Category Archives: Boston

Night and day, and all the extremes of Mercury in retrograde continued on my second day in Boston. The day dawned in brilliant and sunny form – a rare gift in the midst of a few months when the only weekend weather seemed to be rain. The condo was flooded with morning light, and it was the kind of fall morning where you take a few extra minutes in your bathrobe to simply exist, to inhabit the moment and contemplate the day.

Outside, the fountain trickled its watery melody, and I put on a little Cole Porter to start the day. The sunlight was strong, and the crisp chill of fall looked to make for a beautiful day.

I took advantage of the weather and ventured downtown for some shopping. In keeping with the kookiness that this weekend was highlighting, an enormous turkey was trotting about Downtown Crossing – which is probably the section of Boston that would appear most inhospitable to, well, wild turkeys, but there it was, bobbing its head among the manicured landscaping of mums and crotons. 

Shoo, you fool beast! Thanksgiving is coming soon. You in danger. And when you find yourself talking to a turkey in the middle of Downtown Crossing, it’s time to check your sanity at the door. I walked toward Government Center, to scope out where Oceanaire was located. I was having dinner there that evening with a friend from high school, Paula, who had gotten in touch earlier this year. 

Unsure of how things would go (I was, in her words and my own estimation, a bit of a terror back in high school) I walked in expecting the worst and the best, and while she was armed and ready to cuss me out for previous transgressions, we had one of the best dinners I’ve had in a long time, complete with revelatory conversation, rekindled memories, and a new understanding of the past, and hopefully the future. 

As we said our goodbyes with a promise to do this again, the feeling that I was in a novel came over me again, and I recalled a November evening many years ago when I unexpectedly happened upon a guy I had been seeing and he dumped me on the spot. That’s a story I’m not sure I’ve ever fully told – and while that’s basically it, I’ll try to flush it out more fully later this fall. For now, I took the long way home for the second Boston night in a row, thrilled to be back in the city, happy to have found that I still get along swimmingly with an old friend, and somehow haunted for all that had happened that evening, and all the evenings so long ago.

As I walked back along cobblestone streets, and the increasingly quiet air of a city that was still slumbering in many ways, I opened myself up to the ghosts that seemed to be all around me. Who was it that so haunted Boston here? Which people from my past were whispering to me on this night wind? They felt so real, so tangible, so present… and yet I couldn’t quite make them out. They were familiar and so close and still tantalizingly out of reach. As I made my way back into the South End, to the streets where I first sought a home for myself, I finally realized who the ghosts were. 

There, near Union Park, was my former self – the young guy who was looking for a condo way back in 1995. There, too, was my high school self, laughing and joking with Paula in orchestra. There was the young man who kissed a guy on a September afternoon and felt his face almost bleed with the rough stubble of his facial hair. There was the boy who snapped a Chinese yo-yo into the air near the Boston aquarium after being utterly transfixed by an angelfish in the big tank. There was the guy who ruined the birthday dinner of his friend Alissa because he was so drunk in the messy aftermath of a break-up. And there was the man who married his partner Andy in the Boston Public Garden, kissing him and pulling him into a hug because he was so happy to not be alone. 

All of the ghosts who had been haunting me there for all these years had only been previous versions of myself. That’s why I could never fully see or place them, and why whenever I got close the image was distorted and blurry, like some funhouse mirror. I didn’t want to face them, until tonight. And once I did – once I saw them for who and what they were – once I understood that it was just me haunting the night and prowling the Boston streets – suddenly they dissipated and evaporated. By acknowledging my ghosts, I let them go, and felt the weight of years suddenly depart. 

Mercury was pure madness in retrograde when I ventured into Boston a couple of weekends ago. I hadn’t planned for, or known that it would be, the weekend that the Red Sox were heading to the playoffs, nor had I been made aware that the Boston Marathon was following on that Monday. The city was alive and full of energy not seen since pre-COVID times. None of it appealed to me, so I laid low with a few friendly visits and down-time at the condo. Still, the city would swirl me into its electric maelstrom whether or not I wanted it, like the leaves that were starting to fall. In many ways, Boston felt eerily like Savannah – haunted and enchanted and at its most beautiful when night fell. 

The fountain in the middle of Braddock Park was still running, and I would leave the windows open to listen to it through the night. For some reason, it is more of a comfort at this time of the year than any other – maybe because it means the air is still warm enough for water to run. Holding onto that somewhat-unseasonal warmth made it easier to celebrate fall. The falling leaves felt less sad. 

