On Saturday, my husband and I were driving to Chipotle on
Charles Street to feed our starving move-in crew (five very generous friends)
when he turned to me and said, “This is my fifth time to Baltimore.”
Shesh! How could I relocate my husband to a place he’s only
visited four times before loading up the 10-foot moving truck and barreling
down the interstate with all of his life possessions?
I take solace in knowing that he moved sight unseen from
Minneapolis to Washington, D.C., three years ago when he began his doctoral
program.
He’ll be fine. I hope.
After working in the city for nearly four months, Baltimore
already feels like home to me, and I really, really want it to feel the same
way to him. He’ll still be commuting to Washington a few days a week, so the
move was to accommodate my work and allow us to have a larger place with
dedicated office space for my husband to write his dissertation.
Right now Baltimore is an adventure for both of us, where
very simple things make for great rewards. Like realizing that The Brewer’s Art has an extended happy
hour on Mondays. And finding a grocery store. (The Safeway in Charles Village
is way nicer than the one by our old place, and it has a mural
overlooking its parking lot.)
Thankfully, the Bolton Hill neighborhood where we’re living
makes things a bit easier for us. It has a website
with a lot of information helpful for new residents, including a listing of the
area’s merchants like b, a bistro I’ve
been told is stellar, and the On the
Hill Café and Market, which looks cute.
It sounds like the Maryland Institute College of Art is
pretty generous to its neighbors, too, and as an art lover, I’m glad it’s a
stone’s throw away. Maybe we’ll buy something created by one of its students to grace
our very large, very white, and currently very naked walls that scream “give us
something to wear!”
I think art on the walls could go a long way into making a
house (or apartment) into a home, which is our other current objective.
What are your suggestions for making a city or new place a
home?
June 26, 2012 01:10
By Maria Wiering