I Got My Designs on You

6/11/11

Finally, we wrote the check. It has only taken months for us to do so. It took some level of embarrassment on our part, for while we were chatting with mere acquaintances, we found ourselves telling them, in the midst of a Findlay Market tour, that our interest in downtown was serious. We were planning to buy a home on OTR.

They found this surprising, that we could wax poetically about the history of the home, its former occupants, our plans for a rooftop deck, and yet, had not put one penny down towards future ownership.

So, Mark placed the call to the developer and told him we were ready to meet. We had already seen a few incarnations of plans, but now, it was official. With our check, they could move forward with an actual cost estimate, which for some silly reason, banks and builders need, and we could, in good faith, go on discussing the merits of living downtown.

Ironically, the timing also came on the heels of Mark spraying the clover in our yard, killing more grass than weed. I joked that, from ten thousand feet, the dead grass intermingled with the healthy grass, resembled the leprechaun of the Fighting Irish, replete with green and gold, well brown. Thankfully, a move downtown will prevent Mark from future lawn care gaffes such as this.

I can already hear strains of Country Roads, which Mark can regale the locals with his guitar version, while perched on the rooftop observation deck. Davis and Kaitlyn can pick out their room colors, for they will be the only ones returning with any frequency, to this particular home. And me, I will take time off now, knowing the novel that will write itself upon my occupancy of the second floor study, in full view of the rose window of Music Hall, with the Pinstripes or Seedy Seeds playing in concert at Washington Park. And Enzo will sleep, following our sojourns around the city. His selection of garbage on the streets will be much more appetizing than the occasional pizza box here.

Place Making

Mark keeps telling me I need to write to the newspaper and tell them why I want to move/live downtown. Apparently, he doesn’t realize how much that feels like an assignment from tenth grade English, “Write to the theme of what I did on my summer break.”

He also doesn’t realize that inspiration for that move, and for writing about that move, only comes in small doses, when I allow myself the luxury of thinking about that home, and not dwelling on the fact that I am not going to have my wood floors refinished this Spring because of an overlap in the kids’ breaks.

He even told me that other night he had a dream about our roof falling down. It was unclear in the dream which roof he was referring to, but my infinite expertise allowed me to judge him and our life, interpreting that dream implies that the we need to take care of the home we are presenting living in. He countered, that perhaps he was more concerned with putting the roof on our dreams, meaning secure the contracts that will lead us down that path. Half-empty, half-full. Backward thinking, forward thinking.

But that is the trouble, when dreams and reality blur. Because that is exactly how life feels these days. While watching Opening day from the stoop of the house we'd like to purchase in OTR, I imagined a time in the future when I would host many of the spectators. They would come to the same spot year after year, knowing I was baking bread, handing out OJ and coffee, popping popcorn. I hope however that the many of the politicians would have changed by then, and that the Reds would be carrying another World Series banner as well.

But then, I returned to my home in Loveland, the one where I sleep at night, however restlessly these days, due to allergies, dogs and kids up at all hours of the night. The roar of the crowd had dissipated. The smell of burnt coffee too. The Reds were no longer on the radio, and a hush returned to my life.

While I can articulate the many reasons for moving downtown, I would do so at the cost of diminishing the life we have had here, where I have raised my son since he was two, though pitcher’s mound is now overgrown. Our oldest daughter had her high school graduation in this back yard. Our four sets of grandparents (to the children) have all been dinner guests here on our back patio, surrounding by the warmth of a fireplace and family, sitting atop patio tiles named cappuccino. The Italian theme I worked so hard to replicate I would have to work hard for again.

But the purpose of moving to the city was to minimize our desire to be homebodies to grow old without moss so to speak, to be out in the city, such as Charles Baudelaire once conceived of in his meaning for flâneur—that of "a person who walks the city in order to experience it."

Ok. So the word also means loafer, but I like the idea of experiencing it. And I having been doing so for so long, that perhaps I don’t need to write about why I want to live downtown, we already do.