After an early-bird dinner (because I’m old now) I found myself drawn to the Boston Public Garden, and as I headed in that direction I remembered my friend Kira, who was probably getting ready to finish her shift for the day. Shooting off a quick text to see if she wanted to say hello, I felt, and not for the first time the weekend, as if I were part of some Edith Wharton novel, where people from the past were re-populating the present moment. Kira wrote back she was ending her work day in an hour or so and would stop to say hello. 

It had been a few months since I’d last seen her, and that time was brief and bothersome. I hoped we were both in different places, and that we could start hanging out again. Forgiveness seems hard for both of us. Talking things out does too, but there’s no other way to forge a friendship. The night teased with a warm breeze. Drama was in the air. And Mercury remained stubbornly in retrograde motion. It would either be a really good meeting, or a really bad one, and I couldn’t be sure which way the wind would take us. 

We decided to meet up in the lobby of the Liberty Hotel, where we’d spent some happy holiday strolls, and which seemed like an auspicious way to rekindle what we once had. I arrived early, and settled in with a sparking water and lime, while a wedding party bustled about the space. Kira appeared shortly after, and we sat down to talk. It was just like no time had passed, the way two friends – if the friendship is pure and true – can simply pick up a year or two or ten later and nothing has really changed. 

We were enjoying each other’s company so much that she decided to take a later train. I offered to walk her to the station to extend our time together. Now that everyone was vaccinated, we’d be able to do this again in time for the holidays. We’d missed out on that last year when the world lost its way. 

We walked through the Boston night, with all its requisite magic and mayhem, and everything felt old and new and comforting and exciting all over again. We also made tentative plans for a Friendsgiving weekend in a few weeks. At South Station, she showed me where her train would depart from and we shared a quick hug – our first in almost two years. 

Instead of taking the T back to a station near the condo, I walked the whole way, passing the preparations for the Boston Marathon, and all the places we once frequented. A new/old friend was in the city as well, and we had a dinner planned for the next day. The drama had just begun…

There was a puppet stand, and a woman dressed head to toe – or tail – as a mouse. 

The mouse nodded, for I did not see it at first, hidden slightly behind a make-shift puppet stand.

The stand held masks and puppets and mysterious objects that were surely laden with charms or curses or spells. 

Backing away, and sensing danger or trouble, I moved into the sunnier and safer section of the Garden.

On that day, I would not be tricked by magic or enchantment. 

On that day, I would not fall. 

When the sun slants into the bedroom bay window, and the afternoon shifts from mid to late, my favorite place to be is reading a book or lounging in the sun-soaked bed of the Boston condo. I actively seek out this pocket of time for a siesta whenever I am in town, though when I lived there it more often seemed like I was out and about than home during this precious portion of the day. Perhaps that’s why it’s so lovely – always tantalizingly out of reach, its elusive nature addling to its allure – and I wanted so badly to have such a life of leisure so as to afford an afternoon siesta in the middle of the week. Alas, such treats must wait for retirement, or the occasional vacation day, or this recent Saturday afternoon when I could luxuriate in bed on a break from walking the city with family. 

There is a great deal to be said for simply existing and enjoying a moment of rest and repose. Too many of us feel uncomfortable or nervous when we pause or stop for more than a second in our break-neck pace of life, unaccustomed to such mindfulness, to the treat of calm and stillness when we make the effort to truly slow down. Meditation has allowed me to access that – though I have to say I’ve always been able to stop whatever I was doing and take a lunch or a break and re-charge. It’s why I can sustain and maintain a consistent pace. (One doesn’t keep a daily blog going for 18 years by burning out and posting in fits and starts.) The same goes for the steady stretch of jobs I’ve managed to keep and advance through for two decades – that doesn’t just happen. Whenever I feel myself getting anxious or agitated by work or website posts, I step back and pause, indulge in some self-care and recharging, then continue on with a lighter mental load. 

When such an indulgence can occur in a city like Boston, as the afternoon sun is filling the bedroom bay window and the autumn light is warm and abundant, I feel all the more grateful. 

On Friday afternoons, there used to be a farmer’s market at Copley Square, where rows of vegetables and flowers, baked goods and jams and jellies, cheese and butters and the like would line the sidewalks before Trinity Church. I think they still do it (I’ll find out today when I head back into Boston for the weekend) and it was always a pleasant way to enter the fall season, so I’m hopeful it’s still happening. This goes to show how out-of-the-loop I am when it comes to Boston goings-on these days. Something to rectify in the coming weeks… 

Taken along the Esplanade, this sunset closed out a recent day with Suzie in Boston, the adventures of which have already been posted here. Instead of rehashing that already, I’m taking this picture as inspiration to slow down and lean into these summer days before they’re gone. 

