural Sculpture in the Motor City by Jeff Morrison
Lost Detroit by Cheri Y. Gay