The post-birthday breakfast is one of my favorite moments – all the pressure is off, the new cologne can be worn, and the fresh start of another journey around the sun can begin. On this day I managed to secure a reservation at Beacon Hill Books and Cafe, one of the most enchanting places in Boston, starting with its tiny doorway, which was even too short for me or Andy to walk through without ducking. Squirrels in honor of Paige, the bookstore squirrel, dotted the decor, whimsically calling to us from around every corner. While the bookstore is a destination of its own, this morning it was the fabled breakfast that had us squeezing down the hallway into the cafe.
Still on a birthday high, I ordered the caviar omelette while Andy got the peach pistachio buckwheat galette. We decided to share the ginger rhubarb scone with Devonshire clotted cream.
The omelette was delicious – but the scone was a veritable revelation. Somehow both flaky and crumbly, delicately moist and not too sweet, its ginger and rhubard flavors were perfectly matched, and all of it came together wonderfully under that clotted cream. I immediately made a plan to attempt the recipe once I returned home. With the promise of home and the future in mind, we departed Boston… for the moment. Back soon.
Being that it was my special day, a second stop for peach ice cream was made – I told you before, this flavor is only available for a short period of time and one must strike when the ice cream iron is hot. All glory and gratitude for J.P. Licks.
Dinner was at Capri, former site of Cinquecento, where we enjoyed dinner many years ago (the night that Andy tried octopus for the first time and fell in love). We opted for a burrata and prosciutto board to begin tonight.
As happens on most visits to Boston, I began by getting my bearings by doing some shopping along Newbury Street. I didn’t end up buying anything, but a look-see shopping expedition brings me back to myself, and soon it was time for our first dinner.
I’ve been wanting to try Dalia since it opened a few months ago and I managed to get reservations for the day before my birthday. It was just as handsome as advance word had promised – with food to match. The one minor snafu was that my entree arrived about fifteen minutes before Andy’s, and since he offered, I ended up eating it before it got cold. Neither of us much minded – we’re pretty easy-going dining guests, and perhaps Dalia is still working out their timing.
The only semi-reliable place for the peach ice cream has been J.P. Licks, and it’s usually available right around this time of the year. While the night was still young, I was no longer, so we got an Uber back to the condo, where the street glowed its magic glow on a pretty summer night…
Sipping a mango-dragonfruit refresher at a sidewalk cafe in the South End, I feel slightly nostalgic on my 51st birthday. Andy and I are in town for the low-key event, keeping a quiet out-of-town tradition intact; I was never one for big birthdays. Sitting on the sidewalk and watching the Monday traffic go by, I realize that I’m old enough to remember when this cafe used to be Francesca’s – back when Geoffrey’s was the hot spot of the neighborhood and the South End was filled with gays and their admirers.
When I look around now, the only restaurant that still stands in the same place is Aquataine. How strange that the city is so different, yet I feel so intensely the same. Thirty years ago, on this same stretch of Tremont, I felt similarly uncertain. The only thing that may have changed in my constitution is that I probably hide it better now. (And I was quite good at hiding it then.)
Today we have an idyllic day – a very sunny Monday with a lovely cool breeze – it reminds me of summer nights in my early 20’s, when I’d jog around the South End purportedly for exercise, but it really was just to find a romantic partner with whom to share a Boston life together. At the time, I was hopelessly in love with the idea of being in love – not really realizing all that love might entail. In that respect I have changed – a lot. My husband is back at the condo, waiting to take me out to dinner for my birthday, and if I’m uncertain about life in general, I’m no longer so uncertain about love.
Our quiet birthday jaunt to Boston begins with a brief recap of our adventures tomorrow…
One of my favorite things to do when I’m in Boston is to walk the city – not with any goal or destination in mind, just the act of walking and exploring and happening upon whatever happens along the way. It’s at odds with the carefully-choreographed precision that characterizes so much of the rest of my life, and it’s how I’d like to act more often. The last weekend in Boston proved good practice for that kind of letting go, though that also came with memories that surfaced and rushed to flood the heart with ideas for which I wasn’t entirely prepared, but I allowed myself to feel it all, and let the tears fill my eyes when they came rather than force them away.