We read the blogs and papers connected to city events and development. We are keenly aware of all sides of many of these conversations. I am keeping tabs on A Tavola and the CityFlea market and everyday salivate over the offerings at Tom+Chee.

In support of the arts, we already do. We recently attended the gender-bending version of Julius Caesar. I attended the Cathedral for Ash Wednesday, because I wanted to feel the glory of the 40 days we were about to enter into. In support of city restaurants and businesses and markets, we already do. I have made special trips just to buy prosciutto at Findlay Market, and have sipped a light-hearted white French wine at City Cellars in the middle of a warm day in March, just because I could.

We attend OTR Foundation fundraisers and Mark drinks Bock beer. I donate a dollar to the Streetvibes vendor and sometimes stalk them if I cannot find them right away. I open the paper to read it with the vendor, usually because it is their writing, or their son’s writing or art. That is only the beginning of how I want to deeply listen to what is going on in the city.

Each conversation we have with each other, family or friends, yields a reference to downtown, the city, urban living, even when the evening news and op-ed pieces contain multiple references to drugs and shootings in downtown. Each response yields surprise, and curiosity, that we could envision a lifestyle different from our present.

Our kids, the ones around often enough to hear us speak, understand that is only a matter of time before their memories of “home” change. When my parents moved our family from a small three-bedroom ranch to a two-story six-bedroom home, I recall my mother often wishing for the confines of the smaller home despite having achieved bigger and better and newer. Both houses I still consider “home” and have written homages to the time spent in each.

My mother always had a dream home. One not related to the American Dream. She imagined living on a farm (yes, a woman who wore lipstick everyday!). She could also easily see herself living on the shores of Lake Erie. She even fell for Oregon, the way I did, gradually, deeply. But she always stayed put, a placeholder for her children. I loved her for that.

But there is a difference between being a placeholder and a place maker. For now, we will settle for the home in OTR holding our place, a contract or two will bind us to a life in the city. But with each step we take in that direction, our actions are shaping the place we will make home.

OTR: Beyond Imagining

In my times of troubles passed, I relied on the generosity of my neighbors. Thirteen years ago, my first husband and I bought a home in a suburban neighborhood in northern Cincinnati. The subdivision was new, and thus, we were all new neighbors to one another. As it happened, Devin’s cancer relapsed. For the past year, we had wanted so bad to be normal neighbors, ones not battling cancer or making ER runs in the middle of the night. But alas, we made a call to help from the outside.

Those folks who lived near me, cried with me, walked with me, celebrated with me, would go on to be some of my closest friends. Because of proximity, we built up our relationship over pizza dinners, watching the kids play in the backyard and moves across country.

When we eventually had to travel to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant, my husband and I vacated that home for four months. Towards the end of our stay, the water line in the refrigerator broke, leaving our neighbors who had been caring stewards of our home, to call the plumber and wipe the floors. When we returned on a late night flight, we found balloons and cookies compliments of other neighbors.

No other experience has taught me so well in life to reach out and ask for help. And the stubborn independent middle child Italian that I am, I learned to do so boldly. There was no other way.

Mark too, was the recipient of much kindness in his neighborhood, establishing close male friendships that are difficult for most men. When Mark’s wife was diagnosed with cancer, these friends jumped in the waters with him, helped him find a small lake house where the family could be “normal”, took on care of Mark’s three daughters when needed and today, are the most ardent lovers of those girls.

This came to mind when recently Mark asked me, “Do you think we’ll be able to have/find the same support living downtown that we had when our spouses died?”

Many items have been up for consideration during our contemplation of buying a home in OTR, vacating our lot here in the suburbs for more cement, less grass. Safety, jobs, transportation to name a few. But support? We were in our forties, healthy, four strong growing children, rapidly becoming adults. Even the puppy was growing fast. Though for now, he rested often when not at play with his stuffed girlfriend.

Our four sets of grandparents, all of whom were part of our support network during our spouse’s challenges, were now moving into the fourth quarter of their lives, some a little more quickly than we had hoped. Some were in town, others a car drive, and still others, a hop on a plane. Yet we didn’t anticipate that any of them might be “moving in with us” anytime soon. They would age in the place where they were.