Sit for a spell before the light goes out.

We can begin the drudgery again in the fall.

For now, relax – swim, sleep, walk, read, eat, enjoy…

Life is too short to ignore the sunset. 

Most of my trips to Boston in recent years have incorporated intentional time for an afternoon siesta – when the sun, if it deigns to do so, floods the bedroom through the bay window, and the world seems to quiet for a couple of hours to recharge and rest itself for evening festivities. It’s not something that’s honored or employed much in this country, but the rest of the world understands the benefits. 

We took our afternoon break with a movie (‘The Devil Wears Prada’) and were refreshed before dinner at Oak & Rowan – a restaurant in the Seaport that looked good. The meal was stupendous, and this marked the first steps in getting to know the Seaport area a little better. It’s a bit of a trek, but nothing insurmountable on a comfortable summer evening, especially when trying to walk off a couple of days of substantial eating. The dessert we’d had was prettier than it was filling, so once again the hunt was on for a sweet treat to close the evening, and Suzie found a late-night cookie stand (Insomnia Cookies) that would do nicely in such a pinch. COVID has Boston restaurants mostly closing up before the clock strikes 11 PM, so we wandered into Downtown for this elusive cookie place, and lo and behold there it was not far from Boston Common. I’m not saying the cookies are anything more than frozen ones heated back up, slapped with some ice cream, and adequately served for anyone with the munchies – and sometimes that’s all one needs. 

We walked back to the condo skirting the Common and then the Public Garden. Suzie freaked out at a rat and a snake she claimed were battling it out by the Common, but neither me nor the two other witnesses nearby saw anything like that. Suzie can be very imaginative. We reached the condo without further incident, spent some time being harassed by Chris via text, and took our revenge on a pair of glasses he’d left on his last visit. That part will remain our little secret, and it had to be done. Life is a mystery – everyone must stand alone. 

Retiring for an early start the next morning (to avoid a line at Café Madeleine and to head to the SoWa Market for the first time in two years) we slept hard again, and by the midpoint of Sunday we were ready to hit the road, hitting it just in time to avoid the lengthier traffic lines. Good music and happy company and a full tank of gas made for a seamless ride home, and our time in Boston had come to a close much too quickly. I’ve missed spending time with Suzie – one of the major drawbacks of the current state of the world – and something we will work to rectify one way or another. For now, we are eyeing a day-trip to Manchester, Vermont for the next get-together/get-away…

There was already a line at Café Madeleine after our hard sleep the night before – all that walking and talking wiped us out – and I hadn’t slept so soundly in quite a long time, so we woke slightly later than intended. That meant we were without the Madeleine pastries, so we stepped into another line at Flour Bakery and just waited it out. The plan was to take a stroll through the Boston Public Garden then meander our way along Newbury Street for some shopping before a siesta and dinner. 

The Garden was filled with waterfowl and rodents – tons of ducks and geese and squirrels, all wanting to say hello to Suzie, who wanted nothing to do with them. It was already hot out, the humidity was equally oppressive, but the Garden unfolded its shady paths and cool nooks, and in the shelter of a Metasequoia tree we set up a brunch of pastries and cookies. And water – oh so much water – to combat the heat and maintain hydration. Apparently I’m drinking water and booze like a pregnant woman: tons of the former and none of the latter. 

We took our time walking through most of the Garden, staying close to the pond and beneath the trees, but even those attempts at remaining cool were proving difficult to maintain, so when we crossed Arlington to the site of the former Ritz Carlton/Taj Hotel, now The Newbury, we entered to use their air-conditioned restroom and regroup for a moment of cooling down. I’d recalled the restroom from my last trip to Boston with Chris, and their Byredo ‘Willow’ soap was the main reason for this stop. We stationed ourselves in an upstairs lobby area where they were setting up for a wedding later that day. Flowers abounded, and I was reminded of the simple joy of pausing in a hotel lobby on a day in the city and re-grouping. 

Shopping beckoned us onward, even in the midst of mounting heat and humidity, so by the time we reached the Aesop store, I was ready to stop, even if I never intended to find anything. With a soap sink and station set up for sampling their product, the dark, dim coolness of the store was a balm for the overheated madness of the street, and we took our time indulging and trying out the sweetly-scented offerings on hand. While not in the market for more soap, I splurged on their Geranium products (which is worth a total post of its own, so stay tuned…) It was one of those moments of respite that only happen when purely unplanned, on sunny days where everything else is melting, and you don’t expect to find relief so when you do it’s even more gratifying. 

