Category Archives: Boston

This is definitely in the top ten of all the photos I’ve ever had taken of me. It encapsulates, in so many ways and on so many levels, the dynamics of what happens when Suzie, Chris, and I get together. It was June of 1997 I think. Chris was looking for an apartment for his upcoming grad school adventure at Harvard Divinity School (see, my friends are not only smart, they’re spiritual) and he thought he could do it in a few short hours.

Suzie and I, as Suzie and I are wont to do, roared with laughter. Admittedly it was not the kindest response, but after you tell someone it will probably take longer than an hour or two to find Fall housing in Boston – and being laughed off yourself, it was an appropriate response. Needless to say, he never found an apartment that day. Or that weekend. To be honest, I’m not sure how he found a place to stay when he returned in the Fall, but that’s Chris. Infuriating, funny, and self-defeating in the face of all other advice. By the time this photo was taken, I think he was admitting said defeat.

Suzie, on the other hand, looks more agitated, mostly by the fact that she was tasked with the impossible feat of untangling a puppet I had procured in Hong Kong earlier that year, and she had clearly had enough of it. With both Chris and Suzie pouting, I decided to pose simply and dramatically, in the manner of a diva who could not be bothered by any of it. It’s the stance that has gotten me out of many a predicament, including this one.

This weekend I am, surprise, going to Boston, new Marimekko bed-set in tow, and a long-awaited reunion with my friend Kira in motion. It’s time for some spring cleaning at the condo, and some spring shopping too. We’ll see whether I can visit for a weekend without there being a major snowstorm in the forecast – it would be a first this year. No, really, it would be the first time in 2013 that there would be no snow for my visit. Let’s break the tradition, Beantown. It’s time.

I haven’t seen my friend Kira since late 2012 – which seems an eternity for someone whom I so adore. Her mother has been visiting family in Panama, so Kira has been bound to her house in Attleboro, watching the kids and holding things down on the home-front. As admirable as all that is, I missed our Boston visits. Then again, she was in Florida for ten years, so I can’t complain that selfishly. We’re gearing up for a reunion of sorts, to start off the spring season in Boston in a couple of weeks, and I’m in the planning stages of what to do.

A few highlights of our times together that always make me smile:

– A late-night dinner of Peking duck in Chinatown, followed by a walk through the Boston Public Garden (and a pose beneath an enormous Chionanthus tree in full fragrant bloom)

– A pre-holiday walk through Downtown Crossing, looking at the Christmas decorations and picking up Tibetan mittens

– A virgin taste of raw oysters on the half-shell at the Parker House, which soon became one of our favorite things to share

– A condo-stocking whirlwind shopping spree at Wal-Mart and Target to prep the place for JoAnn’s 40th Birthday party (and making all the trips up the condo stairs to bring the stuff in)

– A pre-party walk through the South End, on a sunny day in April, capped by another oyster stop

– A night-time talk backed by Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter

– And the traditional cup of tea in the morning before we say good-bye, before hitting Boston for a few final hours together, stretching the time as long as we can.

I can’t wait to make some new memories, and perhaps revisit a few old ones. It’s okay to do that with another person. There is nothing more comforting than the company of an old friend. Especially in Boston.

Waiting for a furniture delivery is, strangely enough, one of my favorite things to do. It sounds odd, as waiting is, for most people, an annoyance. In the same way I enjoy waiting around an airport, or waiting for the arrival of an old friend, I find comfort in the anticipation, in the hours before. It’s also the only way to get me to stay put for any duration of time, and unlike, say, my brother, I don’t have a problem with sitting still. For our recent bed delivery to Boston, I was given a window from 12 to 4 PM on a Friday afternoon. I arrived by eleven, stripped the bed, did some dusting, and was ready by 11:07, well before the first possible moment they might even arrive. But no matter, as there was half a book left to read, two stories to finish writing, and a new television with a DVD player on which to watch movies (I could not, nor did I care to, figure out how to connect the cable). My only regret was that it was a sunny, gorgeous day outside (which I would miss for the rest of the weekend) but at the time it seemed like it would go on and on, and I simply enjoyed the sun inside the condo, like a cat on a sun-drenched carpet.