I had written recently about the local Anna Louise Inn, a transitional housing unit for women in downtown Cincinnati, “It’s essential for the women to be rooted in a neighborhood where businesspersons and residents can model new perspectives for them, where women can develop relationships, find diversity, and establish connections to some level of normality. They require “people living near one another.”

But now, I wondered, had I been writing that from the perspective of a client at the Anna Louise, or penning that from my own subconscious worries.

How would we become “in relationship” with one another, given the conflict and diversity of the neighborhood in OTR? In the past, our children all went to school or played together. This helped establish a common bond, from which we all grew and some even grew apart.

A friend once asked, “Why is it important for you to be connected to your neighbors, why isn’t enough to just be in the presence of diversity?” I grew up in a large Italian family, Sunday dinners at Grandpa’s house. Every Christmas at Mom’s. Besides, her food was better. Connection, familial and primordial, is important whether one is struggling or striving. It is in my makeup to link all my lives together, that trait a gift given to me by my parents. I want to pass it along.

To do so, I would have to come out of my shell even further, provide an even deeper show of my true colors, in order to find, or seek out the commonalities with a neighbor in the city.

I should note, that we are not reinventing the wheel, we are not pioneers, or at the cutting edge, as one might consider the context of the designation. But we believe we are, because it is outside of our imagination, one rooted in our past lives, to imagine we could do this. But we are open. The Japanese have a term for “outside our imagination” – sotegai - which has been used recently to describe the tsunami and its devastation. This is where we are on the spectrum, it is beyond our imagination, not that of the mass media or urban planners trying to woo us, or homeless advocates that might point at housing partners as trying to run them out of the neighborhood.

When the term mixed-use is used, planners are referring to high density v. low, retail v commercial, restaurant v. business, locally owned vs. out of town. Even the streets become mixed use with cars, taxis, buses, shuttles, and possibly streetcars.

But how do you portray mixed population? A few weeks ago, we drove past “the house,” stopped the car and walked around, sharing the sights with Mark’s parents, who may still be a little shocked, but are supportive nonetheless. Four young African-American children who had been playing on the front stoop three or four doors down. It was evident we were prospective homeowners. One little one shouted across the street, “Hey, do you have any children?”

Mark laughed it off, and told them, “Yes, but they are older.” Though either of the ones at home, who hear us speak candidly about this move, would not have held back from offering their time to the young children.

After that visit, I could finally answer Mark’s question about support. “Maybe we will have to work harder to create that support.” Like sharing our time with those young children. I could easily envision us spending a Sunday afternoon eating ice cream with them. Or the older gentleman who, in the midst of winter while walking his dog, invited us to view his condo, of which he was very proud. Little did we know he would be a potential neighbor, as the view from our third floor window looked diagonally upon his. Weeks after we toured his home, we spotted him at the bank machine nearby Findlay Market. We were both delighted at having recognized each other. Would he have my back? I believe so. Could he cook a mean tenderloin? I believe that too.

The podcast program I produce recently hosted Sister Alice Gerdeman who works in OTR and has for years. And as much as she is concerned with development ousting those who a need a place to call home, she also realizes there is good that can come from development too. When I shared with her that Mark and I were considering this move, I stated our reasons for wanting to do this, “We love the feel of the city life, the varied events, the proximity to Music Hall and Washington Park and a walk to the Reds games.” Then I absentmindedly mentioned, “We liked the idea of living in a diverse neighborhood. We feel we would have a lot to offer. She responded in kindness, “And you could learn from others there too.” Yes, Sister, I would have a lot to learn.

Mark and I are realists. One has to be when experiencing the death of a spouse at an early age, becoming single parents, and more to the point, raising four teenagers, well, three now. We harbor no illusions or agenda to come in and save the day. While we expect to be beneficiaries of the centuries of wisdom accumulated within Over-the-Rhine, we feel called to do this, precisely because it is beyond our imagination.

