The neutral mind: “Muncie ultimately won, and I’m back again.”

Last week on our blog, we heard from the Reluctant Transplant, who moved here with his spouse because of the availability of good jobs in their respective fields, but who has all along been anticipating a move. Today, as part three of our “Four Muncies” series, we hear from a transplant of another sort, whom we’re calling the “Neutral Mind.” Like the Cheerleader, who wrote our first featured directive, the Neutral Mind came here in part because of a (budding) relationship. After studying at Ball State, she relocated to Northern California in a temporary experiment in long-range commuting. Ultimately she returned to settle, for now, in Muncie.

Her answers to our directive questions reveal a nuanced sense of what it has meant for her to accept the city as her home. While her roots here are shallower than those of many of our writers, the Neutral Mind has a sense of belonging here, despite having grown up in Texas and anticipating a move to one of the coasts when her child is done with school. We call her the Neutral Mind because, as neither booster nor basher, she keenly sees the complexities of Muncie as a community: the ways in which it is a comfortable, affordable, easy place to live for someone with her professional credentials and talents, but also a place where the inequalities and precarities of contemporary American life are inescapably real and present.

She recalls waiting in line at Elm Street Brewery among well-dressed, prosperous people while a mentally ill man lies nearby on the street, “clearly fighting some demons.” She pithily expresses her ambivalence when she hears of new businesses that cater to Muncie’s professional class, while economically displaced people languish just a few blocks south of downtown. “When I hear about a new restaurant opening downtown, or a new business, I think that’s neat. But something doesn’t seem right.” Her post mixes affection and gratitude for her adopted hometown with a clear-eyed view of the inequality at its heart.

The purpose of “Four Muncies” is to promote thought and dialogue about what it feels like to live in our city today, and how our individual histories and attitudes color these feelings. Enjoy reading this directive, and feel free to share your feelings with us, either by using the comments box below or by writing to us at edlmiddletown@gmail.com.

–Patrick Collier

How long have you lived here? If you’re not from here, indicate where you came from, and why.

I moved to Muncie in 2009. Before that, I was living in Houston, Texas, where I was born, but at the time I moved, I’d only been living on my own in Houston for a year, from 2008 to June of 2009, and had completed my first (and only) year of teaching high school, fresh out of college.

Before that, I lived in deep south Texas (the Rio Grande Valley), in and around the city of McAllen, which is about a 15-minute drive down the highway to Reynosa, Mexico. (I mention this, because this is quite a non-Muncie part of me that I still carry with me here, treasure, and enjoy sharing with others from the area.)

I was born in Houston, like I mentioned earlier, and lived there until 1995. I was 9 when my mom, dad and I moved to “the valley” and my dad became superintendent of a school district there. It was a hard transition for me. 85% of the valley is hispanic, mostly Mexican American. I’m also hispanic (my father is Panamanian and my paternal side of the family is all from Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Jamaica). So, I looked like my classmates in school. I even spoke Spanish at home with my dad and extended family sometimes.

But being raised in Houston, I was culturally more “city,” and more “white,” plus I had an English last name, and the hispanic half of me wasn’t culturally Mexican. So while I always felt like I should have fit in based on appearances and ethnicity alone, it was still very hard, and didn’t get much easier until I was probably in high school. (No matter where you live in the world, kids will tease!) I stayed in the valley all the way through college.

It was in college when I became acquainted with Muncie. Having lived my whole life in Texas, I always longed for seasons like you’d see in movies and TV, with cold winters, jewel-toned autumns, and summers that were hot but not blistering like they were in south Texas. I wanted a home with siding and wood floors, not brick and tile.

I was in a South-Texas-based indie band in 2007, when I was about 21, and that year we went on tour through the midwest and down the east coast  U.S.

I usually just go ahead and tell the short version of this story, and these days it’s really the only version of the story I remember, but I can probably muster up the medium-long version for you:

I ended up getting close to our band’s show promoter for the Muncie/Anderson area. He was a local student at the time and was the one we contacted if the band was going on tour and needed a show in the area. He and I started chatting online before we met in person on my band’s tour in 2007. That summer, my band spent a week up here, where we played shows in Muncie and in Anderson. I was going through a hard time at that point in my life, a lot of it being centered around relationships.

When I visited Anderson, met our promoter, and met all his friends, I became absolutely charmed by the area—everyone was so incredibly welcoming. They weren’t the kind of people whose friendship or respect you had to earn by being cool enough. I made new friends here that very week, had a blast, and cried when we pulled out of Anderson to head to the next stop.

