On weekdays, Nayiri Karapetian walks the halls of Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, in a nurse’s scrubs. On Saturdays, she stands in a dance studio in black tights and jazz shoes, teaching 130 performers of various ages intricate steps she choreographed to the beats of Armenian folk songs.

I may be a messy writer, but I am not delusional. Yet, delusional may be a more fitting description when it comes to The Blue Duffel Bag because the concept for the essay manifested itself as a nagging plea—rather than an idea. 

I fell in love with books during a war while my kids lost interest in reading during COVID. Between 1975 and 1990 during the Civil War in Lebanon, my mom, an avid reader, was determined to make me one despite many odds.

As editor of Technology Century magazine, I interviewed the great grandniece of Thomas Edison. I was able to turn a two-hour interview into a two-page article read by the organization's more than 10,000 members.

This feature story, "Engineers, Nurses Innovate Patient Care," highlighted a program at The University of Detroit Mercy whereby students create innovative medical devices to help injured veterans.

I gave up asking my almost 15-year-old daughter what she wanted to do for her birthday. After years of her begging me to plan the next party as soon as the other one ended and me assuring her that we had plenty of time to talk about it, the roles have been reversed.

On March 1919, shortly after publishing her first novel, The Voyage Out, famed author Virginia Woolf wrote in her Writer’s Diary, “Is the time coming when I can endure to read my writing in print without blushing—shivering and wishing to take cover?”

The only keepsake from my childhood is a withered blue duffel bag. Growing up in war-torn Lebanon in the 1980s, I knew the mere sight of the bag meant it was time to seek shelter. 

I wrote this guest blog for Next Energy  to highlight the importance of young innovators moving back to the City of Detroit.