This guest post is from Dr. Kristen Danley. She is a resident at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, one of the most talented writers I know, and also happens to be my sister. Enjoy.
I’m standing on the sidewalk at 10 p.m., eating barbecue and listening to a roller derby girl explain how a dream helped her come up with her derby name, and it occurs to me that I’ve been in this city for a year now, almost to the day.
“Just being around you makes life weirder,” a friend says as we walk away from the surreal experience. I have to say, there are worse things I could be known for.
***
I came to Cincinnati for work; before I moved, I’d been here exactly twice: once for my interview, and once to find my apartment. The apartment started off my pattern. While apartment hunting, I had a list of neighborhoods that were trendy, and neighborhoods that were safe but not as well known. I gravitated toward the latter, settling on a small hundred-year-old building leased by a father-daughter team who have been leasing properties here for fifty years. When I signed the lease, my new landlady gave me a hug.
My apartment sits right down the road from a historic – if somewhat forgotten – corner with a beautiful neo-gothic church. I started attending because it was convenient; I stayed because the pastor, a soft-spoken priest who always starts mass late because he’s too busy saying hello to everyone, talks about community-building in nearly every homily. Then there are the church ladies, Ms. J, Ms. C, and Ms. D. I try to sit by them every week I’m there, and they ask me about work, tell me to take time for myself, and give me giant hugs. I can always spot Ms. J as soon as I walk in, because she favors neon pinks, oranges, and yellows in everything she wears.
In a way, Ms. J gave me the push I needed to look at the city outside of my insular work world. I’d been in the city for less than a month when she told me I was working too hard and needed to do more things with young people. Like a happy hour in an alley she’d heard about on Channel 9, for instance. Over on Gilbert Avenue. I should google it, she told me. Interest piqued, google I did, and that afternoon found my way to a pop-up biergarten hosted by a development corporation working in the next neighborhood over. I joined their Facebook page that afternoon, and it’s since become my lifeline for all of the off-the-beaten track events I’m not going to see advertised. At the time, though, I only knew that I had to climb through a fence to find the right alley – so sue me, I got a little lost – and tried my first local brewery beer while talking to a bunch of strangers with a vision for how the neighborhood could thrive again. Just last week I went back. The alley is newly mulched, the center space now inviting with trees and makeshift benches. Small kids ran around and a street musician fiddled in the background. I got soundly defeated at cornhole – beanbag toss to the non-southern part of the country – by a bunch of guys who work across the river, and fed my leftover potato wedges to a random dog who kept slipping her owner and begging politely but persistently from all the attendees.
Sometimes my friends make fun of me for a being a bit of a hipster. My furniture comes from a consignment shop down the road that funds a cancer support group. Much of my new clothing comes from another consignment shop. And my favorite necklace, a pendant made of the inside of a watch, came from a flea market/craft show downtown. Okay, that last one is definitely hipster-y, but I’ll claim it as geekiness, since thanks to that necklace all of my friends now know the definition of steampunk.
But it’s not about being different, for me; it’s about supporting a community that’s trying to build itself back up. One of my favorite stories is how when the only grocery store in the neighborhood nearly shut down a year or two ago because it wasn’t profitable enough, a group started a campaign to have everyone spend fifty dollars a month to keep it open. I’ve retold the story enough times that most of my friends go there at least once a month rather than to the fancier stores a mile or two further into the nice part of town.
At this point you’re probably thinking, great, another gentrifying millennial who doesn’t see reality around her. Am I presenting a rosy picture of my city? Of course I am. I’m proud of it. I’ve loved my time here. Does that mean I think it isn’t hurting? Not even close. I spend some of my time in a clinic in one of the most economically depressed parts of town, and I’ve had a teen tell me she goes to three or four funerals a year; a preteen tell me its not safe to go outside, so the only place she can find privacy is in her closet; and a young mother tell me she lost her job and can’t afford enough formula for her baby. I see kids who are falling through the cracks of an overburdened school system, and families that are always one meal away from hunger. But I also see people with a vision for what our city can be. I see volunteers at the Freestore Foodbank giving out food while connecting clients to social workers, job opportunities, and local shelters. I see small businesses opening their doors in the face of uncertainty and trying to create space for community conversations. I see a principal showing off a school that five years ago was on the brink of failure, and this year received an award for excellence. I see a Cincinnati that hasn’t given up.
***
I’ve only been able to convince a few friends to join me at the monthly Walk on Woodburn around the corner; this part of town is just too unfamiliar for most of my coworkers. A jazz band just finished playing, and the brewery tent is shouting out the last call. Now that the sun is down, the flock of little kids and dogs has given way to a more muted, older crowd. My landlady walks by and greets me with a hug. We wander down the street to see if any shops are still open, and find a storefront I haven’t seen before advertising free barbecue and stories. In the window, someone has made a cardboard cutout version of our more recognizable buildings. Inside, the walls are covered with painted diagrams, post-it notes, canvases, and a row of birdhouses that an enthusiastic woman informs us were decorated by neighborhood kids. The founders of Hilltop Stories are standing by the door. They’ll be helping film short pieces around the neighborhood this summer, to be screened in August, and they’re recruiting everyone to contribute their stories. On her way back from the gathering, a woman in roller derby gear asks if she can be on her skates in the film, and hands out copies of the derby schedule. My friends smile at me, bemused, and we walk home in the soft glow of streetlights.
Share it!
