Speak to the Past

My close friend B had moved from California to Providence this year. I wanted to say hello and see his new surroundings. After the run down I-95 the night before, I was ready to let the GS sit for a few days. I didn’t have a route to plan, a forecast to study, or a hotel to find before dark. I had a city I’d never really seen and a friend who intimately knew it.

We started on foot. The neighborhood around B’s place is old New England in the best way: brick sidewalks buckled by tree roots, clapboard houses, and trees that were finally starting to turn. After weeks of seeing the Northeast through a face shield, walking it at two or three miles an hour felt like a different trip entirely.

Yellow maple over a sidewalk on College Hill

Red maple on a corner lawn in Providence

Brick sidewalk lined with trees and a hedge

Narrow brick passage between old buildings

On our way up toward Brown, we passed a stone church near the campus. B mentioned he wanted to go inside, but was a touch reserved. I told him it was God’s house and all people were welcome, so I pulled on the door handle, and it opened. Inside, it was far bigger and quieter than I had expected.

Stone church with a spire near the Brown campus

Nave of the stone church with rows of wooden pews

Altar and stained glass windows inside the church

I loved walking around the Brown campus. The campus is all brick with iron gates and old stately trees, with students spread across the green as if it were any other Friday. One of the buildings has an inscription carved into its stone:

Speak to the past and it shall teach thee.

It felt timely. After weeks of riding through places that shaped the founding of this country, and of thinking about what words like liberty mean right now, I couldn’t read that line at face value.

Brick dormitories and fall trees on the Brown green

Clock tower rising above the trees at Brown

Looking straight up the trunk of a tall tree

Victorian brick building with a carved stone entrance

Students under a red maple on the Brown campus

It also brought me back to New Jersey. I’d asked a shopkeeper there what she loved about the state, and she answered without hesitating: education and agriculture. My New Jersey family always talked about Jersey corn, so the agriculture part made sense. For education, she pointed to Rutgers and Princeton. Walking through Brown, I felt that same sentiment. Universities here aren’t just institutions. They’re part of how this region has invested in itself and grown over centuries.

The RISD Museum was B’s idea. He has a deep love of history and the context behind it, and he wanted me to see it. What enthralled me was the space. The old galleries have skylights running the length of the room, and the centuries-old portraits and landscapes along the deep blue walls have room to breathe. The lighting reminded me of the Barber museum: it’s intentional and precisely set, so every piece looks its best.

Skylit gallery of old portraits and landscapes at the RISD Museum

A visitor reading on a couch beneath posters at the RISD Museum

From there we made our way downtown. The river walk cuts through the middle of the city. City Hall anchors one end of the square, and the old Industrial Trust building towers over everything around it in full Art Deco. Even off the bike, I kept noticing motorcycles: a sport bike crossing in front of the Superman building and a guy on a scrambler rolling down a side street.

The Providence river walk under a blue sky

Street climbing toward a white church steeple

Rider on a scrambler on a tree-lined Providence street

Motorcyclist passing the Art Deco Industrial Trust building

The next day, we took the ferry from Providence to Newport and back. Leaving the city by water was a treat. The skyline shrank behind us, and the bay opened up past one small lighthouse after another, each sitting on its own rock.

Newport was harder.

The Breakers was the Vanderbilts’ summer “cottage,” and everything about it felt over the top, exquisite, and well done. It was all look, don’t touch. The only thing we commoners could actually interact with was a bench which looked like it came out of the Pottery Barn Outlet. You can feel the wealth. It makes the billionaire class feel real.

The one bench visitors were allowed to sit on inside The Breakers

A Bitte nicht beruehren, do not touch, sign on red velvet

Back home in California, there’s a debate over a billionaire tax, and standing in that house, I found myself thinking about what tax rates looked like in the 1960s compared to today. A place like this opens a conversation about what we value as a society. I walked out with more questions than answers, and I’ll be carrying them with me when I vote. I’m mixed here, and this is the hard work of government each of us needs to consider when at the ballot box.

The Cliff Walk helped. Waves broke on the rocks below the mansions, and the public path ran right along the edge of all that private lawn with their large fences denoting the border between public and private. The ocean, at least, doesn’t care who owns the view.

We caught the ferry back as the sun dropped over Newport Harbor. The sky went gold behind the boats in the marina, then the Newport Bridge lit up against the last of the light. By the time we passed the lighthouses again, they were silhouettes against an orange sky, and wind turbines turned slowly on the horizon.