One little kiss, a moment of bliss, then hours of deep regret One little smile, and after a while, a longing to forget One little heartache left as a token One little plaything carelessly broken
Ensconced in the Boston brownstone, one floor above the street lined with other brownstones, I finish my dinner that first night and take a moment to read a bit on the couch. Cole Porter plays in the background, lending the weekend a lovely soundtrack, the way he often provides a summer setting for evenings that turn solitude into magic. Many a Boston evening has been spent in similar fashion, and I’m suddenly waxing nostalgic for all the nights that came before. That can be troublesome and dangerous depending on what sort of mood Spirit decides to take me, but when the night is still light, as it happens to be at high summer, nothing feels as dangerous as it perhaps should, and so I prepare to walk.
On that first night of walking, I made the conscious decision to engage with whatever and whomever crossed my path. My first stop was a new plant store in the South End, and after the woman working there welcomed me in I asked her how long they had been open, telling her how beautiful the space was. She told me the quick story of how they had moved from a nearby spot, and then she thanked me as I told her I’d definitely be back, then continued on my way.
Meandering through the South End, I crossed through Chinatown then the financial district before finding myself at the harbor – Spirit seemed to be guiding me to the water, and as I looked out onto the water that led into the Atlantic Ocean, my mind wandered all the way to Cape Cod, to the first man I can remember ever remotely crushing on – a guy who was running the dolphin show at a place called Aqua Circus. He probably exists mostly as a made-up visage in my mind of a slightly-curly-and-reddish-brown haired man, the same shade as the bit of chest hair that showed at the top of the zip-up hoodie that wasn’t zipped all the way up. While that lives as possible fiction, I distinctly remember that before his show began he asked if I would be his helper for the night, and I hesitantly said yes because I knew there was no alternative to saying no to him, and I didn’t want there to be. The help I was to provide consisted of retrieving several small rubber hoops that he would ask me to give to him at a certain point in the proceedings. It was the first time a gentleman had showed any interest in me – I wasn’t more than ten years old, and I felt like the whole world had suddenly opened up and revealed some wonderful secret to me and only me. Enraptured, I sat at the edge of my seat until he looked for me, then I carefully made my way to the hoops, and onto the little stage at the end of the pool. While the dolphins had been my main interest, at that moment they fell away, their clicks and clucks and calls fading into the slow motion world where this young man stood before me, all gratitude and a golden smile and a public round of thanks that the audience joined in granting me, and all I wanted was to help him more.
Strange how that memory came flooding back as I looked out over Boston Harbor. He was one of the first men I remember stirring something in me that no girl or woman ever would, and I don’t always think of him, not the way I would think of other men this evening. The screams of a seagull brought me back to the present moment, and I backed away from the water.
It was at this place where I once ran on a winter’s night after I foolishly fell for a one-night-stand in Rochester, NY – the man who brushed the snow off my car the next morning, and so I decided I had to love him. Not knowing any better didn’t diminish the pain that ensued, and I remember arriving here after a breathless almost-run from the Government Center T stop and soaking up the solitude and loneliness – unlike the summer night at hand, that winter’s night was entirely bereft of people. I was alone, and I could cry without worry of anyone seeing – and I did, to the sad soundtrack of a flagpole clanging desolately in the wind. Tears welled up again, not for the present moment, but for that young man I was back then, the guy who didn’t know what to make of all those feelings, all those yearnings, all that loneliness. As for the one-night-stand guy, he would contact me years later, as many of them would, inviting me to meet if ever I was in his town, and by then the magic was always gone, the hurt eradicating whatever I once felt for them. It was never really about them anyway.
Remember you vowed By all the stars above you Remember?
