Usually I enter our Boston place from the front – walking along the main street from a visitor’s parking space that’s hopefully-close and doing the sensible thing of sticking to the sidewalk. Once in a while I’ll find parking a street or two over, and find myself closer by going through the back alley behind our condo. These little alleys are the secret side of Boston. They’re not through-ways so the only people driving into the dead-end spaces are residents, or garbage pick-up, so it’s rare to see regular traffic there.
This is where the real lives of Bostonians play out – the balcony dinner parties, the bedroom window peeks, the precious outdoor lots and parking spaces that only some select units can utilize. It was also where I chose to enter for a quick weekend visit to survey the place for spring.
Treading the gravel-lined driveway, I looked up at our condo from a vantage point I rarely use. It was the back-end of business in Boston, the behind-the-scenes machinations of those beautiful brick and brownstone buildings that line our historical streets. It felt hushed there, like I’d stumbled upon some reverential sacred spot where secrets were revealed and kept, and hints of spring in the afternoon sunlight added to the enchantment.
A magnolia tree behind our building provided support for a few vines of ivy, still evergreen in this relatively-mild winter Boston has had, and I made an internal promise to come back more when the trees started blooming. In the brown gardens nearby, a friend from the past rested in the sun, perhaps as grateful as me for the promise of spring in the air.
