Connective Cube

At this time, I have now lived five months in Baltimore. The last place I lived, in Philadelphia, truly brought out every living anxiety in me. Many like to say Baltimore and Philadelphia are similar cities. They are in terms of the depth of police brutality and the institutionalized segregation, and even in terms of the architecture of some of the row house style housing stock.

Philadelphia feels more like a college town, one that venerates youth and people involved in radical politics that judge quickly. Baltimore? Well, I am learning. I don’t feel like hiding under a rock anymore like I did in Philadelphia.

The long-timers in Philadelphia didn’t like the influx of out of towners coming into the city. Like New York, Philadelphia is a tale of many smaller cities, one where people feel an allegiance to their neighborhoods and ask – and judge a person – based on where he/she lives.  Baltimore is similar too, I guess. I haven’t exactly attempted to dive deeply into the social scene here upon arriving here. The people I do meet don’t ask me ‘what neighborhood do you live in’ right away. That is actually refreshing. I am not my neighborhood. Anyway, someone who judges you based on the neighborhood you live in is boring if they say something along the lines of ‘oh, too bad we can’t hang out.’ That happened more in Philadelphia than any other place I have lived.

The second neighborhood I moved to – West Philadelphia or Cedar Park – had university bike cops from nearby UPenn and Drexel patrolling the immediate area. Punk shows would happen up the road on spaces along Cedar Avenue and 51st Street, mostly white spaces. This was apparently a neighborhood of mostly wannabe punks with liberal arts educations that acted completely unaware of their own hubris living in a backdrop of a swiftly changing environment that erased the black people who lived there for years. All in the name of progress, and renewal. Or if they were aware, they could only talk about it on social media.

I left after six months and moved to a quieter neighborhood, one without any cool cache in Philadelphia, and I felt quite at home. One great organization in that neighborhood is Books Through Bars – support it.

Baltimore is not perfect. I moved here right before Freddie Gray was killed by police, and I have heard some viewpoints that are deeply rooted in ignorance about the larger history of segregation in this town. Many people want to heal though, and people are opening up about the micro and macro aggressions that happen. There are also more deaths and killings. There are far more abandoned properties in Baltimore, and far more mixed crowds in select public spaces. I guess it is better than Philadelphia – I feel like people are trying to open more conversations here. I am eager to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book.

Sometimes I would bike from where I lived on the north side of town into Philadelphia for work. Garbage littered streets would transition quickly to well manicured avenues, and reams of condos crept out to what real estate types would call ‘transitional’ neighborhoods. The streets became smoother as I rode into Center City, and this type of transition isn’t limited to Philadelphia. It is in Baltimore, in Atlanta, and especially in New York City.

I don’t know where this post is going, or what the point is, really. The theme of my life since I moved here is to learn to open up again, learn to trust people again. I don’t know when all of that stopped – I pinpoint it to the advent of the smartphone, when people quit paying attention to things that aren’t fun and easy. Living in Philadelphia just deepened my mistrust, somehow.

I am intense, I like layered conversations, and I am a private person. Maybe I was born that way, yeah, uh-huh? It used to be acceptable to be like this and to not have people accuse me that ‘silence is not a possibility right now’ or ‘silence is complicity’. Well, I think that point of view lacks empathy, and there are people who survive in silence. Instead of silencing them more, how about meeting people where they are, and not expecting people to hold bullhorns or shout the loudest.

What good is someone having an anxiety attack because of the loudness of a bullhorn, or a siren, or the sounds of people screaming over each other?

Philadelphia is an extroverts city. It was hard to survive – and to even be there for communities – and always have to be in a position to articulate my thoughts and feelings on the spot. It was all about who could be the loudest, the coolest, the richest – no wonder people call it the sixth borough of New York. It was the lonliest place I have lived, and I was lucky to have a supportive partner through a lot of the negativity that I felt around me.

Yet the people in Baltimore seem friendlier, and more open to quiet people, those who may not scream their point of view the loudest. I met many critical and negative people in Philadelphia – women shamers, reverse racist claimers, body shamers, ableism all over the map, introvert shamers, and people who usually didn’t have kind words coming out of their mouth. And I balk at calling myself politically correct – sometimes it is best to know where someone stands – but my experience with people in Philadelphia was all about screaming they were politically correct without the empathy that comes from giving true and radical kindness to people who don’t hold the bullhorn.

It is lovely to be far away from all of that, and healing has happened thanks to yoga, partner, a job that allows me to project websites for some solid organizations. Also, disconnecting from Facebook, with all the reminders of parts of my life that I would rather forget, helps. I do miss many people, and hopefully I can reconnect in new ways that doesn’t involve that platform.

Now maybe I can connect with people who have lived in Baltimore for awhile who want to start conversations on a number of levels. I am even open to meeting the loud people, so long as they are willing to listen.