11 years ago today ...

Though I was living in Chicago at the time, I was in Cedar Rapids 11 years ago today to visit my folks for their June 14 anniversary. My boyfriend at the time and I had heard stories of looming flooding, and even though the rains and the swollen rivers diverted us north from highway 30 at Mt. Vernon and sent us into Cedar Rapids on Mt. Vernon Road, we still never believed Cedar Rapids could have serious flooding. I mean, it's CEDAR RAPIDS. I grew up here. How could anything bad happen?

By the time we finally got to my folks' house late on the 13th though, the flooding had become serious enough that the city's last intact water pumping station was in such danger of being breached that the urgent call went out on the news for volunteers to sandbag it. Though we'd had a 5-hour drive we wanted to go out and help, but by the time we had a quick bathroom break before heading for the door, the news announced that they'd already gotten all the sandbaggers they needed. Which was a clear harbinger of the resilience our city would soon show. But at the time it was dark and late and we were 32 blocks from the river so all we could do was go to bed and wait.

The next morning, the footage on the news was devastating. The river had crested at 31.12 feet—19 feet over flood stage—and our entire downtown was drowning, as were 1,300 blocks of the city on either side of the river. Office buildings and banks and stores and my beloved theaters were almost up to the tops of their doors in water. All three bridges that cross May's Island and connect the east and west sides of the city were completely submerged. The Time Check and Czech Village neighborhoods were destroyed, with many houses underwater to their rooflines. The highly elevated I-380 was the only way to get across town, though all of the entrance and exit ramps in the flood zone were submerged. We—like seemingly everyone else in the city—drove slowly along the highway and peered out our windows to survey the devastation as the flood waters rippled mere feet beneath us.

As the water slowly receded, the city reeled over the destruction of homes, the closing of businesses, the undermining of infrastructure ... but never the loss of spirit. The city leaped almost immediately into action to tear down what was unsalvageable, repair what was repairable, clean up what was messy and dangerous, reimagine new life and purpose for what was destroyed, and start to recover and relocate and rebuild ourselves into a newer and better and more thoughtfully redesigned shining city on the river. We now have our vibrant and ever-expanding NewBo district, we've literally picked up and moved an entire museum to higher ground, we've creatively and beautifully incorporated new levees and berms into inviting public spaces, we've used the opportunity to upgrade and restore historic buildings, we've turned our once-desolate-after-5:00 downtown into a destination area bustling with restaurants and entertainment ... and we've salvaged and restored and improved and polished up my beloved Paramount and Iowa (home of Theatre Cedar Rapids) theaters.

The flood was awful and heartwrenching and devastating. Many businesses never recovered. Many homes and families and lives have been forever changed. And our renaissance is far from complete. At any given time there are at least three massive construction/renovation projects happening in the downtown area, and I adjust my travel to and from work to check on them almost daily. Seriously. (Currently: The finishing touches on the towering modern addition to the American Building, the formidable new Skogman building that I still can’t decide if it’s exciting or boring (don't mess this up, Skogman—build something we can all appreciate and be proud of), the expanding Habitrail of skywalks, and the massive condo/apartment building that's covering more than a city block on the east side of I-380 at Diagonal Drive)

Aside from the before-and-after photos of my dad's office, where he thought two levels of concrete blocks would protect his antique roll-top desk from the floodwaters that eventually submerged his entire office past its ceiling, the pictures I'm posting here aren't mine. But they show the depth and breadth of the destruction we all faced and make a great reminder of how amazingly far we have come in the last ten years.

So happy floodiversary, Cedar Rapids! May we keep our recovery and flood-protection development speeding along forevermore. (And don't forget to wish my folks a happy 55th anniversary tomorrow.)

Third Street looking south from First Avenue. You can see the old Theatre Cedar Rapids marquee on the left.

Theatre Cedar Rapids. All the First Avenue storefronts on the left were shut down after the flood, and the space became the awesome new Linge Lounge.

Dad’s office—and beautiful oak roll-top desk—before and after the flood. The desk was in salvageable, and everything in it got ripped out and carried away by the floodwaters.

1,300 blocks on both sides of the river were submerged—some under more than 10 feet of water.

Those ghostly lines in the water are the totally submerged bridges that cross May’s Island as they connect the east and west sides of the city.

That’s high-in-the-sky I-380 snaking through downtown with floodwater submerging its ramps and lapping at its floors.

The massive crown-jewel National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library building on the lower right was actually lifted and relocated to higher ground after the flood.

We parked this string of train cars on this essential train bridge before the flood to weigh it down so the floodwaters wouldn’t wash it away.

