The City That Reads

Precious. Delightful. So nice this lovely public anonymity. This virtually exposing privacy. A place to broadcast to everyone and no one at all those little private nothings. Shhhhh… it’s a big secret.

Cassie leaves for Spain in a few days. Heading east for an adventure. She’ll suffer through the ticket line at the International counter, anxious and excited yet decidedly calm and wander slowly through the terminal to the gate. (She’ll be early, unlike me, who would be late and scurrying.) She’ll have a book for the airplane under her arm and she won’t be checking her luggage for her journey of three fortnights. Traveling light with her feet on the ground. She’ll wrestle with demons on the road of St. James under the milky way. Or perhaps she won’t. Perhaps she’ll just sit with her Gods and idols. More likely.

I, on the other hand, will head to Baltimore in the morning. The City that Reads. Baltimore - how desperate and tiresome. I’m certain the people of that fair city wouldn’t provide me warmest welcome with such a disparaging perch. But it comes down to a taxi, an airplane, a hotel and a little conglomeration of shops nestled against a harbor where tourists flock. Once, amidst dining on the pier after a day of disillusionment I discovered the waiter was a former acquaintance from San Francisco who had stolen my vacuum cleaner. How precious. You moved to Baltimore. The City that Reads.

The redeeming feature of the harbor is the aquarium. Among the finest I’ve had the pleasure to stroll. Towers of fish. But I wouldn’t take pleasure in swimming in circles day after day although I’d be lying if I said I that I didn’t do just that from time to time. I’m looking to spy my way out of those uninspired routines.