New England (Plymouth, Boston, & Cambridge)

7.2.24-7.5.24 (Part 5 of 5)

7.2.24

Sylvia slept for more than 9 hours. Was it 10? Maybe.

I was up and working on a response back to the Altered team member who had responded to me. It was good that I had some time in the morning to myself. I made a small breakfast of an English muffin and eggs when I thought I heard her stirring upstairs. When I attempted to deliver it, though, she was still fast asleep and did not wake when I said, “Breakfast in bed!” So I put it on the coffee table upstairs and went back down to eat by myself and catch up on some internet stuff. I cleaned up and roughly by then she was waking.

We were not in a hurry – checkout was 11AM.

After she woke, we walked the 7 minute walk to Sagamore Beach. That was quite a good place. She did not bring her swimsuit because we wanted to be back and headed out for real breakfast at Blueberry Muffin Cafe in Kingston soon, but she still got her feet wet and hopped about in the water.

On our way back from the beach, we saw an old guy on a bike stop to watch kids playing in summer camp. He said, “Not a creep – grandparent,” when we passed. There were a lot of kids around that neighborhood. Multiple different camp things were going on. Wildly traditionally suburban, it felt like. I can see the merits of that kind of life – one where a grandparent lives within the community and can just bike on by to check in on grandkids who are out in a real physical space playing with other children and learning what it means to be a person.

When we got back to the Airbnb, we finished packing things up, threw uneaten eggs into the pizza box where we had leftover pizza, chucked that into the back seat, and set off for Plymouth.

I don’t think I’ve got too much to say about Plymouth. Plymouth Rock was quite an underwhelming object, which did not surprise me overmuch. What did surprise me is how much it has been moved around and cut up and that people aren’t even really sure that’s where the pilgrims landed – there was, like, a 120 year gap between when they landed and when their landing site was first recorded.

I am skeptical.

It was fun to see the word pilgrim everywhere. I’m not fond of its association with people dressed in puritan fashion because I think those clothes look so silly, but I think it is still noble to be a pilgrim – to be someone on a journey.

We saw Mayflower II which is silly. We had a short conversation about the ship of Theseus, but I think Sylvia and I are still due a longer conversation on the topic. Exiting Plymouth, we saw a big whale statue.

Oh! There was another woman-yelling-about-dogs encounter in Plymouth. We popped into a few shops looking for whatever and some dog came in and there was a strong willed woman behind the counter and a pushy Karen with a dog at the door. The Karen ended up backing down and taking the “just a puppy” out, but the exchange made Sylvia say something like, “People in Tucson are nice.”

On the way to Boston, Sylvia ended up repaying my karaoke performance with two of her own. She sang I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Deathcab for Cutie and At Last by Ella Fitzgerald. I was driving and could not cry but MAN does she have a beautiful lovely voice I could wrap myself in and dance to.

Rental return. Uber to hotel (room 566). Rest. Eat pizza and eggs in bed. Strike out to explore.

We stopped by the Boston Tea Party Museum where I bought some 250th anniversary Boston Tea Party tea even though I think it has been 251 years now. My mom just told me on the phone (when I was giving her a much shorter recap of the trip) that we are direct descendants of the person who coined the thing as the Boston Tea Party? Something like that.

We walked by the Children’s Museum and to Faneuil Marketplace. We sat next to the nearby statue of Samuel Adams and watched a growing group of skateboarders attempt a specific trick. It started with two zoomers and then a millennial in a green hat came by and the group grew to probably 10 or so by the time we left. We also saw a man feed seagulls full muffins, paper wrapper included. We would come back to the marketplace for dinner later in the trip, where Sylvia would get a lobster roll and I would get some teriyaki chicken.

During that walk we also saw Martin’s Park which was a really creative children’s playground and which hosted a Climate Strips installation which Sylvia was pretty stoked to come across.