Wild Things

2011-03-02 - Fear of Wild Things


Two nights ago, Mark and I sit, on our respective cushioned chairs. The dog lies still at my lap’s side. The Good wife just finished. I am not a TV addict, but I like having a schedule and a favorite show is sometimes the best way I know of to decompress and let the last bit of life run out of me for the day.

Then, the news. Breaking news. Isn’t all news breaking. Breaking and entering. Breaking someone’s hearts. Breaking into the peace of my evening. Broken pieces of life scattered around.

It seems that when the first headlines involve a crime, the first mention is always Over the Rhine. My husband and I exchanged dubious glances. The oh no, here we go again. The newscaster mentions “Lang Street”, a literal desert, as the police call it, in the middle of downtown.

Here is the breakdown: A woman walking on Lang Street around 7:45 p.m. found Massey, slumped over a fire hydrant. He'd been shot several times. He was taken to University Hospital, where he died. Ploice continued to ask for information.

Mark had his iTouch nearby and proceeded to look up Lang, as neither of us knew where it was. And found that it was only eight blocks, as the crow flies, from somewhere we would like to call home. But Liberty defines a separate part of OTR, one not quite ready for civiliazation at nighttime.

As it would turn out later, the victim had a long history of violating others and while no one should be left alone to die, one can understand how he came to be violated himself.

Then, followed by this unsettling piece of new breaking news. 25 year old Patrick Massey was shot to death on Lang Street in Over-the-Rhine around 7:45 p.m. A second victim was found about 20 minutes later, at the intersection of 14th and Walnut Streets.

33 year old Michael Bohannon was shot in the chest on 13th Street around 8:20 p.m. Tuesday. Bohannon ran to 14th and Walnut Streets for help.

You can almost hear another heart break.

I suspect when people hear this news, they then look my way with a confusing glance. My husband and I are white, upper class, educated, common sense sort of people. The type of people others turn to for advice. What on earth would prompt this move?

So, the fears sit, in the back of my mind. Late night, Mark on call at the hospital, my adorable, but not particularly ferocious dog at my side. Will someone break in. Should we install security cameras? How careful do we need to be? I often walked the dog on starry winter nights. Would we be pursued in a random act of violence? The question remains, how random is random.

An African American in OTR once told me, most of the violence is young male, black on black crime, and typically involves drugs. Statistics back this up, every evening on the news.

But a young 18 year old, sitting in a restaurant at Tuckers, in the heart of the neighborhood, was shot and wound up paralyzed. She was black. The owner of the restaurant, white, was also shot, but she is recovering albeit slowly. Where is the outrage? Will it only come when someone considered an outsider to the community, strolls along, walking the extra block from Findlay to the car, or to just enjoy the architecture of OTR, happens in the middle of a stray bullet.

Do we just assume, that the those inclined to harm others will continue to kill themselves off?

They have nothing left to lose.

The Peace of Wild Things
BY WENDELL BERRY
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendall Berry writes of the peace of wild things. Where will I go to lie down with the drake. Where would that oasis be, in the middle of OTR? The wild things are those who do not hold respect for life, they do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I will think of them as drakes and fear them not. I will see them as great herons watch them take flight. Be a witness, not an agitator.

Where will the still water be? What runs still in a nighttime filled with drugs and violence and cars that drive slowly and rats that scurry. I will listen for the distant trumpet blowing from inside Music Hall. I will rest in the grace of the music, waiting for day to enlighten hearts.

The Stone Which the Builders Rejected

2/14/2011

I was tired that day, a migraine from a change in air pressure had sent the hammer gauge off the charts, but I persisted in wanting a Valentine’s Day celebration that did not include a daughter’s school play at the end of the day. So my husband and I made our way downtown’s Over the Rhine, to what was rapidly becoming our second city, after hearing about the scheduled demolition of the Wheatley Tile Company building to make room for the new Horseshoe Casino.

The Wheatley Tile Company once rivaled Rookwood Tiles. Both were founded in the city in the early 1900s, both produced simple primitive designs in earthen colors on clay. The Wheatley tiles had more of a raised outline around its depictions than the Rookwood, which is how dealers often told them apart.

