Recently I had the opportunity to meet up with Daniel as he took a rare trip to California for work.  Though he's usually home by Friday night, this trip would extend through Saturday, making it basically free for me to tag along.  His mother was happy to come up for a visit that included staying a few days with the girls, so despite my hesitance to leave them, we decided to go.  The only other time I've been to California, also related to a work trip of Daniel's, it was with both children in tow.  I'd rather not repeat that one yet.

Daniel's itinerary was filled with "mights" that led to arguments and troublesome packing.  I might be invited to a black tie optional gala while there, and I had nothing to wear.  "Don't buy anything," Daniel said, "Just bring something you have."  The problem: I don't have anything appropriate. Many phone calls, emails, and facebook posts later, I looked at 10 dresses from generous friends, none of which really fit and ended up packing something inappropriate that I already had.  I worked into the wee hours Thursday night trying to pack for every occasion I might encounter while keeping my roomy suitcase under 50 pounds. At 11:30 I received a call from Daniel (already on California time) that I might need an additional cocktail dress.  I had to restrategize to stay under my weight limit (and restrain myself).

Finally, the next morning, after my suitcase was not even weighed, I made it to my gate only to find out the plane was oversold and they needed volunteers to make "alternate travel arrangements" in exchange for a $400 travel voucher.  I happily volunteered.  We are able to get free hotel stays pretty easily, but flights have been harder to come by.  I got rerouted through Houston and made it to San Francisco two hours later than my bag.   After meeting up briefly with Daniel, I retreated to our room to try to catch up-- I had only slept 4 hours the previous two nights-- before our night of cocktails and schmoozing.  I couldn't sleep and soon found myself sitting at a corner booth surrounded by Daniel's team.  A hefty bar tab and several hangers on later, we went to a "mixer" at a local club, greeted on the way by two beautiful, airbrushed looking creatures in towering platform heels.  I shrunk in my fake red patent leather 9Wests and seven-year-old dress.  Daniel never left me, but I felt small.  I saw the way they looked at him.  And he was perfectly fine, but I started to think maybe these trips are exactly as I have always feared.  

At the mixer, dance music blared while real estate professionals danced unprofessionally.  It was not even possible to mix at this event; it was too loud.  We encountered the same girls from before, one of whom grabbed Daniel's arm and talked in his ear.  Not for nothing, but I am not a jealous girl. Still, I was out of place. I couldn't help imagining that this is always what it's like when he's on the road, when I'm not there. A drunk realtor from LA talked to me for a while and told me I looked "elegant." In this crowd, at this venue, I wasn't sure it was a compliment.   After 10PM California time, we waited outside for a chauffeured black SUV.  One of our companions, a beautiful and hilarious Persian woman who ended up buying the group dinner said, "Driver, what is your name, honey bunny? Where are you from?"  Gus from Jordan responded, to which she replied, "Are you Muslim?"  He said that he was. "I don't believe you," she shot back, so he started blaring Arab music.  We shot through the streets of San Francisco like this until we arrived at a Korean barbecue where we ate until almost 1 AM (my body, still on East Coast time, felt like it was 4:00).   On the way out, Daniel's coworker assured me, "Most trips are NOT like this," and I know they are not.   But it was daunting to feel so ordinary.  It's hard to compete with fake.  Daniel assured me I don't have to.  

The next day, after sleeping later than I can remember in recent history, I hit the streets alone.  I was actually nervous-- it's been a long time since I've ventured anywhere but Trader Joe's alone, and typically not even there.  Armed with a map I explored the enormous farmer's markets, walked along the water snapping photos and eventually made my way to Fisherman's Wharf.  It was fantastic to be by myself and to remember that I am capable of playing the part of a competent, put together individual, apart from my job or husband or kids or house.  The day was a gift.

Daniel met me later and we hiked up the famous hills a bit longer before going to the gala for which I was probably under dressed but it didn't matter.  I met his bosses and after that we were free to be together.  One of his bosses, a regal looking woman three tiers above him, shook my hand and said, "I want to tell you your boy is the real deal.  He is working hard to make you happy and he's always talking about you and your little girls.  In my experience, that's rare."  And I was proud.

We spent the next day at Alcatraz and tooling around the city in our Mustang convertible before heading to Sausalito, then Napa for a rainy day.  We lingered over homemade pasta that night and graham cracker crusted french toast the next morning. 

Given Daniel's aggressive travel schedule lately, and our full schedule of company at home, it was nice to have the face time and to hold hands on the street.   The trip back was eventful, as we learned you can't just pack bottles of wine in the little carrier they give out at the wineries; you have to have it packed by the travel agency in the airport for $28.  What a racket!  And my carefully packed bag from before?  It may have been much more efficiently packed (by Daniel) on the way home, but that also put it 8 pounds over.  He was able to cause some kind of scene so that we avoided paying for it.  He looked longingly at the "Elite Plus" or whatever the line of white guys with carry-ons and rumpled suits is called, since he couldn't board with them and with me.  He would have another chance about 12 hours after we landed.  

The last year has been difficult, a constant state of adjustment. It makes me worry about and consider things I'd rather not. It makes us bicker about issues we'd rather not.  It makes it nearly impossible to talk. In the last month, there have been two occasions for Daniel to be home 12 hours or less, before catching another flight.  It's better than not coming home at all, I think, but it is hard to get used to. So we have a complicated relationship, the travel and I. Without it, we would never take these kind of trips.  But without it, maybe we wouldn't need to.

