The Loft

In a time of great stress, I accepted a job in Southern Illinois, far, far away from my birthplace and home in Texas.  The Hospital was across the Mississippi River from St. Louis and, after searching for an apartment in Southern Illinois unsuccessfully, we looked at loft apartments in downtown St. Louis.  Only one building was open on the Sunday we were looking; a building that was 104 years old on Washington Avenue in the Loft District.

Thus began a chapter of our lives that was novel and even exciting.  We were in the heart of a major metropolitan city, and we reveled in that novelty.  Many fine restaurants were a short walk from our building, and there was frequent and interesting entertainment available. 

It was like an extended vacation, but even there life could be isolated.  There was no grass and very few scrawny trees; going out didn’t always feel safe; Sandy could not drive (or would not drive) on the city streets.  There were fairly large numbers of homeless people.  We lived close to a homeless shelter and the YMCA, and we gave money to many, but I always worried that desperation might lead to crime.

There was crime – all around us.  It wasn’t from the homeless, though, but from partiers, and youths with no respect for others, and people who carried guns on their person and a chip on their shoulders.  As the violence crept ever closer until there was a shooting in our building, we felt a need to move, and we made plans to move to a rural area of Southern Illinois.

In the middle of our experience living in St. Louis though, I snapped a photograph with a new camera (one of the first taken with that new camera) of my wife sipping soup that she had made in that loft apartment.  The old bare brick walls were part of the charm of that somewhat drafty place, and we were comfortable.  Family portraits, soft furniture and more gadgets than you could shake a stick at made this our home.

And even though we are now in a safer place (we hope), we miss that loft apartment.  Not enough to go back to St. Louis, but enough to look on the experience as eye opening, fun and memorable.