The Wheatley Tile Building sat in the northeast corner of downtown Cincinnati. While some were demolishing, others were preserving, such as the owners of the Wooden Nickel antiques. They had gathered the most impressive pieces left in the Wheatley building and tenderly removed them to their studio, which is where we were presently headed.

Clarify: Mark and I knew nothing about antiques. We muddled through the first building of the Wooden Nickel without mittens (note to self, needed when visiting in winter or spring), we thought we were highbrow when Mark noted “Eastlake” on a tag on a piece of furniture that we almost had to step over to view other more interesting mantle pieces, some made from oak in about the late 19th century. Eastlake style, named after Charles Eastlake, a British architect who never actually made the furniture, only offered design concepts, was about all knew about the style of furnishings that were outfitting the Italianate/Victorian homes in Over the Rhine and across the country in the late 19th century.

This was after all, when we were beginning our own journey of someday (within a few years) establishing ourselves in a community as a couple and not parents of four. Or at least when Charles Mueller had begun his. We had been intoning his name since we came across a thesis written about a home he built in the 1860s and housed his wife and six children, smack dab in the middle of Over the Rhine. I imagined the area was called Over the Rhine in those days. And that Charles had been a member of a famed German choral group. Charles too, we knew, was also an apothecary.

Why were we so interested in Charles? Because he probably still haunted the house we had been stalking yeah these many weeks since a developer showed us the place. I would not refer to my first viewing of the home as love at first sight, mainly because I walked in with a flashlight, a miner’s headlamp, one that my son and I used to go on long walks at nighttime and the neighbor, Mr. Prus would stop to ask what we were looking for. And Davis might answer, “Bugs.” And I might shake my head in agreement and in astonishment that a neighbor had busted me doing this.

But love at first sight? At first sight of what? It was dark and damp and dusty, the holy trinity of preservationists, plus a foot of snow formed molds around my feet as I stomped through the streets to get to the front door. I am no wimp. I grew up in Cleveland.

While no one is happy in Cleveland, we are at least a hardy sort of folk. I spent winters in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana. I ski. My annual rite of Winter is to run during the first snowfall, and the last, even if, in Cincinnati, I never know when that might be, could be February, could be April, May for that matter.

We stomped our feet to stay warm, and dare I say, in homage to Mother, not dare track a foot of snow in a house that had no heat. The developer pulled out what appeared to be a map, but it was an architect’s rendering of a potential renovation of this home. We mulled it over with flashlights, and occasionally I looked up to note the absence of rails on the wooden staircase. I also note the lack of rats scurrying across my boots in the first instance we had passed into the parlor room, but I moved forward with caution.

We trekked through three floors of home, and a basement. It is hard to be clear-minded when you have been blindsided, by 150 years of history, by the blank slate of plaster walls and boarded transoms. My mind spun in the many directions that the stairs were running and that the developer was talking. It raced back and forth to my favorite piece of furniture made from rural furniture maker with cherry and burl wood. Would those bookcases fit in whatever room we might call a study or parlor? The Amish table crafted to hold six lives and then some, how would that fit into the kitchen space? My herbs and tomatoes, where would they grow?

The amount of work that would have to be put forth to accomplish this? It would be like raising a baby all over again. Did I want that? My children tell me people get shot in OTR, as if they have witnessed this themselves. I say, sometimes you have to play PollyAnna. My ancestors did, and survived the crossing of the Atlantic. Surely, Icould survive the crossing of city limits and for that matter, Central Parkway.

Our tour of the home concluded. The developer walked us through a few more buildings, shared wall condo spaces, a few industrial lofts across the street and around the corner. And each time I glanced out windows not boarded, or peered down alleys not blocked, for some reason, all I could see was the house we had just toured. Actually, owners back in the 70s has painted the brick an obnoxious Kelly green, so I suspect the coloring made the structure stand out as well.