There was a live band playing outside in downtown Boston for most of the time we were there. The first song we heard was Joline. That was fun! This area is not where we would have our second dance session of the trip, however.

We went to a grocery store and ate fruit and yogurt in the Boston Commons by the Frog Pond. We’d be in the Boston Commons more than I expected during our time in the city. We caught a huge herd of more than 100 runners running along. I encouraged Sylvia to go ask them when they ran together in case she’d have the opportunity to join them. Riiiight as we walked up, they all started doing this big all-hands-in chant that we had to awkwardly wait through. That was a bit funny. Unfortunately, they meet on Tuesdays and weekends, so no dice. Sylvia would still get several runs in around Boston.

On this walk is where I brought up bricks. What an invention they are. Surely they are not as important as the wheel (or the axel, as Sylvia pointed out) but bricks! My man, they allow us to use wheels on smoother roads and they allowed us to build higher and more secure buildings.

I don’t know. I’ll need to do more thinking about bricks to come to what I feel like I am trying to come to. Anyway, I brought it up earlier, so this is the tie in.

We slept.

7.3.24

Red bean buns from Bao Bao Bakery & Cafe. Yesss. Breakfast was good. Coffee from a chain called Tatte which was everywhere. We’d get red bean buns there again on 7.4.24 to bring home. I still have one.

We went from Tatte to the Museum of Fine Arts. That is a good museum which I would recommend you experience. I won’t upload all the pictures I took because there were many.

We exited from there and made it to the Isabella Stewart Gardener museum by our 2:30PM entry time. While the MFA is a better museum for art, I have to say, Isabella’s place is a unique place. Between the two, I would suggest you go to the MFA if you are quite interested in art but otherwise, I’d suggest you go to Isabella’s. Again, I took too many photos to share them all, but I’ll try to share a few to give a feel for the space.

After this, we Ubered back to the hotel because the walk there was hot and we ALSO just spent all day walking around two museums. After resting, we got that lobster roll, saw the Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, the Boston Massacre site, and some other freedom trail things.

Short entry for the day because this isn’t an article about art and that was what most of the day was! I loved it.

7.4.24

This is the day we stayed in New England for! Fireworks in Boston.

We got red bean buns again like I said but we also got babka bread from Bakey. Oh my goodness, I think I have a new favorite kind of bread. I got an almond one that was simply SUPERB. Fluffy, warm, buttery, juuust the right amount of sweet. Oh I fell for that piece of bread that we ate by some puke on a bench in Boston Commons.

After Sylvia pointed out birds were eating the puke (thank you, Sylvia) and we finished our own breakfast, we hiked Beacon Hill to find Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’ Boston residence just off of Acorn Street which is apparently a popular place because there were a lot of people taking pictures there.

This stop was an important one for me. Earlier this year I finished reading Red Comet which is a Sylvia Plath biography by Heather Clark. The book served as an inspiration for me. It was a thorough introduction to a poet who was actually able to live as a poet and offered an explanation of what it took for her to do that given the constraints of the time she lived.

From Plath’s place we swung by the Massachusetts State House and then went back to the Boston Commons where I wrote and drew on a bench while Sylvia ran. Because it was the 4th, maybe, the park was packed. Here’s the poem I wrote:

Boston People

Are these?
or are they travelers?
I guess they are
they are both.
I am a Boston person
for another night at least.
As are these dogs
that bite lightly at each other
in the sun’s grass
and it is the sun’s grass

as am I.

/ Justin Hicks on 7.4.24
\ In Boston Commons while watching people play in the Frog Pond

We got groceries again and returned to the hotel to eat and rest. We then took the train to Harvard Square in Cambridge. We toured Harvard a bit (I did not like it), saw the library from the outside, and then spent some time in the Harvard Bookstore (which I did like).

We explored a bit more and then got dinner at Life Alive Organic Cafe and MAN we should have eaten downstairs. It was cool and cozy and quiet and empty down there but I didn’t check it out until after the meal when I was using the bathroom. 

