It’s been years since my brother and I spent any time together in Boston, which seems a little sad given how much we each love the city and how easy it would be to meet up here. Alas, the years went by and nothing ever lined up until this day, when he and my nephew Noah were in town for a show at House of Blues, and I was preparing for a holiday gathering the following weekend.
With Kira off the grid, I welcomed the presence and distraction of my brother – and if you know my brother at all you know there is no greater presence or distraction. On this Saturday afternoon, it was precisely what I wanted – and as I returned to the condo after a few more errands, I was happy to find him and Noah there, where Christmas lights twinkled and holiday music played on the little stereo. The decorations I’d put up hadn’t been totally wasted then, and as I lit a few candles the afternoon glowed inside as the outside grew dark.
The three of us sat around the table overlooking Braddock Park, a random assorted of cheese, crackers olives and soda on a board messily assembled without rhyme or reason. An atmosphere of holiday coziness settled around us, and my brother recalled his and Noah’s late-night Chinatown dinner tradition; they’d spent several post-show/post-game nights over dinners in Chinatown – one of the things I used to do with Kira. He said they would do it again that night and invited me to join them after the show. I said that would work, and asked them to text me when they were done, at which point I’d meet them at the Boylston stop since they’d be coming from Fenway – we could walk from there to Chinatown and have a late dinner.
While they headed out for their show I brought my notebook to a nearby cafe for an hour or two of cafe culture, whereupon I began the ramblings of this recounting (and yesterday’s posts). By the time I returned to the condo to get ready for dinner, it was beginning to feel a lot more like Christmas. ‘Meet Me In St. Louis’ was playing on the television and I decided to get a head start to the Copley T station while soaking in the festive fireplace environs of the Lenox Hotel lobby.
Pulling a hood over my head and letting a long coat billow behind me, I hurried down the stairs to the street below and made my way through the Southwest Corridor Park then down Dartmouth toward the Lenox and its fire-lit warmth. Merry-makers decked out in holiday finery sat around the fireplace, but a chair was open for the taking, and I sank it, quickly warming to the picturesque scene. Soon – too soon, really, as I was just slipping into a relaxed state for the first time that weekend – my brother was calling, telling me they were on their way. I pulled my coat back on and headed out, arriving at the Boylston station a few minutes before they got there.
We walked to Chinatown, recalling that holiday classic ‘Gremlins’ and its opening scenes of pricing a Mogwai. I told Noah the story of how his Dad and I saw it in the theater when it opened, and how sick I got, either from fear or summer heat – and almost didn’t make it home without throwing up in our neighbor’s caravan. Ah, to be a kid in the 80’s…
Decades later, and after several years of distance, my brother and I were back in Boston, walking to dinner in Chinatown with his son, and uncertainly completing a circle, one circle of several on our journey.
{To be continued…}