We ended that day, Mark and I, without exchanging real words on the drive home, mostly suppositions about timing, costs. Its funny, I don’t recall there ever being a decision that we definitely wanted to move to OTR. That we wanted this house so bad we would give our first born, second third and fourth, to become the caretaker of this piece of history. There were some ideas, events, happenings in life, such as my life with the person now driving the car, where you “just know.”

As it was Monday, I had not set an ounce of pen to paper to write for my Monday night writing class. So, I wandered to the back office and sat down in front of the computer. But my mind, which had time traveled to 1860s only hours ago, was now stuck in the past, or the future, but certainly not in the time in front of me.

So, I loaded up Google instead and typed in the address of the home we had just visited. And there I found a thesis, written by Micheal , a student at the DAAP program at UC, with a master’s in historic preservation. The central focus of the thesis was the home we had just viewed, dare I say, our home. I was reluctant to share this with Mark, because I knew how Fate worked, and suddenly, I would realize Fate was leading me down I-71. I also wanted to absorb the information for myself first. Instead, I had to cook spaghetti and head out of the house, leaving Mark engrossed in the document instead.

So, we began to develop this narrative around things the writer revealed in his thesis. Charles’ occupation as apothecary for one, was of interest to Mark, because of his medical background. When I told Mark the house would need a name, and blatantly suggested the Apothecary, we both burst out laughing, knowing either the police would be knocking down our doors, or a certain portion of society that also makes OTR its home would be asking for something else.

But I am all about names. I had a name for my book before I wrote it. I know the title to my poems before penning them. I named our son (or daughter) before the baby was born, ready either way. Some might argue a name projects an outcome before its time, but I argue a name is what creates the vision. When I wanted to develop a drive through coffee bar concept, I was stuck in the planning stages until I had a name. What’s in a name? Everything. But Apothecary would be left out!

A few weeks later, we exchanged emails with the builder, with a design contract sitting in my email inbox that I had not looked at, but there I sat, taking the time to write a three page excerpt on two tiles we would buy at the Wooden Nickel, enticed by TV coverage earlier in the week of Wheatley artifacts that would be for sale. We were either suckers or on a mission. I opted for both.

The tiles, which we finally viewed at the Wooden Nickel, depicted a crusader on horseback. They were made as companion pieces, as such one faced left, one faced right. So, a buyer would have to purchase two, for karma and all. These types of pieces were used to anchor designs in fireplaces. I told Mark, “we should buy them.”, noting this was another step in the direction of our downtown move. The price seemed fair, as we later researched on the Internet. But at the time, I felt nothing said commitment like setting it in stone. Isnt that what diamonds are all about?

On the way home from our most recent foray into the city jungle, I kept asking Mark, “what is that Bible quote, you know, the one about the stone and the builders. “ I never was one to memorize Bible passages, except as they related to the singing of Veggie Tales.

Later, it struck me, and I shouted out, “the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”. Some interpretations say the Greek word in the Psalm 118 also translated to capstone, such as a capstone project upon graduation. But I like the idea of a cornerstone, a foundation, a commitment to the long-term. A capstone might indicate, “my work here is done.” But a cornerstone proclaims, “my work has just begun.”

What I Want to Remember

From a fastwrite 1/24/11 What do I remember about that day, that moment?
Following our first look at 1419 race. street

What to remember about that day, that moment?

The children were absent,
and there was no concern
for their education or recreation
The only fret being
where the dog would pee.

The sliver of the skyline viewed
through a boarded window on the third floor.
The dark recesses illuminated by a
miner’s flashlight,
crown molding,
scalloped edges around the stairs

The mind, how it traveled to places
free from criticism, stereotyping,
these one’s own vices

Strolling towards Washington Park
as it if were the 1860s
when landmarks punctuated the city’s narrative

Visions of lamp lights
gleaming in the puddles of uneven streets
Neighbors challenging convictions
Cultivating a garden on the rooftop,
a second smaller plot outside the kitchen door
Landing a kiss on a husband’s soft round lips
Planting oneself in the midst of a community
That needs roots.