Entire neighborhoods. Families’ lives. Wiped out. No words.

The floodwaters floated the Mighty Wurlitzer organ console from the bottom of the Paramount Theater pit to above the stage, where they dumped it like a dirty carcass.

Something cool we stumbled on at the New York Public Library!

I’m home

After a week filled with dear friends both old and new, a new dog you’re all lucky I didn’t dognap, favorite haunts, new museums, historical learnings that I’m still processing, a 5K along a gorgeous ocean boardwalk, delicious cooking, gallons of Diet Coke, the endless magical convenience of Uber in an unfamiliar city, and a Charlotte-to-Cedar-Rapids flight that looped over to Omaha to avoid what looks to have been an epic storm, I am home and happy and thankful and sleepy and ready to resume my regularly scheduled adventures at dawn. Good night!

So ... burning man ...

Sometimes carefully laid plans for a weirdly cool Burning Man exhibit at the Renwick followed by a pilgrimage to see the Obama portraits at the National Portrait Gallery turn into a mostly-chatting-and-half-paying-attention-to-the-arty-stuff wander through the Renwick followed by three hours of catching up at (don’t laugh) TGI Friday’s (I SAID DON’T LAUGH) with a long-lost high-school friend who is now a hella-cool adult friend who will corroborate your story that your TGI Friday’s waitress was probably the shittiest waitress ever to work on a Friday or any other day and I seriously can’t remember the last time I’ve ever left a bad tip for anyone and I used to wait tables so I ALWAYS tip extremely generously and Gareth was my first-ever crush and I just had lunch with him but I’m burying this information deep in this blathery run-on sentence so you probably skipped over that part and saved us all a bottomless swamp of paralyzing awkwardness how ‘bout them Hawkeyes I’m on vacation puppies are cute THIS PART IS IN ALL CAPS anyway where was I oh yeah the Burning Man exhibit was truly cool and breathtaking and informative for those of us who until today had no earthly idea what the hell Burning Man is even about and I totally recommend it but we both heartily do NOT recommend the nearby TGI Friday’s (STOP IT WITH YOUR DERISIVE LAUGHING) especially the slimy booth that had a metal plate over the junction box where the sconce had mysteriously been removed Exhibit A: First Selfie and catching up with Gareth was truly an awesome way to end a truly awesome vacation even through we never got to the National Portrait Gallery but we did get a selfie in front of a nearby George Washington bust Exhibit B: Second Selfie don’t worry I told him a long time ago that he was my first-ever crush and his wife has reportedly come to terms with it and is totally not threatened by me OR IS SHE and he swears it’s not awkward anymore but let the record show HE WAS THE FIRST TO BRING IT UP TODAY BUT IT’S TOO LATE THAT SHIP HAS SAILED SO STOP MAKING IT WEIRD GARETH and the Obama portraits will have to wait until next summer but except for our gaspingly inept waitress today this trip has been pretty awesome.

#HowToTurn50

Book your Big Birthday Broadway Blowout Billion-Bucks Bash Bonanza—and pack your tap shoes for another bucket-list class at the Broadway Dance Center!

The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

as seen across Greene Square and through some random wedding party from the rooftop garden terrace of the Cedar Rapids Public Library

CedaRound: Cedar Rapids History Center

The old Cedar Rapids History Center was built in 1935 as a Quonset hut encased in industrially horizontal blond brick for the Rapids Chevrolet car dealership and stood resolutely as what seemed to be a permanent, demoralizing architectural stain on First Avenue at the edge of downtown until after I was out of college.

It was an exceptionally dreary example of early 20th century prefabricated architecture that was probably seen as austerely noble in its day and was unfortunately built to last well past its visual expiration date a decade later as the architectural world rediscovered the soul-nourishing properties of ornamentation.

So you can imagine how the city aesthetes rejoiced with great jubilation when the building started to be torn down in the 1990s, and then we waited with surprised but hopeful trepidation when we realized that what had brought devastating visual and emotional blight to the city for over half a century was not disappearing entirely but was instead being partially repurposed into delightfully contextual architecture: Ghosts of chipped-away pillars, arcs of corrugated metal and jagged geometries of pre-war brick suddenly stood with beauty, grace and a touch of fun as part of the endlessly clever new Cedar Rapids History Center building. And I quickly learned to stop sighing and looking away every time I drove past it. The new concept was quirky and invigorating and created a meaningful architectural dialogue between antiquated visual efficiencies and modern plays on scale, material and embellishment.