I visited Muncie on my own later that fall, as I had begun dating the aforementioned show promoter long-distance. He was from Muncie—born, raised, and still living here in his early-20s. From the first time he’d driven my band and me around Anderson and Muncie earlier that summer, I knew that this is where I wanted to be. “Up north.” I just wanted snow, really. And nature. And old houses. And kind people. Not hot, sticky, dusty Texas air. It was all so novel and cinematic for me and sometimes, it still is.

I also wanted the family that the relationship I was in with my new promoter-boyfriend promised me. My relationship with my own parents was strained. By 2008, that one single year I lived in Houston before moving here, my relationships with my old band and old friends from Texas were also all quite strained. I wanted to get out, get away. And Muncie seemed to promise me a life I’d dreamed of since I was a kid, watching Home Alone, wondering what it would be like to enjoy a white Christmas and shop for warm coats and scrape ice off my windshield in the mornings.

I didn’t realize at the time that this was a life I had the intelligence and strength to build for myself, by myself. I felt like I needed a valid “excuse” to leave Texas. In this case, a relationship.

I won’t go into details about the relationship, but that “promoter” fellow and I eventually got married and had a child, then divorced later, as I realized the relationship itself had never really been “right.” I only ever wanted to be friends with him (which we are now, each of us now in new marriages, proudly co-parenting our wonderful child.) But back in 2008, when I moved to Muncie, he was a nobel-enough excuse for making the 1500-mile move. (Not that any human should be an excuse. I realize that now.) While all my friends moved to Austin, I—because it was different and more interesting, I thought—moved to Indiana: a wallflower state wedged up against Chicago that people from Texas, including myself until 2007, knew about as well as anyone knows Delaware.

My promoter-boyfriend urged me to come live with him in Muncie, so that’s what I did. In June of 2008, his dad and uncle drove a pickup truck 17 hours straight to come pick me up in Houston, carrying as much of my belongings as the truck would hold down three flights of stairs, loading it up in 108-degree weather, and drove 17 hours straight back, no stops.

And here I still am, in 2019, 10 years later. (I did spend about 9 months in California, living in Muncie and the Bay Area simultaneously in 2017 and 2018, flying back every month, considering a permanent move to the west coast, but Muncie ultimately won, and I’m back again.)

Are you happy where you live? Do you feel like you belong?

I don’t love it here, but it’s mostly due to the economy and the lack of an ocean nearby. In Texas, I was always an hour away from either South Padre Island (in South Texas) or Galveston beach. Austin, Texas was always a great day trip as well, with lots of gorgeous nature, caves, hills, rivers, waterfalls.

I would love to retire one day either on the coast of Maine or the Pacific Northwest—somewhere with an ocean and old buildings and four seasons. I would never want to go back south. Too hot and raucous.

I don’t like that Muncie is economically split the way that it is, things being so different on the south and east sides versus the north and west. My understanding is that drug abuse, crime, and homelessness is higher over the river, and something about that seems so wrong, that life should be so different (segregated, really) on either side of the river. I also don’t like that “cleaning up” the south and east sides of Muncie poses a risk of “pricing people out” of their homes. I was glad when the homeless shelter went up, but I still wish we heard more about work being done to provide citizens in need—no matter what side of the river they live on—with high-quality holistic care, with homes. When I hear about a new restaurant opening up downtown, or a new business, I think that’s neat. But something still doesn’t feel right.

Recently, I was near Elm Street Brewery (south side of Muncie), and there was a man on the ground less than a block away clearly fighting some demons, meanwhile people were dressed up waiting for tables in his line of sight. I don’t know how to celebrate business and economic “growth” in our city when I see things like that.

So, I’m not happy with where I live, truthfully. I think I’m happier here than I was in Texas. I think I’m happy that we have a university here that balances out our culture the way it does, compared to other nearby towns. I’m happy that Muncie has the growing pulse it does, and all the built-in potential, almost entirely emanating from the university by my measure. I was annoyed when it made it on a list of top 10 “worst college towns,” because I definitely don’t think that’s true. But there’s also really nothing memorably beautiful here—nothing worth exploring outdoors at length. Nothing that feels truly worth walking out of my front door for—specifically walking. Not driving. Walking.

