Fourteen years ago I convinced my parents to invest in a condo in the South End of Boston. The area could have gone either way at the time - fortunately it went the right way, and that initial purchase has literally quadrupled in value (found by yours truly, so I take more than a bit of credit for this investment). It was the Fall of my junior year at Brandeis University, and we closed on the condo in November. By December, I was staying there on weekends.
Those first few weeks are memorable for their scant surroundings. We didn’t even have a bed or a couch, and certainly not a television or a lamp, but I didn’t miss any of it. I had weaned myself off TV during my Freshman year, and the fact that I was right in the heart of Boston made up for any lack of entertainment readily available in the empty condo.
In truth, I was finding my way in the quiet. I stood in the kitchen each morning, looking out the window and up at the John Hancock Tower and the Marriott Hotel, eating my breakfast (bagels from Finagle-a-Bagel – bought as a baker’s dozen) and orange juice (the single item in the refrigerator). In the evening I would cook up a simple dish of pasta, or just slice up another bagel. The floors had recently been refinished, and their expanse in the main room glowed warmly beneath the overhead ceiling lights.
By all rights, I should have been incredibly lonely. Away from friends and family and living on my own in a city could have spelled emotional disaster – but I only felt lonely once. It was early in the evening and I was returning to the condo after a day at work or school. I made my way down the Southwest Corridor – the leaves were still coming down from the late-holding oaks. It was just about to turn dark, but there was enough light in the sky to illuminate a bit of the darkest blue. I rounded the corner and saw my building. My gaze rose to our windows on the second floor. Dark, they did not wink at me, they did not invite me inside, they were completely closed. I stopped walking and felt overcome by… something. Exhaustion maybe, or something so daunting it didn’t have a name. At that moment, I could not bring myself to go inside. I knew if I did, that would be it – I would succumb to all the loneliness that I had simply not allowed myself to feel, knowing it would destroy me, knowing it would send me back to the dorm or back home, and I knew I couldn’t go back. But I also knew I couldn’t step into that empty condo in the dark – not right then.
I turned around and walked back to Copley Square. If I could just be around people, in a well-lit, safe place, I could re-group and be all right. I didn’t need to call anyone or talk to a familiar voice – I just needed to be around people. It didn’t matter that they were strangers, or that they paid me no attention – it was enough to hear them talking and see them going about their lives. It fortified me to return. An hour or so later, I went back, walked into the empty condo, and felt fine. It was the single moment of honest loneliness that I ever felt there, and the last.
Since then, I have cherished my time in Boston because, more often than not, it has been alone time. As much as I thought I was missing in my life back then, a part of me also realized how lucky I was – a young guy on the verge of his life, and all of its heartbreaks, waiting for the journey to begin and not even knowing he was already on it.
These days I often return to the city, on my own, for a weekend getaway – a chance to regroup in a different way - now I go to find the solitude, and the quiet, and the empty expanse of a hardwood floor that still glows warmly on winter nights (even if the water-heater is broken).
I am rich in many homes.
