Altimore City

I have grown to think of most suburbs as nowherelands, even though I live in one. They grow like mushrooms: without direction and almost always without history. Sure, there are Catonsville’s twenty-one steps and Dundalk’s orchards, but the rest are simply a pattern repeating itself, filling in all blank spaces with a semirandom spatter of bagel shops, shoe stories, Giant supermarkets. It’s impossible to navigate any of them without a map because there is no up or down there, simply more.

At least this was how I felt this morning, navigating through a series of them for a conference I dare not describe, both to keep my own job safe (oh this economy) and to keep whatever reader interest this blog has managed to scrabble together. It was early morning and I’ve run out of friends who live off 495 whose couches I could sleep on, so I took the back way, through long traffic light upon long traffic light. When I drove home, I abandoned all pretense to hypermiling, floored it up 95 until I reached the gently sloping offramp to MLK.

I have never really thought of Baltimore as beautiful, either, but it was to me as I coasted down the ramp. I saw landmarks: the Bromo-Seltzer Tower, Ravens Stadium, the cluster of modest skyscrapers in the Inner Harbor that ring the dome. At last I felt as if I was somewhere again. It was not as beautiful as a real city, a New York or even a Philly, but it really was beautiful.

Maybe I should start calling this home, I thought to myself.

I’ve lived here now five years, three with Wendy. Love (true love, even… am I allowed to call it that? is it safe?) has a way of obliterating all the small details that would bother you otherwise — that, and having to hop three jobs in six months. But I’ve only lived here. I’ve never really felt like I belonged here.

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“You bleeding,” a witch called at me this afternoon on the street. I reached my left hand to my face, felt the blood, and she started laughing at me. She had a table full of fetishes in front of her, even had an old-school gray-brimmed hat, but the malice in her laugh sounded like she knew more than just how to cure a cough. Fuck, I thought, pressed my hand against it as far as I could, made a beeline for my office. I’ve never had a bleed placed on me though I’ve obviously read about it — thing is, there’s no way to stop it because you can’t find a cut to place a bandage over. You just keep making the same trip to the bathroom over and over again to rinse the blood from your skin. It doesn’t hurt, doesn’t even make you feel woozy the way giving blood will. But…it’s something, to get stuck on the street, bleeding. Some people tried not to stare out of politeness but I could feel the fear radiating out from them anyway. By the time I got back, my hand was scarlet red. Even now, after I’ve washed it a bunch of times, it still looks a little redder than the other.

I don’t know why she did it, I certainly know how to mind my business on the street. I guess you can’t question witches. The whole rest of my day was blown.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

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Tagged curses

The trail system here is amazing. They have nearly the same number of trails here as they do back home, but it’s as if they had been constructed at the request of some mad prime minister — president, I mean, the whole federal system is hard for me to keep track of. On an average Saturday afternoon, they’re almost all empty. Granted, there isn’t the same level of advertising back home. In fact I found Soldiers Delight really by accident — it was mentioned in this old trailbook I found at The Book Thing. Last weekend was a total washout, nothing to do but laundry, so I thought why not?

It was empty last Saturday. It was okay, I didn’t mind. I was getting sick of being stuck in my own head. I know I’m being miserable here, I can recognize that it’s just plain old planesickness, but I can’t turn it around in my head. Soldiers Delight is actually pretty beautiful. There are all these plaques that will explain what exactly is going on with the geology or whatever there, but the only thing you really need to know is that for just a little bit, if you look at things the right way, you can feel like you’re somewhere other than where you really are.

At least that’s what I got out of it.

After a while of walking the trail alone, I started doing the same thing I always do given enough time — I start imagining running into people I haven’t seen in forever. Norman especially. The last time I came home we had coffee or something and there was something I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t figure it out and anyway he was seeing somebody. With time dilation he is probably married now, and even without it he was happy. That was what he is best at. I imagined him coming down the trail, looking as astonished as I was. He wouldn’t wave at me, or even run up and hug me. He would just be surprised in that uniquely Norman way. And then — I don’t know, my imagination goes all fuzzy after that first moment. That’s really the point, just that first moment. In a lot of ways it is as good as it gets.

Finally as I made it to some scenic overlook and there was a couple there walking their dog, and the illusion popped like a little bubble, and honestly I was happy that it did.

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Tagged nature