Back to the 'Burgh

The day I graduated from college, I got into my parents' car, and did not return until four years later. That visit was a whirlwind for a friend's wedding, we had baby boys in tow, and I spent the bachelorette party expressing in the bathroom. Last Wednesday, I returned to Pittsburgh the way that I really wanted to--taking our time, with deliberate intention, and there to serve a friend.

Arriving by train on the eve of the G-20 conference of world leaders, there was anticipation in the air. That plus showing Pittsburgh to my girls plus seeing my dear friend pregnant after years of trying, I stepped off the train with a full heart. The odd humidity, the blocked off streets, and trying to find Alice almost distracted me from seeing the Greyhound Station, where, when I die, I want a memorial bench with a Neruda quote. Right away, my head was spinning with nostalgia. Alice (new wheels!) drove us to her flat, where she served us bubbling personal pot pies with the girls' initials cut out in the crust. We put the girls to bed and drank Rhine wine and toddies so late that she had to call in sick the next day.

Clara, Callio, and I, however, had a strong momentum and took the 51A down to campus. The thing about Pittsburgh is not the route you take from here to there but the view you have as you approach. When driving, you come out of the Ft. Pitt tunnel, round a bend, and the city is revealed like a blue-collar Oz, bridges and hillsides span and add to the unexpected elegance. This view always brought me to tears when coming back to school. Katiebird, mom-to-be, offered to drive this with me, I should have accepted. The way the bus approached campus, though, made up for it. We saw the music building where the Mr. Rogers archives are. The clean sand-colored stone, exactly as I had remembered. The students filing in the door, passing us on the street, were exactly as I had remembered too. Then we got off the bus at the end of N. Craig where we walked past Caliban books to meet Elli (my neice, senior there). The whole time, I'm thinking, that these are my peers, and that I have class to get to, then being jolted and surprised at the 2 and 3 year olds holding onto my skirt and the umbrella stroller on my shoulder is not my schoolbag, and instead of Petrarch in my bag, it is Richard Scarry and goldfish crackers.

We spotted Elli in the balcony of Kiva Han laughing with a guy dressed in what we called "alternative style" (I was thinking Kurt Cobain but I don't think they use either of these references nowadays.). She was giddy and played with the girls on the stanky couch while I sipped my coffee and repeated to myself "I am 32. I am 32." She was dressed for yoga and wore earrings made of metal measuring tape. She has the effortless beauty of 21, looking at her, you get the sense that time and gravity have not yet begun to mess with her. Don't get me wrong, I definitely do NOT wish I were 20 years old again with all of the angst and every gaping option staring me in the face about my future. I am just a nostalgic girl with a woefully good memory.

In this regard, I did spend the trip, sliding back and forth between fond remembering of those years and a sober joy about how my life did turn out. You'll have to ask Clara and Calliope-- about how many places we visited, about sitting in thrones in the Cathedral of Learning, about yelling up and down the infinite stair wells, about the bathroom in the Cathedral where I used to go after a particularly bad writing workshop (where my poems were described as "pedantic" or "dry and guarded"). My girls and I shared the sacrament of gum in that bathroom. Very healing for me. Also, Katiebird and I fed them O fries, which are largely responsible for my freshman 15 and Dave and Andy's Ice Cream where the cones and all the flavors are made right there. Also, they were drawn to the Water Wall at the Carnegie Museum, where I used to study and at the 61C cafe, spent an easy hour there, as if they'd been there before.

I got such a kick at every turn at sharing these places with my girls. A friend called it "latent Pitt Pride." I showed them where I saw Howard Zinn speak on Valentine's Day, Hemingway's pub where I did my last reading before graduating. We took photos on the corner in Squirrel Hill where Geoff proposed, The whole time, they were so game and interested. Maybe they just liked seeing me drunk on nostalgia and in the easy and warm company of my friends. I am so thankful for those years there and the things I learned-- oodles of modern poetry, wrote chap books full of poems, (some decent), lots about world religion, built a foundational understanding of faith, learned that it will take a community, learned that a person that thrills you isn't necessarily the one to make a life with, learned how to navigate heartbreak of all types (academic, romantic, friendship, and spiritual, heartbreak for others', sometimes my own).

It was a magical trip, and I know for next time, how totally crucial it is, to go at our own pace.