Why We Live in Over-the-Rhine
hint: it's not just for the tacos and cocktails.
The text came in from a friend the following morning. Patricia wrote to me about the “importance of chance encounters.” The night before, Mark and I sat in Colette’s corner window, sipping on a cocktail, when she and her husband walked past. I ran out of the restaurant to call them back.
The series of events we encountered that weekday evening had been random, unplanned, but certainly not unwelcome. Such was the peculiarities of living in the city, in Over-the-Rhine.
As I look back on almost ten years of our “residency” here, chance encounters are why we thrive. They’re why we’ve stayed.
A few months ago, the Enquirer ran a series of what downtown living means to me. Placed in the news, I’m sure, by city marketing execs, some stories had merit; some I must admit were a bit cringy. And most left out some key components of living in the city.
That friend of mine? We too were celebrating over ten years of friendship. We met Patricia, or Patti as she’s known to friends, and her husband Steve, at A Tavola, when the restaurant was nearly new, one of the few along Vine Street as the Gateway Quarter slowly transitioned to Over-the-Rhine. That night, we’d been at a streetcar meeting, shoring up support, preparing to oppose the opposition, which seems to have never gone away thanks to the maligning the streetcar took in its early years of operation by our former mayor. Nevertheless, the streetcar persisted. We did too.
Patricia and I went on to form a bond at her future position as executive director of the Lloyd Library, which contains one of the world’s and city’s most fascinating and stunning collections of botanical resources, where you can tour or attend their programs that have ranged from presentations on honey and mustard to everything in between. We’ve partnered on writing programs and speaking engagements, and today, the Lloyd is preparing for a large-scale renovation effort to bring more “science, art and history to life.” To think, I said to her, “one day, you’ll be able to say, this (renovation) was part of my legacy.’
What would my legacy in the city be?
During an earlier walk around noon to Walgreens, the library, and Kroger, I recognized a younger guy wearing a green shirt, running across the crosswalk near the grocery. It was Derek Braziel. “Hey, Derek,” I said across oncoming traffic. “Are you going to get that place open soon?” That place was Pata Roja Taqueria. “Today, soft opening at five. Tomorrow at noon.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.”
I was supposed to be in Dayton that night, at an opening for the Erma Bombeck exhibit. I couldn’t shake the thought of tacos. Or supporting Derek. We’d known Derek for some time, through Over-the-rhine connections, his time as co-founder of Mortar and supporting their work through funding or community council efforts, or around the neighborhood, or in the window of his taco trailer at Pendleton’s Bar Saeso for a few seasons.
The thing about living here is every neighbor doesn’t have to be a friend, doesn’t have to be that person you text in the middle of night when you’re at your lowest. They don’t have to be. But they could be. And often are. You start to understand a person on a deeper level through the little encounters on the street that add up to ten years’ time passed.
We skipped Erma, I could see the exhibit later. By five or so, we headed Court Street.
Before jumping in line, we were stopped by Kelly Adamson. Kelly had been head of OTR Chamber for a number of years. Conversations about travel, about health, about living in OTR took precedent. I could smell the tacos now, the tinge of fried corn tingling on my taste buds. Thankfully, Kelly’s dog needed a walk at home.
Derek was full of hugs for everyone as he floated through the line of customers, in and out. Eventually, he sat down to ask about the food. Never ones to hold back, we started with a few questions, and learned the food is supposed to be spicy and seasoned enough to not need sauce or salsa, but it’s there if you need it.
Like friends in the city.
Like random strangers who are friends of friends who sit down at your table while you eat tacos to tell you their life story, as did the young woman who was friends with Derek. They’d met through her firm’s work with Pata Rojos. But now, she was chief photographer for the event taking little Polaroids she would post on the wall later. To remember the night. I’m not sure I wanted to be immortalized in the same way I was in my kid photos, but the gesture was lovely and our conversation was enlightening about moving from central America to make a home here. She lived in Pleasant Ridge, I think. But spent the majority of her time downtown. She loved being in the city, as a way of living. She had access to everything she could have hoped for as a young person, including a friendship with Derek.
The evening still held some light. We entertained a few options to continue our night, and wound up at Colette at the bar. Behind the newly renovated bar, standing so so tall, was our favorite bartender, Aaron. Aaron too had been a part of A Tavola, in the early days. Mark would walk in, Aaron would ask what he felt like drinking that night, and a few minutes later, Mark was sipping on a cocktail created by the city’s best. That night, Aaron made Mark a six-cylinder, while I tasted a unique French white Aaron recommended.
