Baltimore
By Marlyn Terrell Thomas
I had this beautiful essay planned - one that talked about place and migration. Then my apartment was shot through. How could I talk of Baltimore as home, now? How could I sing its praises and pretend that I wasn’t sitting a few feet away from a hole in the wall that was not there 48 hours ago? Had my home, yet again become, as Warsan Shire says, “the mouth of a shark?”
As a Black child in rural Georgia, visiting other places largely existed for me in books. Characters like Nettie from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Cassie of Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and the girls in Rosa Guy’s Ruby, showed me that Black girls went places. I longed to do what they did - travel the world, attend college, take trains, and feel every emotion possible.
In my adult life, I’ve lived in a few places. From peach-tree-abundant Fort Valley, Georgia, to the land of the Big Twelve in Kansas, Alabama, but nowhere has returned to me quite like Baltimore.
Baltimore had its stories, and the libraries here became a place where I could see, hear and live them. The Enoch Pratt Free library, the Sheridan Library, and The Village Learning Place opened up worlds of experiences like talks by King Peggy Bartel, exhibits from artists like by Floyd Cooper, and live music.
During the 2015 Baltimore Protests, responses from the murder of Freddie Gray, Enoch Pratt's main branch became a food and necessities distribution center, an information hub for affected community members and small-business owners, and a general place of liaison work for the community. Dr. Carla Hayden, CEO of Enoch Pratt Free Library and library workers at the time taught us about the library’s role in the community and crisis.
The Library as a safe haven has been a constant for me. The Library is where I went when I was too afraid to go to parties my first semester of college; it was also where I went to hide for a semester after my first breakup. I worked in a library in graduate school, finding more community there than in my degree program. Once I obtained the paper library card with the metal strip as a child, I became a part of a universal society with thousands of spaces and people looking for community too.
When the shot happened, one of my instincts was to go to the Library, but I decided to stay in place. Place.
But don’t we have to listen to the land too?
What is Baltimore telling me now?
An outside view taken from my window. White, fluffy clouds sit in a blue sky on a sunny day. Buildings, mostly brick, are seen below the clouds. The outside view is framed by the wide window inside of the apartment. On the windowsill are many books, a green leafy plant, a turquoise pitcher filled with yellow and white flowers, and some pictures.
From sitting view on the bus, the yellow headrest of a seat's blurry message in black marker "GOD CAN KEEP A SECRET." The left side shows the plaid clothing of a rider and above are yellow straps for standing passengers.
A sunny, across the water view of the National Aquarium at the Inner Harbor. The guitar atop of the Hard Rock Cafe is also seen in the sky line. Two small wooden docks are above blue rippling water. A red boat with the name "Chesapeake" printed in white block lettering can be seen on the left-hand side
![On Charles Street and E. Pleasant Street, a message written in black print reads "Big dreams/ Big Ideas/ Big Books/ We[']re Not
Lost" with the blurry image of the Purple Route bus arriving at the bus stop.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f29752c8c1bdc7f2ddc6c67/3bcf393e-06c2-4910-87c6-a6fd5cfe88f9/Thomas_Baltimore_001.jpg)
On Charles Street and E. Pleasant Street, a message written in black print reads "Big dreams/ Big Ideas/ Big Books/ We[']re Not Lost" with the blurry image of the Purple Route bus arriving at the bus stop.
Land is alive. I believe it can detect your allegiance or treason in your heart. It can smell your emotions. And “grow where you’re rooted?” The fallacy that any plant can grow in any environment is not only scientifically untrue, but culturally, adaptation is sometimes the bitter fruit from survival mode. I’ve decided my life should taste good, you can find yourself trying to cultivate life that the land will not yield to, no matter your desperation. I’m at a total loss for what Baltimore is saying to me now. It’s always regarded me like Paul D. did Sethe: "She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind." And so it was. But what is it now?
When my apartment was shot through, I was on the phone with my colleague Marc, who was attending the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity, in New Orleans (NCORE); during our conversation, I heard beating on the wall and then POOF!, followed by dust. The next few hours were a swirl of things that now I realize is what Baltimore is about: community.
The police showed up and they seemed to be investigating. In my unbridled emotion, a neighbor, Ayoola, did breathing exercises with me, sat and talked with me, answered the door and questions because I was between hysterical and checked out. Later, I remembered I had signed up to attend a Zoom meeting of The Free Black Women’s Library in conversation with Luisah Teish on her newest book, A Calabash of Cowries. Wanting to fill my time with normalcy and hoping Ola’s facilitation would help me, I attended. A group of us, some wanting to discuss the book, others looking for community, and all seeking the advice and wisdom given by Yeye Teish, sat together for three hours of communion marked by laughter, head shaking, and grateful hearts.
I don’t know if I will stay in Baltimore; everyone deserves a physical place where they are sheltered and safe. This is a human right. At some point, communities will come back to that truth and we can build and revitalize places where no one sleeps under a bed for safety or is socially on the outs with everyone around them because home will always be there, waiting.
What I know is that even if I leave, Baltimore will call out to me anyway, so I will always come back here. As I write this, I am thinking of Tank and the Bangas “Black Folk,” and the layered experience of being Black. The bullet through my wall is something I never expected to encounter, but there it was: a shiny ore-looking thing, almost beautiful in its imitation of a precious stone. The big thing I learned is this: Home is community that props you up when your legs are shaky; a glass of water when your mouth is too dry to speak.
When my neighbor showed up the next day to check on me, she was wearing a white flowing dress on her way to brunch. When she left, I decided that I too would get up, and get dressed for another day in Baltimore.
Marlyn Terrell Thomas is the Writing Specialist for the School of Social Work at Morgan State University; she is a Black woman from the rural South currently residing in Baltimore, Maryland. Marlyn is a two-time Rare Books School student and NEH Summer Institute Fellow. Her interests include language justice, Black culture, and all things Octavia Butler.