I made my way through Faneuil Hall, the place I worked through my last years of college and beyond, then Spirit impelled me to follow the roads to the place where the very first man who kissed me used to live. It was right across the street from the very first Boston hotel I stayed at when my Mom brought my brother and I to the city. Some walks are steeped in nostalgia, and for whatever reason I was brought back to those two pivotal times and places, each sad and astounding and wonderful in their own way. For the very first Boston stay, my mother took us to see ‘E.T.’ at the movie theater nearby; I was more excited about the small plant store across the way, where I’d spend a good hour just inspecting and taking in the tiny collection of houseplants they had on display.
As for the man who gave me my first kiss among other firsts, I remember the stale smell of his little room. The towel around his waist. The sad little sink kitchen set-up that butted up against the bed. The worn and torn Alcoholics Anonymous book that stood on the windowsill. The way his stubble felt like it was cutting into my face, the way I wanted more. The way he was breaking my heart and the way I didn’t know why. We are so careless with each other, even when we know better.
Remember we found a lonely spot And after I learned to care a lot
I followed the river back toward home, the opposite way that man had taken me when we first walked together on a warm and sunny September day. You can’t correct the past by retreading it, but once in a while you understand it a little better, and in that understanding is a little bit of resolution, an easing of whatever faded hurt might remain. All these nights of walking in Boston may be my attempt at chipping away at the pain. Most times, nothing comes of it but a few thousand steps; sometimes the tears land, and some healing happens.
Making my way through the Boston Public Garden restores my sense of calm, and all the happy memories that the garden holds. It carries a different charm in the evening, when the bats are flying about and the waterfowl have tucked their heads into their necks. My head was feeling scattered, and whenever that happens the garden grounds me – this one and all of them. Once I felt right again, I continued on for the last leg home, passing a diner that I would eat at the morning of my departure.
You promised that you’d forget me not But you forgot To remember
In the sunlight of the next day, all the darkness is forgotten, and all the nostalgia too. The past once again recedes into the past, the ghosts of people who once populated and seemed so important to me disappearing behind the colorful blooms of flowers who take happy pride of place in the mind. The world rights itself on the daily if we let it. Yet I don’t depart unchanged.
Into my dreams you wandered it seems, and then there came a day You loved me too; my dreams had come true, and all the world was May But soon the May-time turned to December You had forgotten; do you remember?
Sometimes you can tell when something special is in the offing – it carries on the wind, maybe in the scent of the sea – and sometimes you simply go along with the gentle unfolding of a weekend in Boston, and nothing much happens and in that is the magic, but only when you listen closely and carefully. When I arrived, the city was in gorgeous bloom – a beautifully sunny July afternoon, and my only goal was to walk the weekend away and be mostly alone with my thoughts and mental meanderings.
At words poetic, I’m so pathetic That I always have found it best Instead of getting ’em off my chest To let ’em rest unexpressed I hate parading my serenading As I’ll probably miss a bar But if this ditty is not so pretty At least it’ll tell you How great you are
At this private little pied-à-terre where I’ve always had a home-away-from-home, one can wear their underwear to dinner and not be bothered. Sometimes it’s the simple things in life that bring us the most joy. I settle into comfort and charcuterie, taking my time and listening to Cole Porter as the light slowly lowered in the sky, and with it some of the harsher heat. I indulged, as I was planning on doing a lot of walking this weekend.
Some weekends in Boston have a way of melting their days into one mash-up of magic and emotions, and when they’re done my mind is so full it’s difficult to recall everything that happened in the order that it all went down – that’s always a good sign that I was present in the moment and not documenting of chronicling things, which can keep one at a remove and distance. It’s better to be immersed and mindful, and so this post will melt into the next one as far as my nocturnal ambulations go. The spirit is what counts, and the spirit is what I will endeavor to capture.
“You’re the purple light Of a summer night in Spain…” – Cole Porter
“Don’t speed!” Andy warned me as I pulled out of the driveway with Skip. Not sure why he said such a thing, as it is my habit to subconsciously do the opposite of what anyone tells me to do, and within ten minutes of departing for Boston, I was being pulled over somewhere in East Greenbush for speeding. (And I was still going less than I’ve seen Andy go on the Thruway on the regular.)
