The Family of Cities

$605.76, after several more tanks of gas, a few odds and ends, and much coffee.

I had some great thoughts about traveling, but I think most of them were suctioned out of my mind by the great vacuum called “Driving into NYC at Rush Hour”. After about an hour of driving and finding my arrival time was not budging, I finally concluded that my calculations had been faulty. You cannot leave Baltimore with a seven-minute cushion when your destination involves traveling five blocks in 20 minutes. 

On the bright side, as I battled through traffic, my hostess for the evening meal graciously offered me a bed, so I am safely tucked away in a cozy Brooklyn attic bedroom at Dr. and Mrs. Burkholder’s, following great conversation, advice, and curry. 

I think it was my notion to take a quick dash around Baltimore that sealed my fate. Why not swing in and take a quick peak at Johns Hopkins on foot while I’m here? 

I got lost a few times, but succeeded in laying eyes on the Johns Hopkins campus, medical school, nursing school and hospital. 

I had a cup of Baltimore coffee nearby, but failed to check the price. 

 
I concluded that as personalities go, Baltimore is the creative child, throwing up bridges and steeples and hospitals and art museums, all out for display. When I came around the corner and saw Baltimore for the first time, I was overwhelmed. Most cities appear gradually from the interstate but not Baltimore. All of a sudden there it was, a skyline as wide as Delaware, and after the skyline, bridges and water and buildings. Baltimore takes up the whole horizon, and hold nothing back.

Washington, by contrast, was hiding in a woods of green trees when I flew by this morning, with only a few shiny skyscrapers set out by the interstate for display. Other than that, I might have thought I was in the north woods of Wisconsin. There was even a Wisconsin Avenue. 

And then New York, New York… All of a sudden I don’t have enough time, because the memories are coming back and I want to stay for a day and take the subway… But New York is not a creative child, or a shy child, but a complex, dramatic adult. There’s no standing and looking at the skyline because New York is everywhere, around behind, before, here a bridge, there a bridge, everywhere the work of an engineer. New York is schizophrenic and yet a beauty queen, bipolar and yet an Olympic champion. Even for me today, the streets of the city nearly brought me to tears, but made me fall in love with them all over again at the same time. 

And last but not least, I parted with my sister and her city, Harrisonburg, and spent a delightful last morning with her. 

Bread pudding (in honor of the south) and $2 coffee at a diner:

And her students so gracious and easily intrigued and cute:

Like I said, I think I had other thoughts before they were aborted by the NYC traffic.  But I decided to thank God that I was safe and my car did not break down… And what an amazing lot of places I have been in one day! 

Good night from Brooklyn!