July 20, 2019.
I traveled between worlds bound by a bus line
I stood on the corner of 36th & Chestnut on July 20th, 2019 and felt sweat trickle down the backs of my knees. I had given up on comfort and submitted my senses to the heat. It was 97 degrees and the sun was blaring, but Baltimore did not retreat. Pedestrians milled around the Avenue and popped in and out of shops and restaurants, cool hideaways from a bustling summer street where the air itself was a dense and sticky emulsion of asphalt and sunlight. As I waited for the bus in the thick of it, I watched people try on vintage sunglasses from a sidewalk display.
Earlier that morning I had taken a bus from my Howard street home up to the other end of the Avenue, and waited in the shade of a church for a producer and an intern from WYPR. I got mic’d up and talked about the history of snowballs, Baltimore’s beloved flavored icy confection. Legend has it that ice trucks passing through neighborhoods would shave off ice for children and the children’s mothers started making flavorings. I don’t know about that. I do know that by the early 1900s, street vendors were peddling a variety of flavors and toppings and doing a booming business.
I also don’t know the origins of the neon yellow “egg custard” flavor, but I suspect it never contained eggs. I muttered something into the microphone about evocative names, dressing up the fact that snowballs are made mostly of water and sugar.
After the interview, I was treated to a snowball and my voice recorded while I ordered my standard - yes, egg custard, marshmallow creme. The producer took recordings of the sound of the machine crushing and grinding the ice and then conducted an informal survey of flavor preferences among the growing line of customers.
I bid my farewells and consumed my snowball as I made my way down the Avenue through the summer heat.
On the heavenly, air-conditioned bus, Lennie Tristano’s “Turkish Mambo” played on my headphones. Its looped piano felt at one with the wheels and gears of the bus moving us through the city. We passed through neighborhoods of people on marble stoops, fanning themselves cool; groups of men hovered over the open hoods of old cars; parking lots baking in the sun and radiating heat; pedestrians dragging slowly through the thick air. I counted seven snowball stands. Most were just folding tables with an ice crusher and a modest rainbow of flavor jugs. A few had an umbrella to provide a tiny circle of reprieve from the sun. I hit the back button on my ipod to play “Turkish Mambo” again.
The bus passed the hospital and Northeast Market, places I knew well. It turned and bent southeast in right angles like an Etch-a-Sketch. We entered the thick of Highlandtown.
Disoriented, I walked several blocks in the wrong direction before turning around and finding my destination, a grocery store. For months, I had been cooking nothing but Mexican and Tex-Mex food. Ginger and cardamom languished in my pantry while I continually stocked up on dried peppers and cumin, chili powder and sazon. I filled my cart with tomatillos, cilantro and avocados; chorizos and cheeses from Central America.
Chris didn’t let the heat stop him either. He was determined to ride his bike and we met on a corner and went into an ice cream shop. Although I had only walked a few blocks from the market, I was already ready to bask in another cool interior. I sipped a tea, the smell of sausages sneaking up from the bag at my feet.
When we parted ways to meet back home, it was starting to cool down and I walked through Patterson Park to catch my last bus of the day. I would later find I had been bitten by mosquitos in the park. But I sounded alright on the radio.
In the summer of 2018, I’d been at a breaking point that turned out to be a breakthrough. I was diagnosed with ADHD for the third time. I accepted the diagnosis and found a world of resources that no one had ever proffered before. I learned a concept that changed my life: sensory overload. I found rationale for the rigid structures I had already built around me that enabled me to work, to socialize, and to create, and I bolstered those structures. I enrolled in college.
Most importantly, I found a new job. A job that didn’t crush my soul and drain my creativity. It was three blocks away from my house. I spent lunch hour at home with my dog. I prepared salsa and made wet balls of masa for dinner time before returning to work. I went to the library on Tuesdays to write blog posts.
Almost one year into my new life, I was so grateful I didn’t let the summer heat stop me from trekking through the city. In one afternoon I had traveled between neighborhoods, disparate worlds bound by a bus line.
I didn’t know it then, but a year later I would be unraveling, the pandemic undermining the stability I had only just grasped. Another year after that and grief would make me undone completely.
Each summer now will be hotter than the last one. I wonder how many times I will feel sweat tickling the back of my knees before the feeling stops reminding me of July 20, 2019.