Category Archives: Boston

Even when the events of a weekend blur together, there are moments that rise above the rest – the ones that get remembered on the Monday morning when you’re sad that it all had to end. These are just a couple of the favorite ones we had last weekend in Boston, little jewels encrusted on the time-clock of life, when we’d managed to still its ticking hand.

The first was a stop at the Avery Bar in the Ritz Carlton. JoAnn and I had been here for a cocktail on a winter night a few years ago, so I knew there was a cozy fire inside. Though technically the Avery wasn’t set to open for a few hours, the super-friendly gentleman standing at the front desk said we could grab a drink at the adjoining Artisan Bar and bring it back to the fire place area. We really just wanted to be close to the fire, so we thanked him profusely and followed through with the recommendation.

I’ve spent some of my happiest times sitting idly in a hotel bar, and this one proved no different. We dropped our things and leaned back into a leather couch. The fire flickered in front of us, and the place was gloriously empty. When the world pauses… that is the time I like best. What happens afterwards gets swept away in the usual maelstrom of motion and activity that typically characterizes a quick weekend in Boston.

The other moment that came to mind as I recollected highpoints from the visit was a much simpler one that happened on a Sunday morning. Usually we are out and about early enough to avoid any brunch lines. On this day it was too cold to find the energy to move. The sun was streaming in so gorgeously and everything was looking especially clean after clearing out the holiday decorations that I didn’t want to leave. We pulled a blanket on and watched the rest of ‘Heathers’ on TV.

The ZZ plant arched happily in the sunlight. A pile of folded towels stood neatly on a shelf. The sun crept slowly along the shiny floorboards. In the corner, a Muji air diffuser dispersed a small plume of fragrant water vapor: their ‘Winter Bouquet’ edition, weighted predominantly with the slumber-inducing scent of lavender. It was certainly seeing us through the winter.

Sometimes you don’t need to travel further than your own bed to find what you’re looking for.

When you’ve been in Boston as much as I have, the weekends tend to blur together. Only certain memorable visits stand out above the rest, whether by the singular nature of their purpose (such as a wedding or birthday) or by the seasonal aspect or traditional slant of their occurrence (such as the Holiday Stroll or the Children’s Hour). Much of the time, however, nothing terribly special happens. Such was the case last weekend in Boston, when I rode into town in the midst of a raging rainstorm (that so soaked my clothes I actually had to put jeans and coat into the dryer – a first in all these years of dodging rain and snow). That didn’t mean Kira and I didn’t make our own moments. Every visit, no matter how typical or seemingly-mundane, carries some magic. It’s Boston, after all. This time around, however, much of the magic was garnered from staying inside.

A brief January thaw was coming to an end in dramatic fashion, as high winds and rain slashed through the city. Fortunately, after an early run to the market I had everything we needed – fresh limes and cilantro, and the bulk of a Mexican dinner that I’d prepared the night before: carnitas and a Mexican chipotle fried rice. Kira arrived, wind-battered and bedraggled, but a Paloma cooler soon revived her. She brought a single plantain for frying, and we set to work heating things up, cutting limes, and assembling a proper dinner.

We fell asleep to ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel‘ while the winter weather returned in the night. All vestiges of a January thaw had frozen and disappeared as the wind wailed and the window screens rattled. By morning, the sky was beginning to clear, but in the treacherous way that always seems to bring colder temperatures.

We found a few good sales along Newbury Street before pausing for a lunch at Roost: two burgers with fries. On a cold winter day, a hot hamburger and side of fries is almost as good as a bowl of pho (and that would come later). Fortified for a few more hours, we meandered to Boylston where I found my Mom’s birthday present, then headed back to the condo for a siesta.

I cannot extol the virtues of a siesta enough. It seems to be a sadly-forgotten tradition in our hustle-and-bustle lost country, but other nations still embrace the mid-afternoon rest session with gusto – and whenever I’m away from home I do too. Traveling takes its toll, and a mid-afternoon break from whatever you’re doing is a welcome method of rejuvenation. It’s also one of my favorite times to be in the condo – just as the sun is pouring in through the bedroom window.

We settled in to start ‘Heathers’ – a movie I’d never seen, much to Suzie’s great chagrin. As long as it wasn’t as wretched as ‘Dirty Dancing’ I didn’t care. A quick cat-nap, and then it was time for dinner at Buttermilk & Bourbon. (Not to throw out any additional hubris, our Mexican meal was better than what we ended up getting at B&B. Just saying.)

We wrapped things up with a drink and snack at Douzo, then it was back to the warmth and coziness of the condo. It welcomed us with open arms and comfort, and a bed thick with heavy blankets and lots of pillows.

