It is warm again. Trees flower and shed like snow, dandelions sprout up in sidewalk cracks and, even though people say they are weeds, I am struck again by their undeniable beauty. Their white seeds twist into the wind. I make a wish.
It is spring, and for years I have collected books from those little free libraries that dot street corners like weeds. Now, I return them — two books to my block, a book for the park, two for my favorite coffee shop. It is spring, and I walk without purpose or destination. I walk until my legs can no longer carry me, and then I walk more. I am happy.
I am too happy to write — scared that when I capture something, a different something will fall by the wayside, and even the things that I do write, I will do it wrong and it will slip away to be forgotten forever.
But still, for you, I have to try. For Baltimore, from me:
When I arrived, you were hot. Sticky. Your summer air clung to my skin and, knowing me, I probably complained about the sweat that slipped down my spine and pooled up under my waistband. Cicadas hopped over sidewalk cracks and I explored you, winding cyclical paths overtop of each other each day. I took you in, palms sweaty and face red. And then, it rained. The sky opened and dumped out its tears and I danced in it, drank it up, jumping and skipping and whooping to the heavens. I’d never seen it rain that hard before.
That was my first September, when your leaves were thick and green and leafy — until they weren’t. They bloomed into yellows and reds and golden browns, each tree a rainbow. This was about the time I met my two best friends, when the air was cooling and the leaves were sticky underfoot. We lived in adjoining rooms, and each of us feigned shyness and danced around each other for the first few days — until we didn’t. They bloomed in my life like flowers, friends fully formed.
So much of this is about growing, and our little family grew from three to five. All it took was one dreamy night of laying on the grass and looking up at the stars and telling everything about ourselves to a couple of strangers and we were hooked, signing leases, shotgun weddings and legally binding ourselves together.
You have given me so much, Baltimore, and so much of what you have given me is this little family, this home to belong in. When I first moved into our house, standing rickety and confident, rising up between a sandwich of other, less wonderful houses, it snowed. We skipped down the steps and stood in the street, and I opened my mouth and let the gentle flakes land on my tongue. They danced with me.
I forget my roommates haven’t known me my whole life, I forget sometimes there is a ‘before’ to speak of. How could there be, when they know how I take my coffee and what my shampoo smells like, when they wake me up with a whisper when I fall asleep curled up in that chair at the bottom of the stairs, when they are gentle and kind and shape my whole world? How could there have been a before, when they made a place for me to belong? And how can there be an after?
The trees are blooming again, the ones on our street dropping pollen, and an April breeze blows the pollen though my bedroom window. Soon, the tulip petals will drop in the summer heat, and we will walk the stage and receive diplomas on an otherwise ordinary Thursday. We will move our things down those steep front steps and into separate houses, hours and days and years away. Soon, it will be after.
But, for now, I am happy. Even if I don’t ever do anything else right, Baltimore, I picked you. You gave me the most beautiful life, a four-year forever. Thank you for everything.
Love always,
Molly <3
Molly Green is a senior from Orange County, Calif. majoring in Writing Seminars. Her column centers around beautiful moments and things in her life.
