I had the time, energy, and weather for a bike ride today, and wow, it had been a long time since I got to do that. I started with a quick ride down the hill to meet friends for brunch, in celebration of B. and D.’s birthdays. I had a cobb salad–classic brunch dish, I know–and a cup of coffee, cheers-ed the friends, felt grateful for this part of my community, and then hopped on my bike to head home.

I took a right into the Centre Street bike lane, planning to head up via Fallsway, but then I thought I’d just keep heading east instead. I hadn’t been over to Patterson Park in a long time, and maybe there’s still be some fall colors popping. The air was a little chill, the sky blue, the traffic slow, and I was all alone with nowhere to be. I am so lucky to be here, to get to pedal around like this, still, and I felt that intense joy at being alive that I get to feel because I know, viscerally, that I will someday die. The only real silver lining from cancerX2, not worth it, but I’ll take it.

I stopped as I rode east on Gough to snap a picture of this baby fall tree behind the cement barriers and in front of this fence keeping me out of the empty space where I’m guessing another condo building will go up. This used to be Perkins Homes, and now it is new condos, luxury affordable housing, brought to us by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. I zigged and zagged through here all the time, for years, and now I barely recognize where I’m at.

Perkins Homes is now Perkins Square, and it is a mixed income housing development. For a two bedroom in an “affordable” unit, the rent is $1,545 and for two people, their yearly income must be between $37,080 and $58,680. Market rate for the same unit is $2,500, with a minimum $60,000 annual income, and no max. My mortgage for a three bedroom townhome is $1,586, including insurance and taxes. I’m going to be thinking a lot about this math for a minute.

Residents of the old Perkins Homes were given vouchers to find housing in other parts of the city that could also be used to return to Perkins Square. I wonder how many people have returned, and where they were until they could come back. Perkins is part of an overall redevelopment project called PSO: Perkins-Somerset-Old Town. I wonder what it will be like to bike around here in 20 years, and I wonder how historians and geographers will tell the story of this project and its particular displacements. I’ll be riding an electric assist bike by that time, but I’m certainly planning to still be riding my bike around Baltimore in my 70s.

I continued my ride east, up into Patterson Park, around, down to Canton Waterfront Park, and then back the way I came, heading north and west to go home. I took Luzerne north to Greenmount Cemetery, a left on Federal, a right on Milton to North Avenue. I took the North Ave. bus/bike lane west to Barclay, a right up to my house. I was flying, saying hi to the right turn that would take me to 25th but not in a good way on a bike; the drug store where I got my sertraline prescription filled for the first time when I moved here; the Great Blacks in Wax Museum that is still waiting for its big expansion; and Roberta’s House, a Family Grief Support Center. That is a place we need in this city, for sure.

I have lived in Baltimore three times longer than I have lived anywhere other than Boise, ID, where I grew up. I have lived here long enough to have been several different people in this same place, and today felt like getting to say hi to a few of them. Hi, Kate, I’m so glad you are here. More, please.