I made myself an egg sandwich, and put on a pot of tea ~ Spicy Ginger. I measured some of the walls in the bathroom for new mirrors. There are always improvements to be made, but we are much further along than we were when I allowed my parents to take over the bulk of decorating (sorry, Mom). It will soon be time to paint the bedroom and replace the dated blinds, but for now this will suffice. I toyed with the idea of turning on some music, and half-heartedly flipped through a few radio stations, but soon shut it off. The quiet of solitude is a luxury I’m not often afforded. I wanted to enjoy this.

At noon, I laid down on the couch, returning to where I left off in ‘The Marriage Plot’ by Jeffrey Eugenides. The previous week of running around caught up with me quickly, and after only a few more pages I slipped into a nap, which only lasted about twenty minutes. It would be too good to be true to have them deliver this early in the allotted time-frame, but I still hoped, pacing the floor and periodically looking down the street for a delivery truck. The next three hours passed in much the same unremarkable manner, the sun slowly shifting through the bedroom window, lengthening along the hardwood floor.

Around 3:30 PM, the call arrived that they were down the street and bringing the bed in. I opened the front door and welcomed the two delivery men. (Any fantasy of hot, sexy, sweaty delivery men marching up to my bedroom was promptly destroyed by the reality of the situation, most notably the smell of the two guys, who certainly had the ‘sweaty’ part covered, but that was about it.) After some hesitation, they managed to maneuver the queen bed up the flight of stairs and around the tricky corner, and removed the old one (minus the frame – does anyone need a full frame? It seems to be welded into one piece, otherwise I’d have dissembled it and brought it home.) It was tough, unenviable work, and I gave them each a $20 bill for their troubles, particularly since I didn’t lift a finger to help (the smell was honestly just too much).

By 4:00 they had finished up. I made the bed, which filled the space perfectly, expanding to encompass the tufted head-board at last. I allowed myself one brief moment on it, wanting to save the big event until the evening. I was due to have dinner with my friend Alissa, so I poured myself a high-ball while savoring the silence.

We’ll go back step by step for this latest trip to Boston, beginning with this morning’s departure, as seen below, and the night before, as seen above. You can’t hear the wind that was whipping about in the background here, nor see the curtains billowing from said wind. It was a cold night, but I managed to keep warm.

One of the nice things of staying alone in the condo (or unsettling for those unsettled by silence) is the quiet afforded there. It’s a quiet that can be created almost anywhere, if you know how to silence the distractions. I leave the television and stereo off, and listen to the creaking of the floor, the chiming of a lamp shade pull, the rushing of the wind. A whole other world opens up when you start listening to the quiet.

In the magical time when the sky turns that deep blue at both the beginning and the end of the night, there is a moment of transition ~ the moment of the turn ~ when I look back and ahead. It’s the same sort of thing that happens at the start and finish of a weekend away.

One of the last major furniture pieces we bought for the Boston condo was a couch. There was a bed, a kitchen table, a computer console, and various chairs (whose trendiness was directly proportional to how uncomfortable they were) but, not being one to sit in front of a television very much, a couch was one of my very last priorities. At the time, I was going to school and working a part-time retail job (if 35 hours a week is part-time), so saving up for big furniture pieces had to be done piece-meal. Fortunately, my parents threw me a bone, and gifted the place with a couch. It was one of those things I didn’t realize how much I missed until it came back into my life.

There was something suddenly thrilling about being on an island of comfort in the midst of an unforgiving hardwood sea. To walk in from a long day and just collapse on the soft-backed pillows, kicking off shoes and giving the pumping of the heart a rest – it was all new to me again, and I loved it.

Whenever I’m in Boston, I invariably find myself sitting down at some point, usually early in the evening – after coming home from a day out, or in the hours before going out again – not reading or doing anything, simply sitting and enjoying the moment. There is joy to be found in the simplest of things – in this case a couch - if we can remember what it was like to be without it.