While we sat in that corner window, a writing friend and her husband were just leaving. Then, a well-known documentarian, Meg Hanrahan (her Sacred Spaces work in Cincinnati is not to be missed). She too I knew through writing, and through the Lloyd Library. Next up through the door came an ortho doc Mark worked with at the hospital.
When we finally stopped popping off our stools to say hi, Steve and Patricia strolled by on the opposite sidewalk. Mark pulled his phone out to text them. I chose an alternate action: what is jokingly referred to as the Over-the-Rhine doorbell. I ran out the door and yelled their names from across the street.
Gladly, they turned back to come inside.
On my running out of the restaurant, Patti wrote, “was an image that will indelibly stick in my mind. I am so grateful for our friendship, the chance encounter under which it began & that the four of us had an openness to letting that first acquaintance organically bloom into such a special friendship.”
Its that openness that’s been so important to me, to Mark. That willingness to let a morning, a day, an evening reveal itself to us. A randomness that was not all that random. The Universe knows what we need, if we allow for it.
After a long winter of Covid, sinus infections, and flu in our household, following a longer month of writing work, I’d felt disconnected from even the people on the street. Like during the pandemic, if I could get out on the street, be a part of the flow of the city, whether that flow had halted to a trickle, or it was a full on atmospheric river, like during the Bengals Super Bowl days, or summers at Wash Park, I could be a drop traveling alongside a million other drops. I would not be alone.
That randomness works on my creativity, making the personal universal, in the same way. That bumping into one another, in finding our way together and separate. In knowing a person on the street, sometimes in their slippers, sometimes in their finest, sometimes at their best, sometimes at their worst, and allowing what happens to happen.
Chance encounters are the rarest of breeds that can only be raised by the rarest of intentions—the good kind. How many of those saved me on my worst of days are too many to number.
*Disclaimer: technically, Pata Rojas and the Lloyd Library are about a block outside of Over-the-Rhine.
So much news…but read this one first.
After the death of a five-year-old and a book signing by Connie Schultz, I was moved to write this. Digital link here.
Spring has also sprung some new work…
New writings in Edible Ohio Valley about Mean Mr. Mustard and some goats are now available online (with subscription) and in-person at pickup locations, such as around Findlay Market.
A delectable story will soon appear in Italian American. Italian Americans wax poetically about Sunday Dinner. In our house, we savored Sunday Brunch. You will too.
And for summer’s Edible Ohio Valley, I landed an interview with one of the region’s most profound writers to talk about her new culinary memoir. And I’ll be talking to one of the city’s most brash breadmakers! Stay tuned…
Care Partner Writing Experiences
Pauletta Hansel and I knew in-person writing experiences were important to many of our participants, so we’re happy to continue them in partnership with Giving Voice Foundation and Jewish Family Services.
Our next in-person is August 9th, 10-noon. Watch this space, email bwilliams@muchmorethanameal.com, or visit givingvoicefdn.org register.
Our FREE, VIRTUAL writing experiences for caregivers will continue Tentative dates of May 7th and November 14th, 10-noon. Registrations details above.
Voyage Ohio
If you haven’t had the chance to check them out, Voyage Ohio gives exposure to artists, creatives and businesspersons who want their audience to know their wider story. Here’s a read on mine.
April 18
The inimitable Rick Bass will be reading and signing at Campbell County Public Library—Newport Branch, on Wednesday, April 17, at 7:00 p.m. Registration is required. Register here:
May 14
Kensington Senior Living of Virginia/Maryland will host a virtual caregiver writing workshop for attendees connected to their care center. If you have interest in hosting a writing experience with my colleague and me, message me here.
Other summer workshops include writing for care partners, art museum workshops, and more. Message me for details as they become available.
Upcoming Fall Workshops
Lloyd Library – It’s all Backstory: a presentation on memoir and writing, in partnership with Fotofocus 2024, October 9th. Sign up for the Lloyd Library newsletter for information when it’s released. www.lloydlibrary.org.
Nothing better than random encounters! And I can see how they would happen often in OTR.
Glad you are living in Over-the-Rhine and enjoying it.