Everybody’s a fool for something, I’m a fool for Baltimore

Day One - Wednesday:

The train leaves the station at 0936, but rather than simply arrive at the station, suitcase in hand, I have decided life must become a little more complicated. I arrive at the bus/train station at 0800, grab a coffee and a muffin, drop off some dvds at the library, and trek six or so blocks to the main store in Colonial Williamsburg to retrieve my paycheck from last week. By the time I've finished my breakfast, it is 0830, so the supervisors and managers should be in the midst of their meeting, and opening the store, but no. One person in the entire building, counting out tills, and so I dash upstairs, to check in my mailbox for my due funds. No dice. No check, and no mailbox, either. Alright.. I search for another twenty minutes through the other boxes, read our new official "code of conduct" for Colonial Williamsburg (hey, they never mention the legality of kite-flying!), and wait until the hour for my supervisor to ask her where my mailbox and check disappeared off to. 0910, and I give up. Ridiculous that none of these people can use common sense with my position, or any of the shop positions for that matter. Then again, when I've been working there for two months, and still haven't gone through my "necessary" training classes dealing with money, tills, and the register, but have gone through the safety course to know what to do in case of a chemical spill, so...

The train is on time, and the ride is uneventful but for a rider chewing out one of attendants in the next car over (you could see her waving her arms about and hear her yelling), and the fellow behind me who was called at least a dozen times on his cell phone, and snorted like a cross between a pig and a goose when he laughed.

At last, the train wound its way through the outskirts of town, graffiti marring the crumbling brick ,and weeds growing through the pavement and sidewalks, and a small but noticeable weight was lifted off. She's home, always will be. And as much as I don’t miss some things about the grit of her, the dirt makes her all the more beautiful and quirky.

No, she's no pretty small town, nor does she have the rolling hills and lush green that Williamsburg boasts, but she has a magnetism.

They say we always come back. Us Baltimore girls.

The Ginger Snap picked me up from Penn Station, to the tune of much giggling and Hawaiian bread (some things never change). Little over an hour of arriving in town, I am fitted out, and making our trademark iron-tainted water, helping to set up the hunt, and feeling the warmth of a family I'll never forget (as well as feeling the humidity I can never escape). Once again I am in uniform, assuming the rank of Able Seaman (nearly seven years over), and feeling quite alive. A little worried that the months have made me forget, but things come back to me soon enough once I start getting into the night's events.

Sixty sixth grade girls, and a half-dozen adults, with the soft-spoken newest addition to the crew, the Master-at-Arms, myself, and Mr White. The girls, well, are not only girls, but also prestigious college prep Towsonites. Sounds like a recipe for an interesting night.

The activities (manning the capstan, bracing the mizzen topsail and crossjack yards to catch the wind, ship's tour and orientation) go off as planned, aside for one small detail. I got to step in, and give commands that slipped easily off the tongue after a quick glance to the Master-at-Arms. Belaying and coiling the lines afterward, the familiar dirt and fiber and occasional splinter felt good and comforting to my now-softened hands. Ah, yes, this is hard work again.

Dinner goes as well as can be expected, the scavenger hunts are completed, the girls sing about their desires to be a "captain's mate," and we call lights out and start the watches, with only the occasional thump-giggle of a girl falling out of her hammock. The MAA and I reminisce about times past and I remember how much I need this family, just as much as I need my birth family.

We soon crash on the deck in the captain's cabin, and 0515 comes all too early. As does 0520, 0525, and.. you get the picture.

Lights are soon flicked on, commands to turn out and clean up are given, and the girls stumble out of their hammocks. The deck is washed down, brass polished, wood shined and buffed. Breakfast is doled out, and then the most-anticipated event in the entire overnight....

GUN DRILL.

Three men in uniform, three cannons set out to drill. Within minutes, the deck is filled with the muffled shouts and cheers of nervous and excited grade-schoolers, and the yelling of "Action! Heave! Action! Heave!" and the final roar as the drill is completed and the girls trod topside, leaving me with the three quiet weapons and lines strewn about. No matter; the familiarity of the tackles and thumps of the handspikes against wood is comforting in the solitude, the occasional laughter and lilting voices of Chips and company rising through the hatches. I soon head topside myself, in time for the rifled great gun to fire, completed the event.

As tired as I am, it is a start to the short break I planned this month, a reminder of what I have left behind.

I miss her. Theirs is an attachment she holds to me that no other ship will replace, nor any other workplace.

The crew, those that I've grown up with, they're family. Always have been.

It would be so easy to come back. So easy to never look back, and return to the grit of the city. And so much of me wants to. I'm not happy in Virginia. I don't like the state. She's no home. I need the life of the city, a vivacity that is nonexistent in Williamsburg. But yet, I will stay stubborn, and wait.

Williamsburg offers an autonomous life, independence I need still so much. The river is one of the few things that keeps the life in me.. the wind on my face, the sand and stones beneath my feet, the water lapping at my feet. The water keeps me steadfast.

One day I'll see Home again.

Day Two - Thursday:

Post-overnight, the day is slow and empty. Most of my time is spent in the back yard, wrestling and playing with the dogs so that my hair is in knots of grass and dirt. The evening comes, and with it a trip to Bird River Inn, a tiny trailer home-turned-restaurant, a shack of a bar leaned up against it, with newspaper tablecloths and monochrome televisions showing the baseball game. Lemon-butter-pepper mussels and clams, Old Bay shrimps and onion slices, two dozen steamed crabs, Maryland crab soup, and fresh summer green beans and ears of crisp corn, and several glasses of sweet tea later, we waddle out of the tiny restaurant, the smell of salt heavy in the air.

Music: Alanis Morisette - 'So Pure'