We wound our way through the retail gauntlet, finding sustenance in the fries and fried pickles at Trident before returning to the condo for a siesta. Suzie proclaimed that Ahmad Jamal would provide the soundtrack to the weekend, hence the song selections in these posts. ‘Tranquility’ felt especially fitting for the laid-back calm of spending a weekend in Boston with a friend I’ve known since birth. One more post to go… 

Suzie was my companion on my very last trip before COVID hit – to a ‘Swan Lake’ show in New York City in the winter before it all went awry. So returning to Boston with her felt like a return to the world of the living, even as it came with precautions and a stunning shift in what had happened to Boston, and to us, in the last year and a half. Most of our recent visits to Boston have taken place during the holidays, when winter was knocking at the door, and we were gathering friends and family for the Boston Children’s Holiday Hour. This summer trip was a return to the past for us, when we would take a few days of summer vacation to spend a couple of days in the sultry heat of Boston for some show or shopping excursion. This time around I think it was mostly to spend some quality time with each other. 

To avoid crowds, our first meal was procured largely from Eataly, where we assembled a collection of meats and cheeses and fruits and crackers for a kick-ass charcuterie platter. As I started folding pieces of salami over the side of a glass, Suzie looked at me quizzically and said it looked like I was preparing a meat cocktail. After explaining that I had seen on social media that this was how to make a salami rosette, I began to doubt myself and the end result, but after using all the salami in the pack, I flipped it over and this stunning denouement silenced all doubts. 

We had lots of leftovers for savory indulgences that would last throughout the weekend, so we stored things away and headed to the Esplanade for a summer evening walk. For far too many years, I ignored this precious place along the Charles River, and whenever friends are in town I’ve been taking them back here for a walk that feels far from the city, even as the skyscrapers loom on both sides of the water. 

We walked to Beacon Hill and made our way to Faneuil Hall where we waited in vain for someone to sell us some cookies at the Chipyard. Alas, they were already closed by the time we arrived, and so we decided to walk to the harbor to cool down a bit instead.

At the edge of the world, where sea met city, and the dark of the sky was matched by the dark of the ocean, we set up shop. The water lapped at the stone beneath our feet as we dangled them over the edge into the darkness. Boats passed in the near distance, while planes landed at Logan Airport in the far. The breeze felt good, the conversation was better, and the company was the best. 

Our search for a sweet treat to end the day ended up at the local convenience store, where some ice cream would suffice – and after a full day of walking we deserved it. Unpacking our re-entry into Boston over this dessert ended things on a sweet and satisfied note. The next day we planned to sleep in and deal with the heat of the day as it came…

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Texts from our new world arrived early the next day, with the first one from Mom asking if I had seen the news about I-95 and an armed stand-off that had shut it down. Putting the phone down and looking out into the gray rainy morning, I padded softly to the window before Chris was up in the other room. Even in co-habitation, there was still so much solitude, something I’d always sensed but hoped wasn’t true. Facing that is something I’ve worked at over the last few years, and it felt like I was finally at some sort of peace. In my head, this piece played along to the rain. 

Originally planning to depart first thing in the morning, I took a page out of Chris’s own travel M.O. and decided to make the most of the last few hours in Boston. I decided to join him for a Saturday brunch and leave a little later, provided the route home was open and not blocked by an armed militia. The rain had also started up again – heavy and unyielding – so it would be wiser to wait on all accounts. 

Chris stirred and we ordered a car to a restaurant across the street from the Boston Public Garden. On such a morning, only a lifelong friend could lend any sort of comfort and safety to a world that felt like it was crumbling around us. 

We finished our brunch and stopped by the Four Seasons, where we’d shared a wedding lunch over a decade ago. The Bristol Lounge had closed since then, another mark of the sad passing of time, another lost place that would only reside in memory, and that grew more fleeting as well. 

The rain gave us a little break, so we walked through the Boston Public Garden. Chris had been the officiant when Andy and I were married there, and it was his first time returning to this sacred space. The world surrounding the Garden may have been overcome by madness, but in here there was only peace and beauty and love. We walked around for a while. Every time we were about to take a path out, it seemed we would pause and go another route, perhaps not wanting to break the spell. 