Some people might dread the thought of twelve inches coming in the night, but I welcomed it. From inside I watched the snow fall, seeing how it stuck to the branches of the trees lining the middle of Braddock Park, how it coated the cars and covered the street lamps. Before my eyes nature transformed the fair city, and though it was dark, everything glowed magnificently, like the smoky air surrounding a display of fireworks.

The next day dawned with the splendor only a January morning after a snowstorm could conjure. In the bright light of day, there was a different beauty, a more crystalline, sharp sort of prettiness. Despite the arrival of the wind, the trees hung onto their crystal-carriage, lifting the snow to the loftiest light. Like some enchanted winter wonderland with an elusive ice queen, the city streets were chasms in the woods, the snow providing refuge and hiding places, a buffer in the brutal cold.

Only a scant few times does Winter in Boston afford such brushes with the sublime. This was one of them.

(It helps when someone else has done the shoveling, and the car is parked in a garage. Failing either of those points, I’d be far less thrilled.)

Outside the window, Braddock Park, and the city of Boston, began to transform. This was a sticky snow, a wet snow that clung to all surfaces, but instead of acting as a treacherous, tenacious parasite intent on bringing its victim down, it stayed light, and the trees were able to hold up its weight as the evening went on. I watched from my warm perch as the street took on the enchantment I’ve only partially captured here. You can’t hear the stillness of the snow, the hush that a snowstorm casts over the city. You can’t smell the scent of snow in the air, almost metallic, like some sort of atmospheric trick the elements play on the nose.

Alone, with the light of a flickering candle behind me, there is no other place I’d rather be than right here, in the midst of the first big snowstorm of the season. It is a comfort to be so stranded and unreachable.

I walk from window to window, straining to see more of the outside world, twisting my head to take in every angle. The city in the snow doesn’t last that long, and the wind will be along soon enough to ruin its pristine blanket. It’s only a question of when. For now, I sip at some tea, cozily ensconced in the warmth of the dim room.

It started as I was walking down Newbury Street. At first I wasn’t sure if that’s what I was really seeing. For the first hour or so, it was just quick white streaks appearing and disappearing out of the corner of my eye. When the snow first started, it evaporated before it hit the ground, and this went on for quite some time. I’d duck into a store, and come back out expecting to find the world painted with white, but it didn’t start sticking until dinner-time. Once it began, however, it did not let up until morning, though there were breaks of rain and sleet, and we would not get the hyped-up foot of snow that Andy had warned me about.

A snowstorm is best ridden out with a stock of provisions (food stuffs, cocktails, and an ample selection of entertainment options – in this case a book and a DVD of ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’ with Bette Davis.) It’s also nice when you can ride it out at a condo where someone else is responsible for shoveling you out the next morning (thank you condo fees), even if it packs a lighter whallop than originally reported. On this night, I grabbed a bit of dinner, finished up some shopping, and came back with the ingredients for an easy pasta dish and some bread for toast the next morning. I’d already found a tea kettle and some lavender/oat flower tea. I was ready.

In a few minutes the year changes, and with it a new slate appears before us. How we color it, how we mark it, how we make it into something pretty is all up to us. In this midnight hour, we say good-bye and hello, and by morning it will all be different.

For now, it’s like the moment before a snowstorm, when you know the world is about to change, but it doesn’t quite feel real. Vestiges of the holidays remain, glowing differently now, a little sadder and yet somehow hopeful. Their real meaning, and the true spirit, remains. It doesn’t get thrown out with the wrapping paper and ribbons, it doesn’t disappear with the boxes and the string. Someone put up these lights, someone hung these wreaths, someone decorated these trees. Someone made the effort to make the world a little cheerier. To those who do that, I offer this unheard bit of thanks.

And now, as the ball drops in our biggest city, and I’m at a friend’s party, kissing my husband at the stroke of midnight as I’ve done for the last twelve years, I make a wish that your year is as happy and hopeful as you want it to be.

It is, and always has been, a place of refuge, of safety, of escape and fantasy. My bedroom in Boston is where I can shut it all out. The windows are usually open, letting in all the light possible, especially in the dark days of Winter. The sun will set, and I often find myself simply laying on the bed, watching it go down, then rising when it is already dark. It is the best place to be when the day turns to night.