I’m happy for new business owners, I happy for people working to boost local business opportunities. I’m happy that downtown has bloomed. But I’m not happy with feeling like all these things are just the equivalent of spending a lot of money on makeup, using someone else’s credit cards.

I do feel like I belong, though, mostly. And like I could belong more, if I tried. My child has a good school. Everyone is nice. Living is easy here. I’m well provided for in most ways. I’ll give Muncie that.

Do you expect to stay here for long? What are or will be some of the considerations in deciding how long you stay?

I’d like to stay here until my child graduates high school, and maybe a little bit after that. But my husband, who is a native, doesn’t much care for it (that’s all I’ll say.) He moved away, never wanted to come back, but here he is, for our family. He’s trying to get through it for us, so that my daughter can get through school without any upheavel. Maybe we’ll make it living here through her high school graduation, maybe not. I don’t personally foresee ever being able to afford a move before then, or it making logical sense.

I think after she graduates, we’ll probably start making plans to find our “root” home, somewhere really beautiful, again, probably on the coast.

Maybe if Muncie was on the coast, just a short drive from an ocean, we’d feel differently.

How would you describe Muncie to someone who has never been here? What are its most distinctive characteristics?

I love describing Muncie to strangers! I always start by telling them that it’s famous without really being famous. I mention Parks and Rec, Armed and Famous, David Letterman, and Jim Davis (Garfield) pretty much every time. That’s one of the things I do love about Muncie: truth be told, it’s like going to school with a kid who you think isn’t really all that special, until you learn that their dad’s an astronaut or that they used to live in Finland or something, and then all of a sudden you’re like, okay, I guess there is something interesting about that kid after all.

I tell them that it’s a “college town” so it’s not the most boring little midwestern town one could end up in. I tell them it’s quiet, easy, and mostly safe. I tell them that it’s easy to get to know people, and that you’ll run into them again and again. I tell them that people are very polite and will always soothe you with a friendly “ope” if your shopping cart accidentally runs into theirs. It’s a nice place to be if you just need a nice place to be.

Do you think the ways other people think about Muncie are the same ways you think about it? How do you your thoughts and feelings about Muncie differ from its public image (from media or word-of-mouth around the state and beyond)?

I think I’m very much in the middle. From what I hear, you either love Muncie and have all this hope for it, and want to be involved in it, and you know how to have fun in it. On the flip side, you hate it, think it’s boring, think it lacks culture, and at worst you’ll call it “trashy.”

I feel like I’m in the middle, in part because I don’t get out much anyway. I don’t crave “things to do.” I’m fine at home. I have what I need. I have my projects to do. I like that my family is here, I like that I know what to expect. It’s my home. I identify more with Texas, but Muncie is still my home.

Plus, I think it’s silly to suggest that there’s any city in this country that you might move to and be able to say, “Everything about this city is amazing. It all looks like what I want it to look like. It functions how I want it to function. And all the people I see are my favorite kinds of people, and I can send my kid to walk around on the streets and never have to worry about anything.” The closest you’ll probably get to that is a super rich, fancy place, where you’re surrounded by people who have no idea how rich and fancy they are. I used to live in a place like that and I had never felt so alone in my life. The people were nice, but the minute one of my new friends enthusiastically suggested I buy a $4,000 exercise bike, I felt grateful, but oh-so-understandably-misunderstood. No harm, no foul, but nevertheless.

So, I don’t know if I’d say that I feel about Muncie the ways most others seem to feel about it—I don’t love it and I don’t hate it.

There’s another group of people that I imagine just don’t think much of it at all, because it’s their home and it’s just where they are and where they imagine they’ll be until the end. I think I have my past homes to compare Muncie to, which is why I don’t see myself rooted here and feel prepared, at any time, to uproot again should the resources present themselves.

What are your feelings about Muncie’s future? What are your hopes for Muncie? How do you expect Muncie will fare in the years ahead? What changes do you expect?

Due to time, I have to wrap this up—but I think I more or less responded to this already! I think Muncie will continue a slow uphill climb and become a trendier place for east-central Hoosiers to land. It may not ever be an Indy or a Fort Wayne, but perhaps a Richmond or Bloomington. At that point, though, I worry about anyone who may be “priced out.” I don’t ever want Muncie to feel “exclusive.” I moved here because it was the least “exclusive-feeling” place I’d ever been. It warmed my heart. Make Muncie fun, nurturing, and welcoming for all, no matter their class, race, gender, economical need—no matter anything.