My friend takes me back to my Peabody High School days when I first met him. The streets of Pittsburgh were safe then for a young girl with a sketchbook under her arms. The pavements were gentle and maternal, predictable, walking first to Carnegie Tech then all the way down Fifth Avenue until I hit the river and could look out at the hills and the steel mills.

I took the streetcar to Carnegie Museum every Saturday for art classes, but really to inhale smells. I watched Museum Guards resting on their arms many lifetimes, waiting for the Prince to awaken Sleeping Beauty. Girls from Wilkinsburg and McKeesport were in the Ladies Room, washing their hands in marble sinks with golden faucets, Ladies in Waiting. I can still hear the water running.

Rooms of Greek Statues those endless winter days, I walked through their marble columns gathering in their giant space.

Like in the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I’d like to have just one of those days back and be alive to it. The sixties are over. The Museum charges admission now, and isn’t completely empty the way it used to be. It was the space that made it so nice. They don’t have real art in the halls and in a downstairs cafeteria. Streetcars, they don’t run in Pittsburgh anymore. My brother said that ruined the city for him. Little did I know how those unrecognized, endless days carried my soul. They’ve been there all this time, waiting patiently for me to awaken to them and their great beauty.