Hello from Mile 12,480.
At 7:40 AM, the clouds hang low, but the heat stands on tiptoe, poised to soar.
It's summer in Old City. I'm used to it.
I get out early.
Walk when I can.
It's a "good leg day" so far.
So on the way back from getting coffee, I don't go straight home. Instead, I pass the doorway of my apartment building and cross the street onto Elfreth's Alley.
It's 100 (or maybe fewer) feet from my door, but when I step onto that cobblestone walkway, I travel.
Not just because Philadelphians have been walking this block since colonial days, but because I've been walking this block. For the dozen years I've lived across the street from it, Elfreth's Alley has always been there for me.
It gives me a place to travel -- without going anywhere at all.
For a few summers, I volunteered at the museum here, meeting travelers from around the world. I loved answering their questions:
"People still live here?" they'd ask, pointing to an Amazon package on a doorstep.
(Yes, and they get deliveries.)
"Women were really homeowners?"
(Yep, and business owners too.)
And my favorite...
"Where can we get ice cream?"
(Franklin Fountain -- try the peach!)
During the pandemic, I wrote a middle grade novel set here. To this day, each time I walk past the 2nd house on the left -- with its olive green gate and fanshaped flag on the door -- I think, "That's where the Mitternights live." The Mitternights are an imaginary family who exist only on my pages.
On so many mornings like this one, I walked here with my foster daughter, "Rainbow." She'd dart between the houses, beneath the canopy of trees that mark a narrow opening called Bladen's Court.
There, she'd hop along the stones till she reached the old water pump, where she'd hang from the handle, pretending to yank it. I'd saunter behind, focusing my footwork and sipping my coffee.
To me, it was an easy place we could go for fresh air. To her, the Alley was a playground.
On this block, I've "sweated out" of my prothesis.
I've toured with out-of-town friends.
I've crowded with tourists under a tiny roof in a thunderstorm.
I've even fantasized about buying one of these houses, fixing it up, and opening an Airbnb. I've told my neighborhood friends we should do it together. They're not quite on board - yet.
When you get to know a place -- really know it -- it holds unlimited possibility. You see it up close. It can encompass the past and future, a whole world in just a few steps.
(In my view, anyway.)
I've signed up for another travel writing class -- the "advanced" version of the one I took last year with Rolf Potts.
I am super excited for the opportunity. I'll be in Paris again -- to learn, observe, and write about the city in new ways!
But also... I'm a bit rusty.
And sort of an imposter.
My classmates will be worldly and well-traveled. (I've checked out their websites!) Some have written books. Some have made a life out of going to, living in, and writing about new places.
They don't seem to walk the same few blocks day after day.
I wonder what I'll write about. How my adventures will compare.
It's not a new question. I expressed it to Rolf last year at my one-on-one writing conference.
Is there a place for me as a travel writer -- one who takes small steps in small spaces?
He thought there was. He encouraged me to go deep, to shape my experiences into stories only I could tell.
I don't go everywhere and can't do everything, yet is there something special -- even unique -- about slowing down and zooming in?
Day to day, I may not travel far.
But I can see infinity in one block.
And maybe that's a perpective the world needs too.
Walk on,
Rebecca
