seeing the city

It's funny how in a compact, accessible city like Boston how often you stumble across small pockets of loveliness. After three years here, I'm still seeing things for the first time, from conspicuous tourist sites to obscure patches of grass. I feel so lucky to have been able to overload my senses with this city over the fourth of July weekend, to see the people and buildings and taste the food and hear the water and crowds and feel the slight not-uncomfortable summer humidity and cool night breeze and so on, and with someone who loves it as much as I do.

On Friday, we went to the North End and ate at La Dolce Vita. The feel of warm crowds and rambunctious, good-natured noise always comforts me, sometimes before I even realize I need comfort. Being in an Italian neighborhood evokes such nice elements of the culture, as stereotypical as they are—family, wine, free spiritedness. Passion. Before dinner we walked down Hanover St. and discovered a teeny alleyway filled with photos and mementos of Catholic saints. The man who had made the space came out to speak to us, and basically knew everything about every saint who ever lived. It made me think, wow, I really do not know that much about anything. I go through phases where I would like to acquire encyclopedic knowledge about a particular subject or person, and then I try, and find that (personally) there’s a threshold of specialized knowledge where wonder is lost and pointlessness seeps in. Still, I admire those who can sustain that level of wonder, and it’s affirming to see that people can find value from unexpected sources. During dinner we sat at a cozy tight table that somehow still made me feel too small for the surroundings, and watched old Italian men serenade unsuspecting customers.

On Saturday, we went to Haymarket to browse the enormous farmer’s market. Government center was so alive, with visitors and locals and just all kinds of people out for the July 4th weekend. People dressed up in colonial wear, people handing out pamphlets, people making balloon hats, people dancing. Haymarket was so much fun—aisles and aisles of fruit and vegetables. After a couple of weeks of ramen and tomato-sauce-based canned foods, the smell of freshness and outdoors was so good. Lots of pushy people, which added to the character of the place, and as Andrew remarked, so many different sorts of people selling and buying and bartering. We bought ten plums, six kiwis, half a pound of cherries and one box each of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and grape tomatos for roughly eight dollars. Afterwards we had lunch at Quincy Market, which was spilling forth with hungry people.

Later we went to the top of the Prudential Center. Whenever I see cities from an aerial perspective, I’m always surprised by how organized things are. From the top of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the miles of tree-lined streets that spread radially from the center, the Arc itself. From the top of Lombard St. in San Franciso, the rows and rows of white houses stretching to the ocean. From the top of El Duomo in Florence, the uniform redness of the rooftops. From the top of Empire State in NYC, the chaotic lights coordinated in a square-based city structure. I get lost so often when I’m on the ground, that it’s always funny to see how it all makes sense when you’re looking from above. The Charles was dotted with sailboats, I could see the brownstones that comprise Copley and the Back Bay, the little forest near Longwood. We returned later for sunset, and while waiting for it we lolled around the courtyard area. We spent most of that time watching kids run around, throw rocks in the water fountain, and generally cause harmless trouble. When we came back to Prudential, the lights were on at Fenway and you could see the seats filled with people. The sun was insanely bright, but we kept looking at it anyway. We could see it in its entirety, as a dense burning sphere, rather than the usual wide expanse of rays. I stared at the space it had occupied for a while after it set, straining to see whether I could still see its waning light. Doing that was less painful than staring at it while it was still up, but it felt a little melancholy. Not in a sad way, just in a moody way.

On Sunday, we walked a bit through downtown and then met a couple of his friends to go to Castle Island near the Boston Harbor. The waves made me miss home for a little bit, but it was nice to see an eastern coastal area. It was quiet, a little windy, and salty. The ocean smell blew at us and around us, and I could feel it stick to my skin and hair, and remain there, or at least in my memory, for the rest of the day. On our walk back to the car, we saw a little playground, where he proved to me that it is indeed possible not to be able to swing. I like how the simple motion of going higher on a creaky swing makes you feel so detached from the physical earth, but so connected to all that makes it worth it to eventually come back down.

We had dinner at Texas Roadhouse in Brockton, quite possibly the essence of so-corny-it’s-great. They had peanuts in barrels in the entrance and throughout the restaurant, and peanuts at the table and on the floors. They also had a jukebox, and we chose one of the only songs we recognized, “I am a Man of Constant Sorrow” from O Brother Where Art Thou. After being stuffed with ribs and cinnamon-buttered bread, we drove back to Cambridge. We packed up our fruit, my quillow and blanket, and my handmade cross-staff, and borrowed a movie from Connie, and staked out next to the river around midnight. I had to measure the moon’s width for physics (hence the cross-staff), and we decided to wait for the moonrise, scheduled to occur at 2:30 in the morning. As we waited, we watched The Red Violin on the tiny screen of his portable DVD player. It grew colder, and the sounds of the violin from the movie mingled with the sounds of cars driving past behind us, and of the slight stream of water in front of us. The sky grew hazy, lone stars across the grayish-black fuzz seemed very distant from one another. The moon never became visible.

We spent Monday in each other’s close, lazy company, and in the evening headed to the terrace of Quincy House to watch the fireworks. Boston’s fireworks are so creative, and you can so easily feel how much this city values Independence Day. There were shapes: cubes, smiley faces, hearts and stars. There were ones that lingered long after exploding, ones that stretched in crystal-like structures, others that fell lazily like slow waterfalls, some that resembled weeping willows.

It took me a long time to write this, considering it was just a summary of events. Each time I wrote something, I read it and thought, that’s not how it really was, that’s just the surface. Each time I mentioned something I could think of ten other related and unrelated thoughts. I can’t find the right way to express what this place gives me and what he gives me, maybe because I still find it difficult to take freely. But sometimes the only way I can think of to give back is to write about it, even when my words are all wrong. The sun is intoxicating, the night relieves me. His presence makes me feel subtle senses so intensely, at the same time that it makes me content to lie without deliberate thought, without conscious feeling. I think it’s time to stop revelling in what’s been so generously given to me and finally learn how to fill the outlines of other lives with the deep blues and pure whites and rich yellows that have shaded my life. Not to say that I don’t still feel like I’m missing something, some core of experience and emotion, but maybe that something comes from releasing and giving rather than acquiring more.