Learning to Fly

When you’ve written the same column for five years, subject matter becomes the Holy Grail. There are certain inherent constraints – word count, currency, self-restraint (in my case) – and you learn to work within them. In the good times, you use the built-in structure like a trellis, trimming your ideas deftly for maximum bloom and coverage. Other times you feel boxed in, limited by the very thing you’ve created. Worst, though, is when the ideas won’t come at all, or when the ones that will are of undeniably limited interest.

This month I was going to talk about how VITAL Source is moving to Walker’s Point, to the fabled Arts Building at 133 W. Pittsburgh, and all the things that means. But in truth, it’s pretty basic – we need to be closer to our most engaged readers, in a great space where we can have a loading dock – which isn’t a column at all unless I make up a story about why it matters beyond the business decision it is.

I was also going to talk about the hectic holidays, the potentially transformative recent stem cell research breakthrough made in part by University of Wisconsin researcher Dr. James Thomson, plus a few other things. In collecting my notes, though, it struck me (not for the first time) that I am in a rut – in danger of becoming a slightly edgier Erma Bombeck, predictably spinning out heartwarming family anecdotes and socio-politically fueled rhetoric in roughly equal measures. It’s not a bad shtick, I guess. It does offer limitless subject matter, but eventually if I don’t get cancer I’ll be as compelling as Ziggy, that round-headed little cartoon guy.

I’m not really beating myself up; I always become extra contemplative about VITAL around my December anniversary. I think about what it’s been, what it is and whether I’m satisfied with the direction it’s going. And to be honest, how I feel about VITAL is often tied to how I feel about myself in any given moment. Whether the correlation between the two (me and VITAL) is real or imaginary isn’t important. It feels real to me; therefore, for all intents and purposes, it is real. So …

Lately I’m completely bored with myself. I feel like I could dump 30 or so phrases onto my MP3 player and easily meet most of my personal and professional communication needs on shuffle. I’ve put myself in specific roles, and there are a whole bunch of people around me who’ve bought into them, from my family to my staff to the people I meet in the community. I’m a responsible, hard-working mother and business owner, the human equivalent of a Jetta wagon. I even cut my hair short recently, a move I bitterly regret.

And I feel like VITAL has been suffering a little practical car syndrome itself. It looks clean and you can depend on it for a crossword puzzle, some nicely written articles and Matt Wild’s column. We’re like the smart girl in your English class. She’s all right, but you secretly think she could be hot if she’d just do something with her hair and her personality.

But herein lays the essential beauty of any true DIY endeavor. Since we are Doing It (Y)ourselves, we can Re-Do it any time and any way we like. We’re not tied to a larger corporate structure or specific branding standards, demo reach objectives or revenue metric goals. I think we might have lost sight of that for awhile, and being so serious kind of took the fun out of the work and, by extension, off the pages. But we’re coming back, lightening up and reinstating Martini Mondays at the office. For myself, I’m investing in cute hats.

There will be parties and openings. There will be better, more informed coverage of and commentary on local culture from the ground up, ramping up our website so we can bring you even more new stuff all month long. And starting with this issue, we’re commissioning our covers for at least the next year. Each will feature original artwork created just for VITAL by some of the city’s most talented painters, illustrators and photographers. It may or may not be related to anything inside the book; it’s a canvas, not a story illustration. And it’s pretty damn exciting.

This month’s cover features the beautiful Sara Zmudzinski as photographed by Jim Herrington. It was a two-person shoot, with Sara and Jim co-concepting and creating the set from craft supplies. There’s another adorably playful shot of Sara on page 8. We think it rivals anything you’ll see in print, anywhere, and we hope it’s the beginning of an amazing ongoing collaboration with area artists.

So here’s wishing you the best of the season – time with friends and family, time to remember what the good part of love feels like, time to think about what you really want. Go downtown at least once, park the car and walk among the lights through Pere Marquette Park or Cathedral Square. Let yourself bask in the wonder of kaleidoscopic light and color. Laugh. Then don’t forget. You are exactly who you feel like you are; no one can make you otherwise unless you allow it.

Remember.