From JuJu with Love

From Ann Arbor to the Mall (and everything in between)

The summer after my junior year at the University of Michigan, I packed up my maize-and-blue pride and headed east for an internship in Washington, D.C.—a city that would quietly change the course of my life.

I had applied for and was accepted into an internship program that placed me at the D.C. Corporation Counsel’s office. At the time, I was convinced I was pre-law (that’s a story for another post), but what I didn’t yet realize was that the real education that summer would happen far beyond my office walls.

I lived in the dorms at Georgetown University with twenty other University of Michigan students. Twenty Wolverines dropped into one of the most cosmopolitan, electric cities in the country. It was exhilarating. Every day felt grown-up and important. I took the bus from Georgetown to the Metro to go to work—briefcase in hand, heart full of ambition—living my very first real 9-to-5 job.

And then there was the city itself.

That summer, Washington, D.C. felt endless. We explored it on foot, by bus, and with the boundless energy that only college students on the brink of adulthood can have. We joined hundreds of thousands of people on the National Mall for Fourth of July fireworks—lying back, staring at the sky, feeling like we were exactly where we were supposed to be. We ventured up to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, soaking in new cities, new independence, and new versions of ourselves.

We also turned 21 that summer. And in one of those moments that feels almost too perfect to be real, my friend Judy and I discovered something extraordinary: we were born on the exact same day, the same year, in the same hospital.

Naturally, we decided we had been friends since birth.

From that day on, Judy and I became—and remain—soul sisters. The kind of friendship that doesn’t need constant maintenance, just history, laughter, and a shared understanding that some people are meant to walk into your life and never really leave.

And then there was Rodney’s 21st birthday. For years, I remembered only the image: all of us sitting in Burger King wearing those flimsy paper crowns, celebrating adulthood with Whoppers instead of champagne. Judy later filled in the missing details. She’d been a Burger King manager back home and thought it would be hilarious to host Rodney’s birthday there, given his impressive level of maturity and sophistication.

Apparently, she knew he would never agree to it voluntarily. So we kidnapped him. Blindfolded him. And deposited him — crown and all — into Burger King.

Because of course we did.

To this day, I can’t imagine a more perfect way to turn 21: humbled, lovingly teased, and surrounded by friends who knew you well enough to pull it off.

One night, a bunch of us piled into Judy’s car and went cruising around the city, feeling very grown-up just by virtue of being young interns in Washington, D.C. And then all of a sudden Ted Koppel was crossing the street right in front of her car.

We immediately lost our minds. A bunch of 21 year old girls, making an absolute commotion over a real D.C. celebrity. Ted Koppel looked directly at us, clearly wondering what on earth was happening — and in her excitement, Judy accidentally leaned on the horn while he was still in the crosswalk, scaring the bejesus out of him.

I like to think that somewhere out there, Ted Koppel still tells the story of the night he was nearly taken out by a car full of overexcited Michigan interns.

By the end of that summer, I knew one thing for sure: I would be back in Washington, D.C. after graduation. The city had gotten under my skin. It taught me how to navigate adulthood, independence, and possibility—all while I was still figuring out who I was becoming.

Looking back now, that summer wasn’t just an internship. It was a beginning. Of my love for cities, for meaningful work, for lifelong friendships, and for saying yes to the unknown.

And it all started with a bus ride from Georgetown, a Michigan dorm room, and a city that felt like home before I even knew why.

From Juju with love 💙💛