Repairing the Rift: Returning to Cleveland

By Isaac Mell

In an interview with Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, comedian/news anchor Stephen Colbert posed the following question: “Twenty-two astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?”

I was born in Cleveland in 1989. I’ve never been to outer space, but I did attend college in Los Angeles, a sun-soaked planet with a spaced-out population. I enrolled in order to escape the city I thought I had outgrown.

By graduation, however, my plans had changed.

Longtime Clevelanders expected an explanation. What cataclysm had swept me back across the map to the Midwest? To cut through their disbelief, I perfected a simple response: I had run out of money. But the truth was that I didn’t want to live out there anymore.

Why? Cleveland had ruined me.

When I say I grew up in Cleveland, I really mean that I grew up in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Lee Road Library. And if I wasn’t at the library, I was taking art lessons at the Cleveland Museum of Art or following trails in the Cleveland Metroparks. As a lifelong patron of these places of wonder, I held L.A. to the same high standard—a standard which the city failed to meet. I ultimately realized that brain drain—the discouraging trend of our region’s talent to turn fugitive—presupposes a lack of imagination.

This lazy thinking explains the widespread belief that by moving to L.A. or New York you will solve all of your problems; I see now that moving to another state doesn’t change your inner state. Therefore, the location you choose needs to possess those several non-negotiable amenities. Along with better parks, arts and libraries, I required higher walkability, greener scenery and fresher air.

But this only addresses why Cleveland is the place where I have to live. The question now becomes: Is Cleveland a place where I can make a living?

More than a year has elapsed since I received my Bachelor’s degree (in Literature, Communications and Media, if this means something to you). My job search has turned up leads, interviews, offers, rejections, internships, workshops, informational meetings, unsolicited advice—everything but employment. I can’t predict when I’ll secure my first “real” job, let alone what this job will entail or if I’ll ever find one.

I’m not alone: Everyone my age is taking longer to actualize. I’ve heard about the term “emerging adulthood” as an attempt to define our increasingly elongated transition into maturity. Whatever the terminology, it’s embarrassing for me to watch it happen. I don’t know what my generation will accomplish if we’re consistently shut out of opportunities. We’ll settle eventually, whether or not we’re pleased with where we’ve ended up. But it’s going to take years to even get to that point.

These years would be easier to stomach if I weren’t so isolated. Under the assumption I was abandoning Cleveland after high school, I relegated most of my friendships to Facebook and never made connections with Ohioan undergraduates. As a result of my poor thinking, I’m now a stranger in my own town; I have to lay a new foundation for a network of peers.

I found one such cauldron of camaraderie at SPACES, an art gallery on the near West Side. Its small staff consists of dedicated Clevelanders and fresh-eyed transplants—all multi-talented artist-pioneers. They build, hang, tape, paint, knock down walls, wield power tools, program electronics and wrangle all manner of nontraditional mediums. During my four-month internship, I watched them trek cheerfully and fearlessly into unexplored conceptual territory, rolling up their sleeves to tug ideas across the membrane of imagination into the domain of the five senses.

SPACES operates in perfect equilibrium between Cleveland uniqueness and worldwide connectedness. Its SPACELab program promotes Northeast Ohio artists while the SWAP residency supports national and international practitioners. It reflects a strong, objective confidence to ignore Cleveland’s detractors and claim it as your home or muse: I’m more energized by people I meet who have moved here with the intention of making a difference than those who have remained here out of apathy or despair.

So leave Cleveland—for college, vacation or business—but come back. You will regain affection for our city’s assets. And that’s what outsiders bring—an objective understanding of Cleveland’s strengths. This is vital. People should move, but they should move here, and there should be people here to inspire them when they arrive.

Something special happens when newcomers and longtime residents meet. Perspectives fuse, and the resulting synthesis is stronger than its components. So much of what we view as quintessentially L.A. or New York has its roots in distant suburbs, Midwestern towns, foreign countries. In other words, creative outsiders moved to the city and brought their ideas with them.

That’s why people need to be more proactive about creating community. If you are open-minded and interested in helping good people, you will attend Cleveland’s events and engage with fellow adventurers. If your mind is truly plastic and expansive, you will see opportunity where others see obstruction. You will devote yourself to the people and places that need you.

I see this devotion at SPACES, and in the people who staffed the parks, museums and libraries I still enjoy today. Without the flash of national recognition, with only the knowledge of a job well done, these employees craft a better Cleveland for its children.

Maybe there’s a correlation between taking sanctuary in nature, art and literature and wanting, as Colbert said, “to flee the Earth.” But I see this as a positive: Ideally, Clevelanders are always striving for more, always learning. We are ever dreaming, inspiring, improving—whether or not others notice.

Now if only we noticed each other.

Isaac Mell grew up in South Euclid and attended American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He welcomes conversations with potential employers, collaborators and friends, and can be reached at: mell.isaac@gmail.com.

[Photo by Elisa Vietri]

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