I'm sitting here, watching an old western with Kirk Douglas, and he lights a wooden match by running it across the back of his chaps, a gesture that is so western, so cowboy, that I'm nostalgic for my childhood and missing what I thought my life would be. Silly. My intention was to write about how I'm out of my element in many ways here - a boy in CCD today was asking me about Malcom X and why he was killed and I really don't know. He wanted to share the lyrics from a rap song, but stopped immedately because he knew I just wasn't "hip." Or what ever word is used now for the hopelessly "square." I'm not only square, I'm so not versed in the black culture, it isn't funny. It isn't a requirement to teach 7th grade CCD and my theology studies are more germaine to the task, but it highlights again how different it is here.

People ask me what is the same about Wyoming and Baltimore, and I say "nothing." Then I share that because there are good people in both places, there are things that are the same. But otherwise ... I'm certainly not used to getting on the interstate to go nearly everywhere; multi-story parking garages at shopping malls; grocery carts kept outside; and less amusing, store clerks who could care less if you're alive. I mean, the popular show The Wire showed a black girl going into a home improvement store to buy a nail gun and the clerk actually helped her! Frank and I were saying 'this is so fake' not that it isn't odd that young black girls want to buy a nail gun and speak a language we can't decypher, but that this guy helped her. Get real.

Feeling so overwhelmed is wearing off and yesterday when we went downtown for the book festival, I was able to navigate around the festival, to a parking place and back without feeling confused. A lot of it has to do with walking the area - I have a real comfort with Mt. Vernon Square. Even though it was raining lightly, it was so enjoyable to walk around the cobblestones, to see the dignified brick homes, the doormen at the Peabody Hotel, marvel at the Methodist and Episcopal churches with their Gothic spires, just take in the whole 1800s atmosphere. Need a horse-drawn carriage and women in long skirts.

We've been working on the special section for the renovation of the Baltimore Basilica and I am so excited to see it, particularly after reading the section. It will be grand with the restoration peeling away multiple layers of remodeling to reveal what the original architect had in mind. There are books and books about Baltimore architecture, it is that rich and wonderful.

woman at the well