Despite living in Baltimore for six years, I didn't think much about crime.  I certainly didn't think about it the way some friends and family did, pointing out statistics that ranked us as the second most dangerous city in the country and urging us to move to the suburbs.

That is, until it came bleeding on my porch, knocking on my door.  Then it broke my door down.

Since moving out of downtown, I realize we might have lived in a bit of a cocoon there.  We knew our neighbors, and mostly we were surrounded by longtime city dwellers or medical residents.  We looked out for each other.  The closest we ever came to crime was a mugging across the street, in broad daylight, where our neighbors ran the guy down, beat him up, and pinned him down until the police arrived.  Our cars were rifled through the couple of times we left them unlocked, but we expected that.  Though I've never loved spending nights alone, we really didn't worry.

Then a few months ago, we moved to the outskirts, to a lovely and well-connected neighborhood.  We already know more neighbors than we did in years at the old place, and we are in more frequent contact.  But our historic and beautiful neighborhood borders on a different Baltimore.  Not the one that shimmers on the waterfront, commanding high rents, empty nesters and advanced degrees.  This Baltimore is the one outsiders think of-- the one from The Wire (which I still refuse to watch).  I can see it from my bedroom window and, as it turns out, it can see me.  It doesn't care about my picket fence or my young children. It doesn't care about me.  Only what I have that it can take.

One night, a couple months ago we sat on our porch to catch our breath at the end of a long day.  We heard a gunshot.  Close.  When we lived downtown, I claimed to have heard them all the time.  Daniel always dismissed them as firecrackers, which they probably were (the large and loud Israeli family across the street celebrated even the smallest occasion, say, Tuesday, with firecrackers).  But this time, we knew what it was right away. 

It is strangely silent after a gunshot.  I expected to hear a revving engine or a wailing voice or maybe even another shot.  But it was silent.  We saw a young man run onto our street, then scramble over a fence and into our neighbor's yard.  We went inside to find her number, then on the back patio for several minutes until we heard the sirens approaching.  When we called her on our way back inside, she said, "Are you calling about the guy knocking on your door?"  In the few minutes we had been out back, the gunshot victim, the one we'd seen, had come to our door seeking help, bleeding all over our porch.  We never heard him knocking and didn't see him before he got into a car and left.  Still, we were up all night, a helicopter hovering over our house, flashing lights in our yard.  First we talked to police, then we waited for the crime lab, then we lay awake in bed. In the morning we awoke to find blood still spattered on our steps.  We were shaken, but reminded ourselves that he had only sought our help.  We were not targets.

I had long consoled myself that violent crime in Baltimore, by and large, was an inside job. Those convicted (or accused) of gun-related charges are very often also the targets of gun-related crime (I once saw a statistic I can't find that put that percentage in the high 90s).  Sure, there are random acts, but they are far less frequent.  This victim on the doorstep incident was unsettling, obviously, but it didn't challenge my thinking.  When tracked down and questioned by police of his whereabouts at the time of the shooting, he made a story up about how he'd just been "at the store."  He was, in all likelihood, far from innocent.

Things slowly got back to normal. Until several weeks later when Daniel kept calling from Chicago while I was on my way to work.  Running late, I had dialed into a meeting I should have already been in.  I clicked over to see what was wrong, and he told me our alarm was going off. This was a familiar routine for us.  We have always had an alarm since living in the city, and sometimes they go off for no reason.  Police are usually dispatched, they check it out, only let us know if something's wrong, and charge a fee for a false alarm.  This time it wasn't false.

When I got home, after my sweet neighbor and my mom, the police were already gone, having determined the assailant "didn't get in."  It didn't take me long to determine they were wrong.  After trying to kick our door in, he had broken the glass and climbed through.  Due to a faulty sensor, our alarm did not go off immediately; not until he was walking through our house.  At that point, he took the easiest thing he could grab, my laptop, dropped a small TV on the floor and ran.  We were terribly fortunate. 

I was distraught; the busted door a glaring reminder of what he had taken, and that it was more than I knew how to replace. That day I dealt with a somber parade of police officers, a crime lab technician, handyman, ADT, concerned neighbors and family.  Our neighbors, family, and landlord have been wonderfully supportive, offering a place to go, company, and enhanced security measures.  I am on a first-name basis with the technician who replaced and reinforced alarm sensors and showed up the day of the incident.  Meanwhile, by the time Daniel got home, all evidence had been removed, wiped down, swept and vacuumed. It must have been surreal. We don't yet know what we will do.

I am struck by the complexity of it all-- I am struggling with whether I should even have written this.  It is terrible to be a victim—to feel vulnerable, watched, powerless. Really, though,  I can't say anything has changed.  Nothing is different than it was before; this risk was always here.  When I look out the window at my other city, it's not what you might think. Certainly, there are people out there without useful purpose, without conviction, who will take what is not theirs. But they are not what I see. I see young boys in football pads, fresh from practice.  I see women coming home in scrubs, heavy laden, to cook dinner for their children.  I see little girls laughing. I see fathers playing with their sons. What I see and don't see is larger than race or money, more complicated than it might seem. 

When the other Baltimore came knocking, I did nothing.  And I guess that's all I could do.  But I am perplexed by my desire to balance protecting my own and having compassion for others who want to do the same.  That white picket fence is a vulgar divider.