Last year, the Cedar Rapids History Center began its move to Cedar Rapids' historic 1896 Douglas Mansion -- whose adjacent carriage house at 5 Turner Alley was transformed in the 1920s into an apartment and studio by "American Gothic" painter Grant Wood -- and the History Center building was slightly renovated to become the new Cedar Rapids Day School. I'm kinda sad that the History Center abandoned its delightfully contextual hybrid-architecture home, but I still rejoice with great jubilation every time I drive by it.

Oh, what's the good of the strongest heart ...

It seems I've added another bipolar-med side effect to my collection: a stomachache/headache combo that leaves me practically doubled over in pain. And it must have stowed away in my carry-on because it's clearly followed me to NYC. It canceled our trip to the Whitney Biennial yesterday and saved me money on an expensive restaurant last night. Now it's canceled my second tap class and postponed a theater tour today. And it hurts so much I almost don't care. Which is exactly why my lucky understudy Bette is going on again for me tonight. And I'm curling up in a ball on the couch.

Very much enjoyed?

You "very much enjoyed" exhibits on the horrors of slavery and the cruelties of racism and the never-ending battle for civil rights in our country? Enjoyed? ENJOYED?

Did you even go IN the museum? Or did you just stand by the doors wearing your uneducated-rich-white-male-privilege blinders and waving to the media that you obsessively accuse of being fake but whose existence you'd die without while you struggled to think of a way to reduce a photo op in a long-named museum to a dismissive, meaningless tweet?

Enjoyed?

I'm touring the National Museum of African American History and Culture this summer. And I expect to weep in sorrow and horror and shame as I witness the gut-wrenching barbarity and oppression and indifference inflicted by white people on black people starting centuries before this country was founded and now proudly emerging from the shadows in the ugly Zeitgeist of your unholy, unpresidential administration.

Enjoyed?

I expect to be left numb and aghast and overwhelmed by what I've seen and experienced and learned when I leave the museum. I expect to be overcome with the same appalled, devastated sense of hopelessness I've experienced every time I've left the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. And I expect the experience to propel me ardently forward in what I profoundly and humbly hope is my perpetual evolution toward understanding and compassion and sympathy and kindness and decency and justice and a resolute dissolution of prejudices both acknowledged and undiscovered that I harbor.

Enjoyed?

The National Museum of African American History and Culture isn't a collection of exhibits celebrating the work of their curators. Describing it as "a great job done by amazing people" is at best an admission that you've never stepped foot in a museum and at worst a thundering declaration of deliberate, dismissive racism -- media-blasted after a perfunctory, last-minute charade of solidarity near the end of Black History Month, no less. Are you really that uneducated, uncultured and callous? Did you post this tweet to convince yourself that you're not paralyzingly uneducated, uncultured and racist? Did you do it to convince your supporters that you don't know that they are?

Did you honestly think this tweet would elevate your standing as a public figure? Elevate the national discourse on race and culture? Elevate what's left of your value as a human being?

Have you very much enjoyed what you've become?

Museums and stuff

Debating American Modernism: Stieglitz, Duchamp and the New York Avant-Garde at the Terra Museum last night with Bob and Alex.

I've lived here more than three years now and I'd never visited the Terra -- but I was impressed. It's an interesting space, and the two current exhibits are both thorough and thoughtful in their presentation (one unfortunate misplaced modifier calling Duchamp "an aspiring actress" notwithstanding). I've never been too excited about Dada, but the Terra exhibit (which features Duchamp's famous "readymade" urinal) does an impressive job trumpeting its merits. I was more impressed with the machine-age-inspired works in the collection, but then I've always been a sucker for the sleek and the heroic in Deco-era art and architecture.

There's also one unexpected thing I learned from the exhibit: Duchamp was kind of hot.

The other current exhibit is Leaving for the Country: George Bellows at Woodstock, and we entered it from the boring end. His endlessly bucolic landscapes and portraits got us all but running through the exhibit, but we stopped cold when we encountered his compelling "dynamic composition" portraits overflowing with imagery and allegory and just plain beauty. And just beyond these portraits hang the stylized boxing-ring lithographs that so heavily influenced Regionalism and the works of Grant Wood, whom I have studied exhaustively from grade school on -- seeing as how I grew up in the town where he worked and I went to the school where he taught. It was an unexpected surprise to stumble on these works face-to-face after having seen them only in books, and it made our evening o' culture especially memorable.

After the museum, we retired to Bob's atelier for pasta and delicious homemade sauce and admiring comments about his shiny new kitchen appliances. And, as always, Bob and Alex filled the evening with great stories about their international travels and interesting gossip about hot Chicago boys.