My favorite way to encounter WaterFire is on my way home from work. I live in Fox Point, and I’m often at Trinity until 11:00 or later in the evening, after a show comes down and notes have been given, work plans made for the morrow, and I’ve faced another in the endless examples of the tension between what a show is and what it could be.

If I know WaterFire is happening, or if I’ve glimpsed the wood logs piled in the braziers as I’ve driven to work, I almost always decide to walk home. I go out of my way, turning left at the Biltmore as I head up Washington Street so that I can be sure to traverse the whole length of WaterFire. I start near the mall, and will often take 45 minutes to make it to Hemenways, where I cut up Main Street and head home.

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