A train ride away from that place found us in MIT. Unlike Harvard, I did like the MIT campus. We walked around a bit and then we walked around a lot. We surveyed basically every available spot to watch the fireworks from along the river.

I had tried to plan things such that we would get some Boston Pops music, but it was pretty clear that you had to sacrifice a lot of the day to get to hear the concert. Even from nearby it was supposedly not hearable and most of the folks who would hear it would hear it via speakers anyway.

We ended up deciding to sacrifice the Pops in order to get a better spot for viewing the fireworks and holy cow did we get a good spot. There are probably a lot of good spots, but we ended up in front of the MIT Green with a light pole to lean against while the full sky was perfectly framed for the show.

We did wait around a lot longer than we needed to. Including the walk about, we were probably there for 4 or 4.5 hours before the fireworks started popping. Sylvia said that she didn’t think she had waited around that long for entertainment before ever. If we were to do it again, I think we’d be better equipped to spend the right amount of time to see the show from a good vantage point.

Still, that period of waiting around with her will be a cherished memory of mine. Twenty Questions, Eye Spy, Luis’ Caveman game, and audience to college students playing Mafia. Also, this is when we danced together again. There was a lawn where all these people were dancing with one another — having a blast. We walked by them at first but on our way back, we danced to a song. I don’t know what song it was, but it was a fun and super danceable song. Well chosen and good fun. We did the dip again.

:)

The fireworks were amazing but you’ll find no attempt to translate that experience into words here. I will say that it was wonderful how each explosion was audibly many because of the city canyon echoes caused by big buildings. It was also nice how I held my hands against her stomach through most of the 30 minute show and how she could lean against me leaning against the light pole.

And of course we kissed.

I could end things there but the 45min walk back to the hotel is worth recording.

It was a quiet bedlam. There were no cars on the roads for a while and people were walking tired every which way. The trains had to stop in their tracks and Sylvia pointed out that they were packed so tightly that limbs were popping out.

We were tired. I imagine most of the people out with us were tired. Do you remember the last time you were near delirious with exhaustion? I’m not saying that we were, but I at least had that feeling where the unfixed world of dreams in your head starts to thinly lens over your waking perception such that you maintain awareness of reality and that you are in it but you somehow feel removed from it – like you are simply an observer who is aware that they are not simply an observer.

I don’t know, but I’ve felt similarly several times in my life. Usually after a long day in the heat with crowds, flashing lights, and loud explosions.

When cars did start to make their way onto the scene again, they were completely swarmed by people. They could hardly move at all. “Why would you do that to yourself,” Sylvia asked about the people in those cars. “They knew that this was going to happen.”

We walked by a group of people who were looking for their Uber in lanes of practically parked cars, moving faster than the car they were looking for.

None of the pedestrians were granting any heed to the traffic laws. We saw two cop cars siren by and I thought back to the ambulance we saw in the shuttle.

I was just telling Sylvia that I’m almost finished. We talked a little more about the trip and I realized that there are probably four poems to be written about the Boston Commons.

1. Eating fruit at the frog pond

2. Birds eating puke while I eat the most delicious piece of bread in my life

3. The one I wrote above while Sylvia ran

4. One about the walk through after fireworks

After the fireworks, the park was like another place. It was late so there were a lot less people. We passed two groups of people herded around food vendors who were still vending at almost midnight. The lamplights along the paths seemed to float there like very still faeries. And the trash cans were absolutely piled over. They were miniature community dumping zones.

I thought of the teams who would clean them the next day. Those men and women who would restore order to a place in a simple but meaningful way.

7.5.24

Nothing of real note happened here. We got home safely. The flight into Dallas was rough, as I said. The house was hot when we got home, as I said. The trip was good, as I may not have said.

The trip was good. I am packed full of wonderful memories with Sylvia and of many places I had the chance to explore.

The trip was good.

And I am glad to be home.