This is more of an article, but I wasn’t sure where to send it in, or if I could.
My Boston Romance By Colleen Layman, CAS 2006
Romantically, Boston and I have a wonderful relationship. I first visited the city on one of the warmest days of spring, and everyone in the city was in awe at the absence of bitter cold. You couldn’t round a corner without hearing a conversation about how nice the weather was and hopeful wishes that this meant spring had come. Later, after I moved in to my spacious closet in the illustrious Warren Towers, fall fell, painting a new picture.
The fall is beautiful here, and a walk through the Commons is a pleasure I don’t take advantage of often enough. The fresh-cut grass, the chatty, harmless homeless men on the benches, and the playful pups on and off leashes frolicking around the park make people-watching an all-day affair. The Charles River is sparkly and crisp, and appears as if it could be clean, clear water at times, despite common knowledge to the contrary. Leaves change color from green to red to orange to yellow and then to brown, before descending to the ground with a grace unlike trees in any other city. College students crowd the sidewalks, walking up and down Commonwealth Avenue or Newbury Street or Beacon… And we all know what’s coming-the deep, bitter cold that has entrenched so many these past two winters-but you won’t see the dread in our faces. We don’t run from grocery store to grocery store buying out the meat section and stocking up on water like suburban mothers with a pending snow storm. No one carries around bags of kitty litter or salt to make sure their car won’t get stuck in the bad, bad snowiness that is to come. And maybe they share my outlook: Winter is coming! You know what that means?! Pretty sweaters! Fun coats! Mittens and scarves and hot chocolate and fires! And snow! Fluffy, harmless snow that lands on your nose and eyelashes and which lends an angelic look to us dark-haired, fair-skinned people you come upon so often up here…
And as soon as you say Good Bye to the frolicking pups and the green grass, winter comes. Ah, winter, when Boston is most in its element. Though I have to confide… I think Boston has been a bit lost this past year. Sure, you can still find it on a map (well, hopefully), but there has been some serious over compensation going on this winter, and I can only think of a few reasons for this. Perhaps God is smiting Boston for the bad priests, or for Catholics in general, or, more likely, that the city has simply lost itself.
Maybe over the summer, Boston fell in love with the warmth, the humidity, the sunshine… and then when it disappeared, the city felt like it had just lost its new best friend, and searched desperately for something to fill that void. Ultimately, it returned to what it knows best-winter. But not only did it rediscover it’s old stomping ground, Boston attacked winter with the fervor of desert wanderers who strike a water pipe by accident, or a gay man unleashed into his first sample sale. It was a bit over-kill. The coldest winter since the 1950s decimated the population of Boston, leaving behind bitterly cold corpses with no chance of warmth or sunshine in the foreseeable future. With the wind chills in the negatives, and twenty-seven degrees being a temperature to celebrate, Boston was in a certain freeze-over. My romantic footing with Boston began to falter.
Our relationship really got into trouble when I left for winter break, and spent nine days in tropical Singapore. I was adamant that I would hate the heat and humidity which the region is known for, but when I stepped off the plane, I felt nothing but love for the blast of warm air that greeted me. I swore I’d never cheat on Boston, but the cold shoulder I’d been getting lately drove me into the arms of another city, another climate. Sure, I felt bad, and I thought of Boston, well, ok not as often as I should have. And no, I didn’t call to check in or send a postcard. I was in the throws of a heated relationship with an exotic city on the other side of the world and couldn’t be bothered with images of ice and snow and huddled masses…
But soon I had to say good bye to Singapore-well, not good bye, but rather See you next year! – and return to Boston.
I think Boston heard about my love affair. And boy was it bitter. Bitter and cold and wrathful. It flung its winds in my face and its ice in my hair. This lasted about 3 weeks, our little spat. But soon, the city reconsidered our past relationship together, and this past week offered me a bit of reconciliation, rekindling a bit of the romance we’d had…
The forecast said *snow* and I prepared for another attack, another door slammed in my face. But I woke up to the equivalent of breakfast in bed – fluffy snow falling gently at a temperature higher than I’d felt in weeks. I put on my snow boots, my ski jacket, and the two layers of pants I’d become accustomed to wearing, only to find myself over-heating a bit. So I strolled to the Starbucks down the street, got a latte, topped it with cinnamon, and went back out into the cool, mid-morning, snowy-filled air. Everything was pretty again. Tree branches were draped in a thin, white blanket, as were the benches, the ground, and ok, just about everything. And as I walked by the area deemed “BU Beach,” I had to stop and sit. The beach is located right next to the Charles River, and is, by city-standards, a huge lawn with benches and sculptures. I cleared a spot on a bench with a view of the sparkly, snowy river and sat down with my latte. I wasn’t cold. I was people watching. And the people I watched may have thought I was a bit odd, sitting on a bench in the middle of a snowy afternoon, but it felt good. The contrast of the cold, cool air and the warm layers and warmer drink gave me an equilibrium I hadn’t felt outside since I could remember. This is why I loved Boston winters, I thought. This is why it’s bearable. If I didn’t have this, it would be the same all year round. What fun is that? Half the fun of the cold is getting warm, I always say, and the other half is having something to talk about with strangers. Conversations about the weather cease to be important when the weather never changes…
Even though Boston and I have had our rough times, our shaky patches, like every couple that was meant to be together, we’ve stood strong. It’s forgiven me for my affair with Asia, and even accepts it as a mistress, I would say, and Boston is back to being the lovely, fluffy, hot chocolate-friendly city I had grown to love. Of course, it does have its bitter, smiting moments, but those eventually pass… Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad. Well, most of the time really. All the time. All the time you must take the good with the bad, or else you’re fooling yourself. Being a romantic isn’t always easy, and the reality checks (like frostbite) can hurt a lot, but me and Boston have been through a lot together, and I don’t think our love will wane anytime soon.