City View: Spartanburg

Hello from Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Just a few minutes ago, wind and hard rain blew sideways around the apartment building. When the storm began, my first from inside my apartment here in Spartanburg, I opened the left window of the bay window in my living room (bay window area serving as the dining room) and wanted to feel the rain, hear the thunder more clearly. But then the wind came and swirled in the alley below this window, spraying water over me and the table. I laughed, grinned "Oh, Spartanburg," and nearly closed the window as I tried to make out the city through the water puddled in the screen.

Now, the sky is mostly blue. My windows are clearing. The rainbow over the Methodist church on the corner has faded.

Storms have been sudden and short this first week in South Carolina. They come when they want and they leave just as suddenly. And always, I've noticed, the clouds pile and color at sunset. Yes, the clouds at and near sunset are glorious, mesmerizing even. The clouds are different here near the mountains, it seems. The sky feels even bigger than Kansas at times.

After two days of driving a 16' Budget truck with an auto carrier holding my car, Jedsen and I pulled into Spartanburg just before 5pm on Saturday, June 12. So much has happened since then--so many little wonders--that it will take me a while to catch you up on all of them, so, for now, just know that I am the new administrative assistant at Hub City Writers Project and, starting Friday, will be a new barista at Starbucks. I live a block from Downtown Spartanburg, with the police/fire department across the street, the largest public library I've ever seen across the street, the post office across the street, and the Masonic Temple where I work at Hub City just two blocks down.

This building, called City View, was the first divided apartment building in Spartanburg in 1919. It's been renovated since, which you'll see in my pictures, but it has more character than anywhere I've ever lived. It feels good being here, and you know that I'm in bliss with all of these windows.

How do you get up to my apartment on the third floor? These babies. 32 stairs from the front door.

There she is. 303. You know what you can get through that door? Everything I own except my beloved couch.

 

I was excited to have a home (with wood floors!). Snickers was interested in stretching out her stiff legs from 8 hours in the cat carrier and walking off the tranquilizer that had made her all drooly and silly all day.

I hate boxes. Get them gone.

Below, they are gone. This is my apartment now, complete. 

This is what you walk into if you walk straight in from the front door. The door in the photo is not the entrance but the emergency fire exit. So, for me, it's a window in the kitchen.

This is the other side of the kitchen from the other end of the kitchen. Snickers is standing at the front door, and the refrigerator is next to the microwave. Snickers is facing the living room and the rest of the apartment.

The view of the apartment looking left from the front door. You can seen through the living room to my bedroom to the hallway with the bathroom to the books in the office.

 So, yes, this is the new futon--the substitute couch. Jedsen put it together for me one evening while I baked sugar cookies and we had on The Return of the King in background. In the week that Jedsen was here, he had a part in every bit of this apartment. It's strange to be here alone now. Snickers hasn't been brushed since he left.

Bay window!

Bay window view. (Actually, it's the view from every window.) From here, you can see the Spartanburg Public Library and the BB&T skyscraper.

Bedroom in the morning.

The tiniest closets ever. But I was up for the challenge.

Bathroom, with original tile pattern on the floor and church out the bathroom window.

The office. Where writing will happen.

The view back down the apartment from the office.