An Urban Catharsis...

I've lived in Baltimore for well over 5 years, now. When I moved here, if you had asked me how long I was planning to stay, I would have told you a year, tops. Baltimore was not my first choice, but it had the most promising job offer (promising in terms of experience, that is. We social worker types aren't exactly in it for the big bucks, at least not right out of college), and the job only required a year contract. I figured I'd move here, work out my contract, take my newfound professional experience and move on. Obviously, that hasn't happened. Not only did I stay in Baltimore, I extended my contact for another six months (it would have been for another year if we hadn't been so incredibly short-staffed at the time. 70 hour work weeks for crap pay and no benefits doesn't do much for retention). But even after I knew I had to leave my first job in order to preserve my sanity, I didn't look anywhere but Baltimore. Something about the city had found a nice little space in my heart to settle down.

I think when most people hear about Baltimore, they think of either the Inner Harbor and other booming tourist atrractions, or they recall that we are (or used to be) the heroine/murder capital of the nation. That's quite an urban dichotomy. I was fully aware of the glaring negatives about Baltimore. My first job was as a caseworker for juvenile delinquents. I spent most of my time in the neighborhoods that bred many of society's worst vices. I visited Section 8 homes that were overrun with roaches, I pounded on seemingly-vacant rowhome doors looking for the clients that should have been at home, I held out my hand while a client spit out the viles of crack he was trying to hide from me and the police, I waved off drug dealers trying to sell to me on just about every corner (usually a white person with out-of-state tags in West Baltimore just screams, 'I'm here to buy drugs!!'). That's just a small selection of things I saw and experienced during my time as a caseworker. But there was a flipside to all of that. I also spent a great deal of time talking with everybody: my clients, their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors. And these people ran the gamut; they were drug dealers, postitutes, welfare junkies, retirees, young professionals, working single moms, working single dads, etc. I learned to respect all of them, regardless of their situation or life choices.

My point of all of this is that those experiences, coupled with my social experiences in Baltimore, allowed me to see sides of the city tourists and probably many residents don't get to see, and for all of the negative, there was something I loved about Baltimore.

One of the reasons I've been struggling so much over the last year or so is because I couldn't remember why, loyalty to my students aside, I had wanted to stay here. I've continued to have a soft spot for Baltimore; I can feel it swell up when people put Baltimore down and I want to jump to Baltimore's defense. I think working in the school system actually blinded me to Baltimore's strengths. For the most part, people were not friendly, incompetence seemed to be the accepted form of work, apathy overflowed, pride in one's work and the school seemed absent. Now, I understand these things did not apply to every single person in that school, but if you stay long enough, if you let it weigh you down enough, it becomes harder and harder to see the good. Good 'ol burn-out.

Yet I made a decision, even after I got a job almost an hour away, not to move out of Baltimore, and ever since I moved into my friend's house last week, I've been reminded why. On a daily basis, I've encountered the friendly Baltimore residents that made me love to stop and have conversations on the street when I moved here. I've been reminded of how I felt before I became jaded by the negative issues so entrenched in this city--I was hopeful, optimistic, and excited to meet new people. People care about this neighborhood and the people in it and it shows. I've missed that. I'm not naive to what to expect from a city. There will always be a harsh side of Baltimore that I could do without, but I also recognize that's what makes it such a great place. For every vice, be it drugs, violence, poor schools, etc., there are people in this city who refuse to let that be all it's known for. Maybe I stay because I like being a part of that. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful for the chance to get back some of that hopefulnees and optimism.