From the capital city to charm city

For a freelancer, where she lives is where she works. It makes the choice of home doubly important. And as someone who moved regularly throughout her childhood, I’m fascinated by what place means, especially for a writer. For so many of the writers I’ve read, their sense of place, their identification with it, and their ability to write about it as if it were a second skin has contributed to the quality of their writing. Perhaps one of the most famous examples is Faulkner. Another writer I love who seems to have a deep familiarity with place is Marilynne Robinson. If you haven’t read any of her novels, get thee to a bookstore posthaste and pick up Gilead or Home (also Housekeeping though that one doesn’t give the reader a sense of place the way the other two do). Delicious on so many levels.

For most of my freelancing career and for many years before that, I lived in Washington, DC, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood where I first rented a very cozy efficiency apartment that overlooked all the drama that happens on Columbia Road, Adams Morgan’s main thoroughfare. Including but not limited to the Communist May Day Parade, Adams Morgan Day, muggings, and many many honking horns, blaring sirens, and loud voices. I loved it all. The noise rarely bothered me. It was the big canvas to my little life.

Still loving the neighborhood, I bought a one-bedroom apartment on a much quieter and lovely back street, Lanier Place. After years of noise, I didn’t realize how serene quiet could be. I could see the Washington Cathedral from my living room and bedroom windows and enjoyed many a glorious sunset.

After a decade in that apartment with its great neighbors, I decided to move even further away than a block. I wanted a change of scene, a wake-up call out of my comfortable rut. I found it in a move to Baltimore, a place that was very different from DC but not far from the friends I had made over 20 years. And Baltimore was far more affordable than DC so I could buy a little house with a little front yard, a tiny backyard (and an alley--I love alleys), and easy parking. If you know Adams Morgan, you know that all of its car-owning residents salivate over and dream about a parking space. Covered, uncovered, on the street or in a garage, whatever, any reserved space will do.

So here I am, three years later, ensconced in a middle-class neighborhood of white and black residents in North Baltimore, very near the old Memorial Stadium. I really like Baltimore. It’s gritty and charming, an irresistible combination in my eyes though I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s the “Greatest City in America” as certain bus stop benches throughout Baltimore proclaim.

Baltimore is like a most-loved sibling who has met up with hard times, maybe of her/his own making, maybe not. I love the way its long-time residents love the city. I love the quirkiness of its inhabitants (seen a John Waters movie lately? He knows Baltimoreans.) and the everyday practical way they view the world. Coming from heady, ambitious DC, this is refreshing if sometimes like having cold water thrown over your head. I feel more connected to reality in Baltimore and both more compassionate and more realistic about the issues we American citizens face, whoever we are, whether poor or rich, gay or straight, from the religious right or the religious left.

It wasn’t easy to leave DC. I grew up there—having moved there in my 20s and leaving in my 40s. A sort of adult childhood, a coming of age into urban living, profession, maturity (well, mostly, on that one). But moving to Baltimore has been like diving into a pool of cool water. Refreshing and a mind-opener. All of a sudden, I'm ready to see what else is out there. What might I learn from my next move? I look forward to an open road leading somewhere out of sight. Having that sense of adventure and possibility while also looking at the age of 50 is exhilarating. And scary as heck. Does one come without the other?

It's this possibility of surprise around the corner that has kept me freelancing for 13 years, and I'm delighted to have discovered I can have it in my whole life too. Here's to leaping!