I grew up frequenting Baltimore, Washington D.C., and New York City for cultural opportunities with my family. We’d hit up the TKTS booth and get same-day discounted seats for Broadway musicals. The Smithsonian museums offered endless opportunities for exploration and I never tired of the permanent collection at the National Art Gallery. Every Sunday we’d go to church in Baltimore, then hit up the back alley bakery for hot fresh Italian bread, walk around the harbor, see a special museum exhibit, or go to a small theatre matinee.

 

When I moved into the heart of Baltimore to attend Maryland Institute College of Art, my perspective shifted. I was now part of the fabric of a city that was simultaneously growing and falling apart at the seams. I would still hit up the symphony for the occasional $7 student rush ticket or meet up with my folks to see a play. But there was a very real underlying fear that was with me all four years of college and I started to see city life in a different way.

 

Every night the news reported multiple homicides in bordering neighborhoods. Gun shots were part of the regular cacophony. A friend was mugged at gun point while reading on his front steps. A college buddy’s girlfriend was getting out of her car and was dragged off and raped in an alley. I called the cops on a knife fight right outside my barred window. Everyone that owned a car had it broken into numerous times. I watched a guy 20′ away smash a window and steal a case of CD’s out of a car in broad daylight. I ran out of a music venue when I saw two guys posturing and lifting up their shirts to show the loaded handguns tucked into their waistbands. A fellow student was killed when a cop car spun out of control chasing a hit-and-run suspect. While watching the fireworks on our roof during New Years Eve, I hit the deck and crawled back to the fire escape when I heard a bullet sizzle through the air. One day, I walked into my boyfriend’s rowhouse to see bloody hand smears all over the front door and pools of dried blood down the entry hall where someone had been stabbed. A few weeks later, I went up to NYC to visit a girlfriend for the weekend and as we were leaving a club, a guy jumped out of a van in front of us and bludgeoned someone in the head with a crowbar.

 

I was always looking suspiciously over my shoulder and my heart grew hard to every stranger. I carried mace and put on my “bitch face” as I confidently walked block after block with cold eyes, never smiling at anyone. One late night right before I graduated, I was coming home from a party and had to park far away from my apartment. As I got half way down the deserted block, a guy who was slowly biking around changed direction and started towards me. I started running, he chased me down, and I got inside my courtyard gate just before he reached me. I was done living in fear and made plans to move. That summer, I said goodbye to Baltimore along with everyone I knew and loved and headed to Colorado for a big change that would prove to be the best decision for me.

 

One of the first nights in my new Fort Collins home, I woke up to sounds on the back porch. I grabbed my mace and flicked on the light and it turned out to just be a family of raccoons raiding the trash. My heart warmed up a bit at that sight. I made some friends and started to go on night hikes in the foothills, reveling in the fact that I could roam freely under the moonlight for the first time in years. My heart grew a little more. I joined a Colorado trail crew that worked on the 14,000′ mountains, lived in a tent at treeline, and embraced the big open skies and deafening silence. I hadn’t known what I was looking for until I had found it.

 

I am now thriving in a community where I feel safe and supported. I still enjoy visiting my family back east and taking in the cultural opportunities that the cities offer, but I know I am happiest not living in a major city. When my gallery asked me to be a part of a show celebrating Urban Life, I chose some of the happier, sillier memories. Going through every single outfit while trying to decide what to wear to a dance club. Laughing with a girlfriend about how we thought the Washington monument was basically just a big phallus. And sitting in the sunny courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art surrounded by the great artists of the past, while daydreaming about what my future holds.