Closer to Home
June 27, 2014 / Summer Solstice in Boston
The Summer Solstice! Longest day of the year! I went downtown to see what people were getting up to on the Boston Common, to celebrate. See all the images I made: https://picasaweb.google.com/100388122118986876441/SummerSolsticeInBoston02 Boston Common, you know, never “commons.” That… Read More
June 16, 2014 / A Memorial Day Walk at Plum Island
A few weeks ago, on a chilly, cloudy Sunday, eager to get outside nonetheless on the holiday weekend, we drove to Plum Island, about an hour away. It’s one of my favorite places. There’s a long row of dunes, and the Atlantic on one side of them of course, with a huge furl of beach.… Read More
June 04, 2014 / Street Dancers
This story is a bookend with Closer To Home #20 - Street Pianos. So every year Boston hosts Celebrity Series, which offers up a marvelously-varied array of performances. A few months ago my husband and I, subscribers to the series, saw a sort of boutique circus from Australia, followed a week… Read More
May 19, 2014 / A Cuban Sees Snow
So we have a visitor from Cuba, a person I met on my trip there in 2008. He arrived somewhat precipitously; the tortuous process of obtaining the precious visa to visit the United States lurched in fits, stops and starts and finally produced the visa stamp in his passport without much warning.… Read More
April 27, 2014 / The Reenactment at Lexington Green
It’s Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts. “…the 18th of April in ’75.” I’d set the alarm for 3:45 a.m., but I woke up about 3:15—you know how it is, like having to get up really early to catch a flight, and hardly sleeping at all so as not to be late.… Read More
April 10, 2014 / Salamanders’ Big Night in the Cemetery (not)
Yesterday afternoon I got an email from Mount Auburn Cemetery, where I volunteer. “It’s the first warm and rainy day of spring. The salamanders in our vernal pool might be having their Big Night tonight. Come at 7:30 and we’ll go see.” What? Salamander Big Night? Vernal… Read More
April 04, 2014 / Nourishment at the Museum
So the other day, now that it has been a whole month since I had open-heart surgery, and feeling a little frisky (though cautious), I decided to spend an afternoon at one of my very most favorite places, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. I got thinking about it, though. In the morning, over… Read More
March 21, 2014 / Going By Train
When I was a kid, I used to listen to special radio programs on Saturday mornings. None was more gripping than “Grand Central Station”. It was, I suppose, a sort of anthology of stories about New York City. I don’t remember any of them. But what I do remember, now about 65… Read More
February 13, 2014 / Christmas Tree Journey
A few days before Christmas we went to our favorite farm market and chose our Christmas tree. I like to get one which still has a few reminders, entangled in its branches, of the place where it grew—perhaps a few dry grass strands, or something like that. Once, there was a bird’s… Read More
January 24, 2014 / The Ice Bar
The what? Ice bar? You want to go see the ice bar? What is an ice bar? These questions from my husband. Wait—you mean this is like those ice hotels I have heard of, where your room is made of ice—but this is a bar made of ice? Well, where is it—upcountry somewhere really cold,… Read More