“The tragedy of growing old is not that one is old but that one is young.” ~ Oscar Wilde

When at last we departed the Garden, we stopped at the former Taj Hotel – now The Newbury – and where we’d once sat down for cocktails before our rehearsal dinner, we now ordered tea and coffee. Eyeing the arrival of a nearby table’s sundae, I splurged and ordered one of those as well. There may no longer be this epic chocolate cake from the Bristol Lounge, but there would be chocolate somehow. 

Chris left me to my sundae while he went to call his family. I looked out at the Public Garden, remembering that sunny May day when Andy and I got married. Warmed by the thought, and the chamomile tea, I felt a slight reassurance in the world again. Chris returned and we delved into how we were growing old. He examined some of the photos we had taken over the weekend, lamenting how time had taken its toll on us. Wrinkles and lines, gray hair and furrowed brows that didn’t unfurrow so fast anymore, he seemed more bothered by it than me – the ultimate switch in roles from where we were twenty years ago. I always figured I’d be the vain one who despaired of losing my youth and all its accompanying physical charm and ease, but it was Chris who was having the tougher time of it. Maybe he saw something in my gray and white hair that terrified him. Maybe he couldn’t escape the deepening lines of our necks and foreheads. Maybe he felt the chill of being unnoticed in a room where everyone was suddenly younger than us. 

I came to terms with that a few years earlier, life and age as a gay man advancing so much quicker than it seemed to do in the straight world. Maybe this was new to Chris and he wasn’t embracing all the good that came with it. There were sacrifices and trade-offs to moving beyond youth into middle-age. Maybe the approach of his 46th birthday spooked him, and in turn his worry spooked me. As one of the few pillars in my life on which I’ve always relied and depended, seeing him falter a bit chilled me more than any crazed militia or the threats of a post-COVID universe. It felt like we both needed a friend at that moment, and I decided to postpone my return home until the next day. 

Outside, on the steps of the condo, we paused to take in Braddock Park. How many times had we lifted our feet trudging up these stairs? I still have a framed picture from a cold, rainy day in June from 1998 or so, when Chris was looking for places to live in Boston while he attended Harvard Divinity School. He is lying down on the couch, flanked by Suzie and me, all of us looking equally annoyed with each other, and all of it belying the happiness and joy of being young and not knowing all that we didn’t know. I distinctly remember that period of our lives, in particular one Sunday morning in early summer when we all gathered for brunch somewhere on Tremont Street. As I nursed a hangover from the night before, I still understood then that I was in the midst of what might very well be the happiest time in my life, so I leaned into the moment. Alissa was there that morning, and it struck me how she had been with us all this weekend too, appearing in scattered moments of memory, recalled by location and the company of Chris. 

The rain began again, and we went inside before making plans for our unexpected dinner and one more night out together. 

They sat us in the back of Citrus & Salt, where we ordered some virgin margaritas and fish tacos. Chris seemed itching to be part of the bustling scene near the front of the restaurant, and I didn’t want to stand in his way. Whatever he was searching for was something I could not deliver, and it wasn’t something I ever really wanted. Watching from the periphery and enjoying quiet time with close company was enough for me. There was nothing glamorous about noisy crowds or making small-talk with strangers. Chris, on the other hand, plugged into life that way. We accepted our differences, even as we never fully understood them. 

Walking past the line of young people waiting to get into Club Cafe, I watched them without envy. Soaked and chilled by the unseasonal weather, waiting to get into a place where they would likely not find whatever they might be seeking, I still admired them for doing exactly what we might have done two decades ago. They were at that tender part of the journey where waiting outside in the rain would become part of the hazy morning-after retelling of the night-before at a brunch that I hoped they would remember and mark as one of the truly happy moments of their lives. 

And my friend Chris, who was with me then, and with me now, still wanted to find that happiness somehow, still wanted to capture the elusive realization of contentment in the moment it happened. It was slightly sad, and slightly noble, and I could never knock him for trying. I hope he finds it. 

The next morning I walked to Cafe Madeleine alone for breakfast. The rain had ended, but the world still drooped beneath its weight. Returning to the condo the back way, I passed the garden plot beside our building and found one of the bunnies sitting in the morning calm. Its eyes looked back at mine – dark pools of unknowable mystery from both sides – and I wondered what life it had known in its time in Boston. 