After accepting the ticket, part of me let out a sigh of relief – at least our police interaction was already done for the weekend. Thus began this year’s BroSox Adventure – a happy tradition we started eleven years ago, and one of our favorite rituals to kick off the summer season.
We began with stops at Eataly and Trader Joe’s, where we procured the items for a substantial charcuterie board, then headed back to the condo where we set up food shop until it was time to get a car to Fenway. I asked Skip to keep his ears peeled for a song that would personify the weekend, and as we filed into the ballpark we noticed all the men in kilts. Scotland was in Boston for the FIFA World Cup, and the place was filled with men in kilts. A group fell in behind us, their accents and actions the stuff of gay porn and worthy of adulation. I listened as Skip laughed.
The game was a good one – despite their sucky season, the Red Sox managed to win 10 to 1 – Skip and I have largely been a good luck charm for this franchise, and this night continued that streak. Our dinner would be the Fenway franks, which Skip maintains are the best hot dogs in the baseball world – and he’s done all the testing.
A number of years ago, when we were sitting at Fenway watching a game, I had spit out a mouthful of beer on the two guys in front of us after something struck me as funny. They were not amused, and this year karma came back, but it delivered its blow upon Skip. A group of young fans behind us were attending their first game (I’m assuming, as they kept asking for relish for their hot dogs which five sellers kept telling them they didn’t have). They were a little obnoxious, but such is the province of youth. I told Skip that was likely us ten years ago; he disagreed.
As a wave made its way around the park, we stood and raised our hands, and one of the guys behind us knocked the beer out of the hand of another, which promptly spilled all over Skip. He was good about it; the woman next to us seemed more upset – she wanted us to raise a ruckus and demand that they buy him a drink. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. Maybe we have grown up a bit.
When the game was over we walked back toward the condo, stopping for gelato at Eataly and making the most of a perfectly-marvelous almost-summer night.
The next morning we slept in, at least what constitutes sleeping in for middle-aged men these days, and the day was already heating up. Sunny and mid-80’s was the happy weather plan, and knowing this we wandered along our usual path on Newbury Street and all the way to Beacon Hill for some future project ideas (let’s just say someone got a cowboy hat). At some point Skip saw a guy in a t-shirt that read ‘YES SIR I CAN BOOGIE!’ which was on the playlist for this summer’s theme – and suddenly we had our song for the weekend like Magic!
By midday Skip was lagging, and I was feeling the heat too, so we made our way back to the condo for an extra-long siesta. The older we get, the more we value the afternoon nap it seems. That said, I didn’t get much shut-eye, and I wanted to try a possible summer cologne so I left Skip to his rest, and made a quick jaunt to Saks where I found a summer fragrance by Guerlain.
When I got back, we readied for an appetizer and drinks at Pink Taco where we enjoyed an excellent dinner last year, then walked around while World Cup madness seized the city. For the first time in a long time Boston felt alive and vibrant, caught up in the excitement of all the visiting Scots, and we found a Mexican bar in the South End where we set up to watch the game.
The weekend of sports didn’t end there, as we managed to catch the final minutes of the Knicks game playing in another bar, where we watched with a few other NY fans from the sidewalk, then found a pizza joint that had Skip claims is the first decent pizza we’ve had in Boston for all these years.
Walking in the twilight and stumbling over the uneven brick-laden sidewalks of the South End – tree roots like earthquakes buckling the ground beneath our feet – we made our way back toward home. Two men spilling over into the second half of their lives, still searching for what it all means, still finding ways of adapting, still embracing the friendship that makes it all worthwhile…
Astute viewers of the original ‘Sex & the City’ series may recognize the duvet cover here – the classic Calvin Klein ‘Bamboo’ pattern that once adorned Carrie Bradshaw’s bedroom was one of the first pieces I got for the Boston condo way back in the 90’s, and I put it back on the bed recently in a fit of 90’s nostalgia. Our recent BroSox Adventures will play a part in the first summer blog posts to come, so more on that later. For now, a more virtual return to Boston as I make plans for a few extended stays in that favored city – consider it retirement practice – for more than a weekend.
