An earlier version of this piece appeared in our February 2017 Sourcebook issue.
The author in front of the “LOVEVOLVE” mural by Sunny Stack Goode on Hull Street in Manchester (Photo by Jay Paul)
Hey, baby.
Do you remember when we first met? I came to town with friends to hear Soul Coughing play on Mayo Island. (I know I’m getting old, honey. Don’t remind me.) We ate at Third Street Diner. That’s not much to go on, is it? But it was April. You’re always so charming in April.
I saw you again a few years later, when I came to town for a job interview. I stopped for lunch at the Paragon Pharmacy near VCU, and the cook showed me how to properly peel a hard-boiled egg. Don’t bang it on the counter, she told me. Roll it. She peeled off the perfectly fractured shell.
The Paragon is gone now. So many things are. But back then, everything was new to me. And I realized I liked you, Richmond. I liked you a lot. You didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t from here.
I remember savoring the sunsets over Fountain Lake.
I remember venturing, alone, onto the railroad tracks by the river.
I remember discovering Maymont and, like Alice, falling into a wonderland.
I remember walking down Monument Avenue on cold December nights, past that one big crape myrtle twined with amber and gold lights. I always paused beneath its branches. It was like standing under a firework.
I remember going on the first date with the man I would marry: French toast at The Triple. The booth by the window. Sunday morning sunshine.
I remember jumping from the roof of our Fan apartment building onto the one next door. Was it a leap, or just a long step? The gap was narrow, the ground three stories down.
Of such things are romance made: lights, and leaps. The thrill of the forbidden.
Then I left you.
I moved to Norfolk for a job. I thought it was something I had to do.
I made friends with my rowdy naval neighbors. I sunbathed on the beach. But compared to you, Norfolk was drab.
I couldn’t stay away. I returned almost every weekend, remember? And then I came back for good.
I was married in the Italian gardens at Maymont, on a sweltering July evening. After a few years in a Grove Avenue apartment, I moved into a 1940s brick Cape in Lakeside. Then an ersatz blue Victorian in Bon Air.
I’m sorry I crossed the city line, honey. But I still write “RVA” as my return address. I still roll my hard-boiled eggs.
You’ve always known food is the surest way to my heart. I don’t mean your fine dining, fine though it is. I’m talking about those green and yellow sauces at Chicken Fiesta. And the macaroni salad at Sally Bell’s, and the upside-down cupcakes, too. The red-curry noodles at Chadar Thai, the basil vegetables at Mekong, the jalapeno mac at Alamo BBQ and the papas bravas at Bar Solita. You know what I like: a little sweet, a little heat and a lot of mayonnaise.
And you’re good-looking, you know? I dig your skyline. Your bricks are really stacked. Your river is wild.
You’re easy to love. (Remember that old slogan?) But at some point, I realized that was the problem in our relationship. You told stories about yourself that weren’t true. You tried so hard to hang onto your white-column facade. You maintained a terrible gentility.
You sold 350,000 people. You didn’t like to speak of it. You kept the cash.
You hoped your past would be silted over, covered like Kepone at the bottom of the James.
You pretended those big, bearded monuments were just your old furniture. Even I came to regard them as decorations.
But they weren’t. They never were.
And you know, Richmond, I’ve never loved you quite so much as I did during this past summer’s Black Lives Matter protests when, at last, you bowed your head and told the truth. When hundreds stood in a sudden storm and watched Stonewall Jackson come down. When Lee was painted in anger and grief and exuberance and finally, stunningly, by S. Ross Browne.
I knew you had it in you. I wasn’t at all surprised. Because I’ve been with you nearly 20 years, remember? I’ve been a student of your history. I’ve listened to the people who lived it. And all along, I’ve known you were more than your statues and your sins.
I remember something that Chris Barras, pastor of Area 10 Faith Community, once told me: “You love a place not because it’s lovable; you love it until it’s lovable.”
He was talking about you, Richmond. And I think that’s what you are becoming. You’re getting there.
I am, too. And I’ll always love you.
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