park swings

Who knew? Swing dancing in public. I am slightly shocked to see exuberance in public. So much of my experience in Boston has been about prohibition (locked doors and minds...) that presents a stark contrast to the permissiveness of the west coast. So I stop, balanced on my bike, to take in the dancers. A motley, if enthusiastic, crew. Am thoroughly charmed by the ghetto blaster valiantly piping out music from the 30s.

Rockport

I am here with my husband, who has come for a visit. It is hot and muggy, and we have already hit all of the iced coffee slinging cafes. We tried to swim--on a small semi-circle of sand that stood for a beach. No breeze, no waves, just endless toddlers carrying their water-logged diapers like valiant sailors. We try to read, balanced on the hotel towel, but the damp sand below and the still air send us back to the car to find a better beach.


Our search introduces us to a particularly East-Coastian feature of beaches: fees. Our Californian sensibilities reel from one-two punch of parking and entry ($50 for four hours! $20 to step on the sand!). Of course, the tony neighborhoods provide stimulating visuals and cat-and-the-canary responses. Of course, I wouldn't mind living in a mansion on the cliffs overlooking a private beach... and, certainly, such largesse exists on the West Coast, too. But we cannot help but think of the hundreds of miles of free public beaches in California alone.

The first time, I biked up here on my commuter bike, loaded down with books. It was a nice ride, despite the shoulder pain from my haphazard book-bag (spawned a resolution to buy an actual commuter's bag asap). Stopped for half an hour at a drawbridge, I had an interesting conversation with the cyclist next to me--a boat captain for hire. What a life that would be! I asked him whether his clients shared their food and wine with him. Ah, that'd be a no.

public irony

Am unduly charmed by the incongruity of the public alley and private solarium. Also must firmly put my covetousness in check: verdigris and windows are a deadly combination for me.

Chocolate Factory

Quite often, I walk between home and the college along Main street. The first time I did this, I was on the phone talking with my mother. It was hot (natch), and humid, and I was walking slowly through building shadows in a futile attempt to not completely soak my dress in sweat. In the midst of my mother's volubility, the smell of tootsie rolls yanked me into a confused olfactory hallucination--a vivid memory of the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate factory, from the original movie.

I was bemused, when I refocused on the real world, to see only a group of men in shirtsleeves, smoking on the steps of a brick building. Clearly not the oompah loompahs. Nonetheless, as I walk by this building nearly every day, I am briefly enveloped in gently chocolate, sometimes chocolate mint, clouds.

At night, the building is equally entrancing--its old factory windows softly looming in the night. Generally, I phoned home or my mother on my walks, and it was with a twinge of regret that I walked past this building always in the middle of a conversation, rarely in the midst of a reverie.

Roxbury

This is my second trip to Roxbury, where I have come to pick up my bike from the good people at Bikes not Bombs. They refurbish bikes, and in the hour plus that I spent here three weeks ago picking out the pieces of my bike-to-be, I witnessed several good-intentioned, kid-toting mothers dropping off rusty and unused city bikes. It's an interesting business--the bike donors must pay $5 to donate the bike, which Bikes not Bombs resells for, at minimum, 57 times as much. Local kids stop by to borrow tools, handily making street bikes out of former suburban health goals. I am amused to overhear some local kid describing the bike he's fixing--"no, man, I didn't steal it. It was there when I went into school, and still there when I came back. It was nobody else's."

I've never owned a refurbished bike, but none of that matters: as soon as I step on the petals, I am filled with elation. Even though it's about to rain and nearly dark, I cannot resist a quick ride. I bike back from Roxbury to the Charles, along the way discovering the quirky pattern of Boston bike paths--which so eerily resemble sidewalks, that I and not a few pedestrians stumble over negotiations and confusions. Along the river, I break two spokes; the root systems have turned the path into a mountain biking experience. Dodging roller-bladers, joggers, strollers and roots: this is the last time I ride along the river.

Free!

This summer institute at Harvard marks, at minimum (I may have repressed some), the 6th institution of higher learning that I have attended. And my experiences have varied--from community colleges to state universities, national institutes and private colleges. Harvard isn't the first private college I have attended, but it is the most, ahem, privileged.

My favorite indication of this I discovered in the women's bathrooms. Lo, and behold, the tampons are Free! Administration figures it's investing a lot in their co-eds' education--heaven forfend a few forgotten quarters bring it all to a socially catastrophic end.

(nb: This bathroom was in the law building... I should have compared other departments--like the humanities or hard sciences--to see whether their future careers were as considerately insured. However, when I returned home, I discovered the exact feature in the bathrooms at my husband's work-place. Who knew the corporate world was so generous to their female employees? And why haven't state universities picked up on this habit?)

this is not self serve

I went to the market today; I could have walked, but decided to take public transit instead. This was not the wisest choice, as the green line subway has been replaced by a shuttle bus. Kind of defeats the purpose.

It is funny to compare markets in different cities: Northern California with its pristine markets and beautiful, overpriced produce; Kharkiv (when I knew it) with aisle and aisles of vendor selling everything--from fresh meat, to dried fruit and nuts, to fresh vegetables and fruit, to even, one day, kittens; Chinon with two well-behaved aisles, the requisite produce outshined by the olives, pates, sausages, cheeses, pastries and paella; Paris markets ten times as large as Chinon's respectable offering...


And then, there's Boston's Haymarket.


"Don't touch. This isn't self-service," grumble the vendors. This is a bit jarring, and it seems selfish on the part of the vendors: without the sensory and tactile experience of the market, what is the point?

And the produce, unlike the chichi markets in California, isn't organic. Instead, it comes from large area producers who sell on market what didn't get bought up by local grocery stores.


On the other hand, there are interesting things to be found: gooseberries, true vine-ripened tomatoes, and unexpectedly, fennel. Much less corn, summer squash, and basil, but plums and apricots by the dozen for a dollar, and an unrecognizable item, a kneopka.


The theme of the day, was trash... cartons outnumbered the produce displays, bad produce flew through the air behind the stalls, landing in graceful formations against the brick.

searching for hills

I'm wandering around my neighborhood in search of hills. Instead of hills, I find the other side of the tracks at the end of my block. My neighborhood is very working class, and as it turns out, very international.

Across the street is a small bar with, hardly needs to be said, bud on tap. I can follow the tracks to Somerville, which, it turns out, is less than five minutes by foot from my place.


And there I discover even more international flair, lawyers consorting with Portuguese,


and fraternity among the Chinese, Portuguese and Brazilian.

You'll have to imagine the best find on Somerville Avenue, because my request to take a picture was refused. Picture a storefront, with big picture windows and linoleum floors, entirely filled, as if it were a barn for hay, of sacks of rice. Big sacks of rice--as large as the biggest bag of dogfood. And three young Latinos, like farmhands, lazing about on them.

can't get there from here

We set out from Harvard Campus to walk to Chinatown and Faneuil Hall. We got sidetracked several times, suckers to each bookstore and bikestore we passed. Equally compelling were the breeze on the MIT bridge and the lawn in Commons.



Newbury Street offered stately architecture and bedraggled pedestrians. It was after five before we made it to Faneuil Hall, where there wasn't a market anyway, it being Sunday. And after four and a half hours of walking, we were in no condition to find Chinatown. Did I mention, neither of us had a map?