“It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.” ~ Oscar Wilde

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston

When Chris proposed a Boston stop on his cross-country summer expedition, I wasn’t sure it would work out. Our lives have altered so drastically since COVID, and while I was secure in our friendship, I didn’t take anything for granted, nor did I count on something good happening before it actually did. That’s taken quite a lot of the enjoyment and fun out of life for me, as so much of my experience was in living things out in joyful anticipation of what was to come. Unsure of how anything might play out these days, I’ve halted my happy hopes to stave off any possible disappointment. After all, Chris was to have joined us on the perfectly-planned out Plaza weekend in New York City that never came to pass. We’re both still shook from that. So when we planned to rendezvous in Boston last weekend, I held my excitement in check until we actually sat down to a charcuterie plate in the condo and toasted with mocktails the reunion that was almost two years in the making. 

You may tire of me as our December sun is setting because I’m not who I used to be
No longer easy on the eyes but these wrinkles masterfully disguise
The youthful boy below who turned your way and saw
Something he was not looking for: both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize
When he catches his reflection on accident…

Boston was welcoming at first, but I knew the rain would come. Chris didn’t heed my advice to bring an umbrella, to his almost-instant regret, but he insisted it wasn’t about the weather, it was the company. I caught a few flowers along Southwest Corridor Park before the rain arrived. 

On our way to a dinner at Terra, we had our first encounter with a family of rabbits who would greet us almost every time we returned to the condo. I thought of Andy and missed him. 

Treating Chris to an early birthday dinner was supposed to be a surprise until we sat down and the birthday dessert arrived, but the hostess decided to ruin the surprise by welcoming us to our birthday dinner. She was apologetic about it, and honestly, at our ages, a little ruined surprise isn’t a big deal. It’s the company that counts. 

It was our first joint foray into the world of dining and entertainment post-COVID, and we kept the party going with a mocktail at the Fairmont Plaza, followed by a post-dinner snack at Earl’s. Boston felt alive, even as a downpour descended, one which would not abate until the next day. 

We made it back to the condo, soaked and tired and somehow happier for having returned to the comforting warmth of a friendship that we’d known for more years than we were strangers to each other. Twenty six years of camaraderie and support. 

On the back of a motor bike
With your arms outstretched trying to take flight
Leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn’t break from the concrete
In the city where we still reside.
And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men
Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides
Like brothers on a hotel bed
Like brothers on a hotel bed

A brief break in the rain the next day allowed for us to walk along the Esplanade after Chris was finished with his work and I’d done some shopping downtown. The mark of any successful journey together is spending a few hours apart – it’s a science that Chris and I have perfected over years of trial and error (originally honed by a trip to Disneyworld with Suzie). Good friends allow that space for solitude, and we were both better for it. When we returned to the condo for a lengthy walk to dinner, the break in rain continued, but the wind and cooler temperatures left Boston with a chill more customary to the fall. 

Many years ago, when we first met, we would take similar walks in various cities – San Francisco, New York, and Boston too – trying to figure out life, trying to see how we fit into the world. We could conjure those memories and compare them to where we are today, and some of the most basic questions still remained. We’ve grown in different ways, taken different roads, but meeting up again felt like we’d merely been traveling in parallel directions, just one street away from each other. True friendship is like that. 

The rain returned, so we ordered a car to dinner at Time Out Market, where Skip and I had just enjoyed a meal, and where a DJ-fueled scene would likely be what Chris was hunting. We enjoyed the first dinner of the evening, then stopped at the Cask & Flagon near Fenway and the famed neon Citgo sign. A brush with the Boston Red Sox was better than no Red Sox game at all. 

Weather-wise, the night had taken a turn for the worse, with a bone-chilling wind and rain that pelted like it was November. Ducking into the lobby of the Hotel Commonwealth, we warmed ourselves while I tried to figure out where we might find a cup of hot tea. That’s where we are at this stage of our lives. No martini, no highball, not beer – just a search for a cup of hot tea. I was fine with that though, and Chris managed to stay true to his proclamation that it was about the company. 

We wound up at one of the few places open late now for food and drink: Solas at the Lenox Hotel. Happy memories had been made here before – and wonderful moments with Skip, and JoAnn, and Andy – all of which flooded back as we ordered our second dinner of the night. We seemed to have replaced drinking with eating, and we were both better off for the switch, even as our stomachs moaned with the load. 

A walk back to the condo was the best thing for us, and the rain had slightly let up. In the queasy light of the midnight hour, the family of rabbits greeted us again. I was due to depart the next day, while Chris stayed in town for one more night. Boston went to sleep in the rain…

You may tire of me
As our December sun is setting
Because I’m not who I used to be