Date night.
After a post-night shift nap, Jane and I grab a cab to the harbor. We have dinner at The Rusty Scupper, where one pays a premium for the waterfront view moreso than the food (though the food is not bad either). We share a big plate of fried calamari, grilled sea bass, and giant crab cakes. The waiters, perhaps mistaking us for high school sweethearts out on a first date, take us up to the second floor balcony to have our picture taken with Baltimore's downtown skyline across the water. It is a bit reminiscent of an August day in Boston, when we ate broiled seafood platters at No Name Restaurant, had our picture taken at the register, and spent the rest of the day walking along the marina, going to the movies, and visiting the aquarium. That was eight years ago. In the interim, I've discovered an unexpected benefit of long distance, which is that eighty-hour workweeks and professional responsibilities notwithstanding, you feel, more often than not, that you have all the time in the world to be together.
After dinner, we walk along the water in front of Rash Field, circling around the harbor back toward our home on Washington Hill. In the waterfront park, a ferris wheel has been set up, and booths are selling cotton candy, slushies, and popcorn. A brass band is performing in the pavilion beside the beach volleyball courts. Passing the Maryland Science Center, we reach the first exhibits of the Light and Art Walk, a 3-mile-long chain of sculptures, displays, and interactive art pieces arranged along the Inner Harbor as part of Baltimore's annual Light City festival. As the sun sets, children are bouncing up and down on strobe-lit seesaws along the harbor's west shore. At The Pool, a grid of multi-colored LED stepping stones, I join the other kids and adults alike hopping from circle to circle, mesmerized by the lights bursting under my feet. Jane stands to the side and watches her grown man-child, bemused.
Further along the waterfront, we put on VR goggles and watch the Baltimore Visitor Center transform into a fantasyscape of floating islands and dinosaurs. We wander into food tents with vendors selling wine, ramen, and chocolate-covered berries. As the skies darken, the promenade lights flicker on, shining the way up Charles Street towards the Monument in Mt. Vernon. On the corner of Pratt Street, a band is jamming with the crowd in front of the main soundstage. We turn the corner and hop aboard the deck of the Civil War-era sloop, the Pride of Baltimore II, whose mast and riggings have been festooned with LED lights. As night falls, the crowd thickens into a flowing mass of humanity. Sightseers, city slickers, and out-of-towners alike come dressed in their best glow-in-the-dark headpieces, bangles, and Orioles tees; the Inner Harbor is alive with celebration.
Out on the jetty, I set up my tripod and take long exposures at the scene across the water. The harbor is lined with yachts sailing through the glassy waters and tall ships anchored from around the world. The ferris wheel is now a glowing rim under the lanterns of Federal Hill, and blue-green searchlights around the city rove through the night sky. We stare befuddled at OVO, a massive, lattice-metal egg planted in a reflecting pool at the water's edge, as it cycles through a rainbow of colors and emits bursts of water vapor mist. "Pineapple!" cries Jane as it morphs from green to gold. As I click away with exposure after exposure, the crowd filing through the egg becomes a mass of amorphous ghosts, silhouetted against the colors and the lights.
Past the National Aquarium, we walk across the suspension foot bridge to the next pier, which has been transformed into OUR HOUSE, an overhead web of neon and floodlights that pound to an electric soundtrack. We follow the pier past display after display of light and music; the neighboring restaurants and hotels are in on the act, their balconies and rooftops decorated and glowing. At the end of our walk, we reach my favorite display of the night, Drift, a series of rowboats sailing down the canal at the edge of the harbor, each carrying a radiating tower of multi-colored umbrellas. There is something strangely calming, something all-too-magical, about watching the boats move across the water, their glowing cargo carving its way through the night's darkness. We turn up the canal and walk the streets back toward home, with the heart of the city alive and bright around us.