An earlier foray into a briefer retirement practice occurred in this post, and it concluded with a hopeful eye to the future. I’m even closer to it becoming reality (another five years or so) and after this month at work I feel that I’m already ready. To get into the habit, I’m going to take a few longer stints in Boston to see how it will work, and to acclimate myself to a schedule without a set schedule.
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has been doing their ‘Art in Bloom’ annual exhibition for fifty years (just like me!) and it’s one of the most whimsical scenes if you’re lucky enough to see it. Floral designers come up with arrangements and floral displays that are inspired by works of art in the museum. It’s a neat floral twist on classic artwork, and most of the time the artists, and their inspiration pieces, are so indelible that you can guess it without the captions.
The accidental iPhone shot seen above – blurred from the late-night lighting – reminded me of that concept – life imitating art or vice versa. I love the way it appears as some pastel or watercolor, an effect that isn’t easy to do with the autocorrect nature of phone cameras these days. Imperfection is life, imperfection is beauty, imperfection is genius. The actual intended photograph of a chartreuse-leaved bleeding heart plant is seen below. Which do you prefer? My heart leans toward the abstract, the wonder, the accident.
The trees hadn’t fully leafed out yet, aside from the brilliant chartreuse of the weeping willows, but this always give the area the look of possibility, room to expand and fill in as the summer season ushers herself in.
On this morning, we walked around the Garden, surveying the beds of tulips and flowering apple trees. Families of ducks and Canadian geese patrolled the water, but no signs of the swans this year.
This little Boston oasis is one of my favorite parts of the city – a space that completely takes you out of the concrete gray surroundings, and a welcome relief of green tranquility seen through the curtains of elderly willows.
We had a lunch at the Four Seasons, still missing the Bristol Lounge and its heavenly burgers and 12-layer chocolate wedding cake that brought us so much joy over the years (happily we were told a new restaurant was opening in that space in the next year or so). As we made our way back to the condo for an afternoon siesta, the rain returned – nothing heavy, just enough to keep us happily indoors for an afternoon nap until it was time for dinner.
For our second and last dinner of the weekend, we had reservation at Avra Estiatorio, where a crazy-good Greek menu found us partaking of the best octopus appetizer we have ever had – and so generously portioned that for the first time in decades we couldn’t quite finish it all. (I was hellbent on saving room for dessert, and they had a 16-layer chocolate cake that rivaled the elusive one we had at our wedding lunch in the Bristol Lounge 16 years ago).
It was a very sweet ending to a wonderful weekend of meals, and as the night had turned into a lovely one, we walked some of it off as we made the journey home.
The next morning, our bunny friend stopped by to see us off – a fond adieu from a favorite denizen of my favorite city.
Another anniversary weekend in the books, as a peony bashfully winked at us from behind its pink petals…
Boston bedecked herself in her usual May splendor – and all the city seemed to be in bloom – big, puffy clouds of Kwanzan cherry trees, all sorts of sweetly-scented ornamental fruit tree flowers, and mysterious lilacs that couldn’t always be detected but for their delightful perfume around every corner.
While our lilacs at home were taking a year off, Boston’s lilacs were putting on a proper show. Along the Southwest Corridor Park, all the flowering trees seemed to be conspiring to join in the parade of beauty, beginning with the American dogwood, showing off its sepals against bare branches for an ethereal effect that only the American dogwood can pull off.
Echoing its white elegance, the Korean spice viburnum perfumed the proceedings. Caught on the slightest breeze, this fragrance embodies spring, joining the lilacs for an olfactory explosion of merriment.
After decompressing at the condo for a while, it was time for an early dinner – early being the only available time lot for reservations at Maple & Ash in the Seaport. It was worth the change in schedule because the meal was fantastic – and this personalized menu joke was hysterical.