Scene: 3 AM, on a squeaky pull-out bed in the living room of the condo, Kira is coughing next to me. The street light from Braddock Park spills in through the high windows, and my body is rebelling against such sleeping conditions at such an advanced age. My mind races to decipher the unlikely predicament in which I find myself, and a Christmas song plays quietly on the stereo. How did we ever get here? I haven’t been this disoriented in the condo since the party days of my youth, following a holiday get-together that found various friends strewn about the place, groggily waking in various states of togetherness.

On this morning, Chris and his four-year-old slept soundly in the queen bed of the bedroom. Kira had insisted we give it up after the boy went in early and we stayed up to talk. Now we were stuck on the wire-springs of the pull-out couch, not getting any quality sleep, and doing our best to stay warm. Another coughing fit woke Kira, so I got up and put on some tea; she swears that a hot cup of the stuff, along with some honey and cinnamon, quells any cough. I poured her a mug, then dove back under the heavy winter blanket and prayed for sleep to return.

Sleep did not return until the baby was already up, but he stayed in the bedroom peacefully occupied with headphones and a cartoon while his Daddy slept. I was in no rush to move, so we stole a few more moments of fitful shut-eye before finally giving up the ghost of meaningful rest.

Kira and I rose, and eventually everyone joined us so we could head off to brunch. The day was brilliant – sunny with blue skies – and after brunch we saw Kristen and Julia off, then Chris wanted to take Simon to Harvard. There’s something very touching about a father showing off his Alma Mater to his son.

Thanks to the Red Line issues on December weekends, Kira and I had foregone what had become a favorite component of our Holiday Stroll: a trip to Cambridge. We hopped in the car Chris ordered and averted any T snafus, thus enabling us to keep the tradition alive. We would be able to browse the shops between Harvard and Porter Squares after all.

On good days, the universe will deliver an unexpected gift to those of us who may have thought such a delight had passed. On that morning, we arrived in Cambridge, bid adieu to the last child of the Boston Children’s Holiday Hour (which had somehow lengthened into a weekend), and Kira and I set off in the direction of Porter Square.

We stopped in our usual haunts, then had a final pho meal to close out the weekend – a neat little bookend to mirror the start of the whole thing. I reminded Kira of how our soup time on Friday had kicked it all off, and how we would look back at its quiet and calm with fondness when things were hectic and crazy. We had a second moment of similar quietude now, and embraced it. We lingered there, not wanting to go back to our real lives just yet, trying instead to stretch Sunday just a little longer. It turned out that our Boston holiday adventures were not quite over for the year.

Ever since she returned from Florida to the winterscape of Boston, Kira has been wanting to go ice skating. Still traumatized from an ice skating incident at Schenectady when I was a child, I’ve always politely encouraged her to do so, with someone else. On our first few holiday strolls, we would somehow end up passing a make-shift skating rink, where people were giddily gliding by, enticing Kira with their fluid motion and seemingly-easy turns on the ice.

I was never fooled.

On our most recent holiday excursion, we passed a rink at Government Center. Entranced, Kira watched the skaters go by, while I looked around for some sort of hot toddy stand (to no avail). We didn’t get into the skates then, and I thought we had escaped the scene for the season.

After making our way to the Red Line, knowing we would need to shuttle-bus it beyond Kendall, we did that damn thing and rode the bus to Charles MGH, where we hopped off and took a leisurely walk along the antique stores and gift shops near Beacon Hill. The best holiday strolls are the impromptu and unplanned ones. We crossed into the Boston Public Garden, and the little pond in the middle had not been drained. A thick layer of smooth ice lay darkly and expansively before us, and a few people rushed by on skates, and off them. Kira squealed with delight, and I knew this was her destiny. She hastened onto the ice, carefully sliding along in her sneakers and begging me to take a picture. She beckoned me to join her, but when I looked at the edge, I could see water coming up through cracks in the ice, and the thought of crashing through and having to walk all the way home in freezing wet shoes kept me off of it. Kira didn’t mind – she took a few spins and had her ice skating moment.

We crossed the bridge and looked at the lights beginning to come out as the sky dimmed. It was a perfect holiday afternoon, and a lovely end to our holiday weekend. We traveled along Newbury for a bit then crossed over to Boylston. At the Lenox, we paused for a fireside break and one last moment of peace and holiday contemplation.

That night, I would return to my quiet life: a still house, a Christmas tree that Andy had installed while I was away, and a comfortable bed. 

Did anyone else catch that ’60 Minutes’ piece on the Millennium Tower in San Francisco? The high-rise building is sinking a few inches per year, and starting to lean as well. For those of us not paralyzed with fear at such a height, it seems lofty living is a desirable, if expensive, goal. The older I get, the more afraid of heights I grow, so I’m good with crawling around the lower levels of this planet with all the other human ants.

