Once I found out that this city is worthy, that it’s story is worthy, i’ve been fighting for the unseen stories. Stories that are ingrained in the depths of it’s murals, it’s bridges, it’s streets, it’s locals, and this is what i’ve learned. I’ve learned to judge this city by its insides, it’s heart, the feeling you get when you’re in it’s streets. I’ve realized that since it’s felt like a home, that it’s beautiful. That the city aches to be what it once was.
Like never before, there is a hustle for sincere revitalization. Misconceptions have been shut down and instead counter pointed with music, dancing, and jubilations that could only be produced by the people that care and think that this place can be flipped before it falls. In a week I will be leaving this place. It seems strange, strange to be leaving what’s been home for the past four years. But with a converted heart and perspective of the city that’s tucked away in the Ohio valley, there is no doubt in my mind that I will carry this place with me wherever I go.
My encouragement to anyone that may be near or live in town is this: Take a walk. Walk downtown, walk past the courthouse, walk up the stairs of St Peter’s, walk…or maybe even jog across Market Street Bridge, and think about the dynamic of the history and culture that seeps into the very existence of this place. I encourage you to find all twenty-five murals, and when you do, be sure to step back and back and back until you can’t any more, because when you’re looking at the wide angle view of the true work of art before your eyes, you can’t help but think about the painter who captured and shared through their creativity the essence of this city on something so simple as a brick wall.
I’ve fallen in love with this city, my greatest desire is that you will too.