A lavender lemon mocktail fronts Andy’s more traditional cocktail – a match made in splendor.
The filets were melt-in-your-mouth delicious, tender enough to cut with a fork, and Andy said it was one of the best he’s had in years. Capping it off with dessert (I chose an elongated slice of chocolate cake that wouldn’t fit in a single photo no matter how much I tried) and Andy had this strawberry Chantilly lace cream concoction.
A sweet early ending to the first part of our anniversary weekend found us back home, cozily ensconced in warmly-lit rooms looking out over the fountain at Braddock Park… Boston’s enchantments enshrined once again in their magic…
When my lifelong friend Missy asked if I wanted to join her and her two sons – Julian and Cameron – for a performance of ‘Some Like It Hot’ on the week she was touring schools in Boston, I eagerly jumped at the chance. I didn’t realize until later that this would be a full-circle moment, one that would bring us all the way back to the winter of 1989 in New York City… but I’m jumping ahead, and when I arrived in Boston on an early Thursday afternoon, our only goal was making it to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
For the first Thursday evening of every month, the Gardner Museum usually offers free tickets for entry if you reserve in advance, where there is music and merriment much in the tradition that Ms. Gardner herself would have enjoyed. It’s a lovely feature I usually don’t partake of since my typical arrivals happen on Fridays. When tickets came online I reserved four for us, and after a quick reunion at their hotel we were soon on our way to the museum for our slotted entry time. Dusk had descended, and the enchantment of being in a place I’d only ever visited during the day made it feel more intimate and private, as if Gardner herself had invited us to a clandestine rendezvous in her gloriously scandalous form.
The central garden courtyard glowed softly and music was about to fill the air, the way it did when the museum’s namesake threw her parties and gatherings. The effect that night had on the museum was magical – even with the music it was somehow more hushed and reverent in the most exquisite manner, the religious elements giving off a vibe of veneration I’d not accessed or experienced during the day. Life was a mystery, after all. Upon retirement, I plan to become a full-fledged member of the museum and make regular visits to such a calming and inspirational space, especially on cold winter nights.
We got a car back to the condo as it was too cold to walk even to the nearby T stop, and we returned to the cozy home still decked out in holiday splendor because I hadn’t been back since December. A make-do dinner of fried rice, charcuterie, French fries and fried chicken nuggets constructed our plates of comfort food. While the kids hung out in the bedroom, their voices and laughter carrying merrily through the place, Missy and I caught up looking out over Braddock Park. The dream vision of a retired life with visits from friends in Boston opened itself up to the realm of possibility as I simultaneously felt the rush of time, and how it wasn’t going to wait or slow for anyone or anything. As the night closed around us, I also felt the importance and sustenance of good friends – for getting through the winter, and walking through life together.
The next day, after Missy and the kids toured another college, we headed to Faneuil Hall for dinner, before returning to the hotel to watch the opening of the Winter Olympics (my request). As we enter and adjust to our 50’s, this was the extent of our exertions for a Friday night – it was all that we needed, and all that we wanted.
For our final day in Boston, Saturday dawned with an unexpected snowfall that arrived right before we set out for pre-show brunch – the wild environs of a Boston winter unleashing their unpredictable charms for our visitors. Large, fluffy snowflakes – lots of them – fell as we sat down to a brunch spot right by the theater, and a snowy winter day in 8th grade tugged at my memory strings…
My brother led us deeper into Chinatown to a place he and Noah had gone before, where an enormous crab covered in ocean dust guarded the entrance and lorded over a collection of lobsters in a fluorescently-lit tank. It was already after eleven o’clock but a large table of at least ten sat in a corner finishing their meal, and another group of six was coming in behind us. Chinatown has traditionally been the place to grab a late-night meal when other places have shut down.