Sometimes, though, we yearn to fly and soar as high as we can go, and looking up at the tops of buildings and cathedrals and skyscrapers has always thrilled me. There’s something to be said for a bird’s-eye view of the world. When I was a kid, I used to climb a very tall evergreen in our backyard. The higher I went, the more exhilarated I felt. A little terrified too, and at times I would cling to the sturdy trunk and close my eyes to calm myself before carefully climbing back down.

I’m better at more reasonable perches, such as the two-and-a-half story vantage-point of our Boston home. (I say two-and-a-half because the first floor is actually above street level by quite a bit, in the brownstone tradition.) From there, one has a decent view of the street, and the John Hancock Tower. If you lean out the window a bit and strain your neck you can also glimpse a bit of the Prudential Center.

It was here that I spent a single night last weekend to prepare for the holiday season events. There’s the annual Holiday Stroll with Kira, and the relatively new Holiday Children’s Hour with Suzie’s family (and hopefully a few other kids to keep Milo and Oona company). Both have become happy holiday traditions which I’m hoping to keep going. Since I won’t likely be in Boston again until December, I had to decorate, do some laundry, and get a few things together beforehand. It was gleefully anticipatory work – my favorite sort of work – and I loosely plotted out possibilities in my head. ‘Tis almost the season…

Mother Nature has taught us some valuable, and brutal, lessons this year. The first of which is rather simple: don’t fuck with her. I was psychologically ready to turn the page to fall and snuggle into some cozy nights with cool air, but she wasn’t having any of it. Not yet. She doesn’t care what the calendar says or where your mind might be at – she was going to pump up the temperatures like it was July. Yet she did throw us a tantalizing preview, and as I drove through a rainy band of hurricane remnants, I felt the faint thrill of a fall chill last weekend in Boston.

With schedules that don’t quite seem to align, Kira and I haven’t been able to spend as much time as we usually do together, so this marked the first chance to see her in a couple of months, and the last (based on the filled calendar for the next two months). We made the most of it, starting with a late night meal at The Elephant Walk (Boston, you still go to sleep much too early for a Friday). The night felt like fall, and I’d neglected to look at anything other than the 80 degree sunny weather set for Saturday and Sunday. The sky was filled with moisture, as if we were caught in a cloud. Mist and rain swirled around us in the wind, making umbrellas useless (had we thought to bring one along). I embraced it. I will never complain about summer lingering, but I also love the first cozy jolt of fall. We had that, and after we made our way back through the seasonally-appropriate night, we brought out the sumptuous winter blanket to stave off the chill.

The best atmosphere for sleeping is a night of coolness with a wind whipping about to rustle the curtains a little. There was still enough warmth to leave the windows open but on this first day of fall the new season was poised to pounce.

That never happened. We awoke to a bright day. The early chill of the morning quickly dissipated, but not until we stopped for the first pho of the season. I’d only brought shorts, so I was ready for the bowl of spicy goodness. By the time we finished, the sun was out and the sky was blue. It felt like summer again. Downtown Crossing has come a long way in the past year or so, and new hotels and restaurants and simple sitting spaces were on beautiful display. We vowed to make it a prominent part of our Holiday Stroll this year, if we could ever find a time to do a Holiday Stroll. Life impedes on so much fun these days.

I’m rambling on, and running ahead like I usually do, and that’s not good. Fall has only just begun, and Mother Nature reminded me that she will not be rushed. The day turned hot and humid. It was the exact lesson I needed, and a perfect extension of a summer in which I didn’t get to spend much time in Boston. We embraced the heat, leisurely strolling to a late dinner at Aquitaine. (Their Saturday Boeuf Bourguignon special is divine – meat so tender it melts in your mouth after you slice through it with the dullest fork.) Walking back, we took our time, basking in the balmy weather. I paused a few times to stand beneath the shimmering leaves of trees that will be bare the next time we pass under them. There was a certain sadness to that, but the fullness of the moment was enough to see us through.

Given my job, I don’t often have the luxury and treat of being in Boston on a Wednesday morning to enjoy the street cleaning barrenness as depicted here, but this week I did. It’s a hazard for those unaware of the rules (they will ticket and tow in a heartbeat) but it keeps things neat and tidy, and affords the rare shot of a car-free side of the street.

On this day, I was showing my Manchester pal Andy around before his flight departed later that evening, and the day was humid and hot and threatening rain, but it held off until the very end. A day in Boston is a treasure indeed, and I’ll take them whenever I can get them.

The little things, those bright pockets of beauty that often go hidden, are what connect the bigger scenes to each other.

Here a bee beckons the viewer deeper into a garden.

There a lunch break of salmon eases the feet after a tour of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Everywhere, beauty waits to bind the messy bits of life together, and somehow it always manages.