We ordered family-style – some soup, some duck, some pork, some Chinese cabbage, some rice – and as we filled ourselves I recounted the first time we had Peking Duck – at the wedding of our cousin in New Jersey when we were just children. Telling Noah about it, we realized that I remembered it better than my brother, though the reminder brought back the way the dish was served. We didn’t delve too deeply into conversation as it was nearing midnight, and really, it was enough just sharing a meal together.
The wait staff were starting to get antsy too, so we finished just about everything on the plates before us, piled on our coats, and made motions to head back into the cold night, reasonably warmed and fortified. Before stepping out, we came up with a game plan for getting home: we would walk out of the traffic entanglement of Chinatown, head down to the Four Seasons overlooking the Public Garden and splurge on an Uber from there to the condo.
Three Ilagan gentlemen weaved their merry way through Chinatown, over a hundred years of living between the three of us – and soon found ourselves skirting Boston Common and a stretch of trees lit in various Christmas colors. My brother asked about Kira then, saying he had seen I’d written something about it but hadn’t read it, and I was suddenly touched by his remembering, as well as by the return of my old friend to this holiday season, if only by reference and recall.
It struck me then as we crossed the midnight hour, that this was the Holiday Stroll. Without planning or fanfare or even the most rudimentary understanding of how it all happened, we were in the middle of our very first Midnight Holiday Stroll, and my brother and nephew were part of it. Sometimes tradition finds a way of happening even when you’ve given up on it. As we walked past the Boston Public Garden, site of our very first Holiday Stroll – we ducked into the Four Seasons and looked at Uber rates. They were starting at $30 for just a few blocks, which seemed criminal, and, truth be told, I wasn’t quite ready to end our walk, so we continued on, my brother and my nephew and me.
When left to our own devices, my brother and I usually get along quite well, and I was just starting to see how other family members have inadvertently set us up in adversarial roles over the years, through various expectations and unfair comparisons. Comparison is the thief of joy, especially when used among siblings. We may not have realized that in time, but we were together now, and there was still the love of two brothers between us, and that’s all that mattered on this night.
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.
The idea of a solo Holiday Stroll was formulating in my head as I stood in the cold wind outside Fanueil Hall. What, after all, was the point of traditions? Why did it feel important to maintain them? In some way, it was one of the only things of reassurance in a year that found nothing assured or safe. There was comfort in tradition, but maybe coming out of one’s comfort zone was the only way to grow and evolve. I still wasn’t sold on the idea of carrying this one on solely for the sake of tradition; I also wasn’t against ending this still bit of holiday folklore I’d created so many years ago and starting over, or not starting again at all. Some endings should stand on their own. I resumed my solitary walking, nearing a lone bull market stand where sausage sandwiches were being assembled, and the aroma of peppers and onions smoldering beside them made for a deliciously cozy smell at the late lunch hour. Music played from the proprietor’s phone, and though the song that was playing, ‘Fire and Rain’ by James Taylor, had never been a favorite of mine, today I listened, and it spoke in a new way, opening up like classic songs tend to do when you are ready to receive them.
I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I’d see you again
In that moment, the grayish sky began dropping large but mercifully-spaced-out snowflakes, more pretty than menacing, more beautiful than annoying, at least at this initial stage. Our very first Holiday Stroll happened on a snowy morning of similar loveliness, and suddenly it struck me how close the word ‘loveliness’ is to ‘loneliness’.
My mind travels back to that snowy stroll through the Boston Public Garden with Kira, and as snowflakes instantly melt into tears on my eyelashes, I understand that I carry her with me. More snowflakes fall into my hair – silver piling upon silver, simultaneously stinging and tickling when they reach skin. Hastening my steps, I pass the building I used to work in, and those hilarious days of retail flood forth from the memory bank, along with the years of finding solace in my retail family – Barrie, Suzie, John, Ginette, Spencer, Jose, Ola, Simon, and Kim – all of them come rushing back. At a time when I felt out of place at school, they gave me one of my first glimpses of what it was like to be accepted, and adored, for being nothing but myself. My own family hadn’t always made me feel like that, and to find it with people who started as strangers was somehow more poignant. It brought back the upstate New York retail family – Dawn and Matt and John and Justin – and I realized I carried them with me too. Memories of my John Hancock office job – with JoAnn, Kira, Tamekia, and Bettina – and the whole microfiche community crossed my mind, and my last long-term love in Boston – Paul – and our time together, reminded me that even absent, they were a part of this.
Nearing the front entry of Faneuil Hall, I recalled the side-splittingly funny episode Skip and I shared listening to a man sing a rather catchy song about diarrhea – and all the riotously comical BroSox Adventures rushed into my mind – as did a stormy but sweet night with Sherri and their kids at the Boston condo. I thought then of my current co-workers, and the friend who brought me into my longest office home – Marline – as she and Gretchen had seen ‘Plaza Suite’ in Boston (a show we were scheduled to see just as COVID hit)- and more co-workers past and present who have become friends in their own right – Lorie and Sue and Doris and Betsy – they were all there with me as I climbed the stairs up past City Hall.
Andy reached out a hand from memory then, and the many moments we have shared in Boston – from the day we secured our wedding license at City Hall (strangely moving) to our wedding day at the Public Garden, and all the anniversaries and visits before and since. Every step of every stroll I’ve ever taken or will ever take in Boston comes with an accompanying loved one, often several, and even when I’m alone they are still with me.
Been walking my mind to an easy time My back turned towards the sun Lord knows, when the cold wind blows It’ll turn your head around Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line To talk about things to come Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground
Back on the T, I remember the first time my brother and I rode the green line from Copley to Government Center when Mom thought we were just walking around Copley Place Mall. Our fledgling motions toward independence – it was a thrill as much for its illicit nature as for its empowering glimpse at what it would be like to be on your own in Boston. And then I thought of Mom’s first visits to the city with us in tow – she introduced me to the magic of the city, and its access to all that was beautiful in museums and stores and history – and then I thought of Dad, who literally gave us our home on Braddock Park many years later, and so many years ago. They were with me now too, the way they would always be.
As I rose from the T stop near Copley, the snow was falling more heavily. The afternoon was beginning its turn. Passing the area where I met the first man I kissed, I thought of our brief time together – not the damaging, darker part of it, but that sunny September day when two young men walked along the Charles River together, unsure of anything and everything other than a shared spark of attraction, an empty and beautiful afternoon, and the possibility of a promise of an entire world and lifetime in the air. Walking deeper into the South End, I remembered my friend Alissa’s first apartment, and a photo shoot we did there, and all the ensuing years of friendship that found us reconnecting in Boston at every major interval in our lives. She was with me too, and so was Chris, who introduced her to us just as they started dating. Chris and Suzie and Anu and Kristen and Tommy and Janet – and all the love we shared through these past decades – the holiday children hours, the weddings and births and deaths – I felt them and our shared history there, strolling beside me, linking spiritual arms and charging through life, always together.
I was hurrying a bit now as the sun was coming down, and I thought back to one of my earliest Boston memories of my Uncle Roberto, tying a scarf around his head as we ran back to the condo after watching a James Bond movie on a frigid January night – parts of his original painting job remain – the gold accents and green stripes – and I knew he was with me as well, even though he’s been gone for over twenty years. All of my loved ones – whether near, far, or sadly departed – walked with me as my snowy stroll neared home.
Maybe there is no such thing as a solitary stroll. Maybe all of our ghosts walk with us once we’ve experienced and amassed a certain amount of living. Maybe this wasn’t My Holiday Stroll for the year – maybe this was Our Holiday Stroll.
Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I’d see you, baby One more time again, now Thought I’d see you one more time again There’s just a few things coming my way this time around, now Thought I’d see you, thought I’d see you, fire and rain, now
Trudging up the final steps and unlocking the door, I stepped into the room and remembered that I was no longer alone. A backpack and sweatshirt were thrown on the couch – my brother and nephew had arrived in town for a concert that night – and they were about to turn the solitary stroll I’d just reconciled in my mind on its head…
