Travel Diary: Boston

It's a beautiful day, though Monday's serious frost and the sight of sprinklers being blown out on the main roads remind me that winter is just a whisper away. When I was talking with friends today at the middle school's student store (we were volunteering - not shopping), I started to describe my day with William in Boston as similarly beautiful, until I remembered that it was actually rainy and cold. We had so much fun on the Duck Boat tour, roaming the city on foot, and re-visiting my favorite Harvard haunts that I forgot we needed two jackets, gloves and a last-minute umbrella purchase. Strange how joy can make a rainy day beautiful and sorrow can make a sunny day feel like a slap in the face.

Boston signifies freedom to me, and not because of it's Revolutionary War history. Twenty-five years ago in Boston / Cambridge,  I was on my own for the first time, enjoying a little spending money and my own mobility. I felt free again on our trip due to the ease of traveling with just one child and the complete lack of agenda for our special day. I was also buoyed by the joy of seeing my college roommates again after several years. We shouted with laughter and rehashed memories of travel and the swim team, caught up on the divorces, marriages and kids of former teammates and classmates, and remembered some crazy things about our time together.

There was some craziness our freshman year, especially. Our coach weighed us publicly at least twice per week, and stuck marshmallow candy on body parts that seemed offensively large. One of Laura A's roommates tried to electrocute another by sticking a running hairdryer in her shower. One of my roommates locked herself in on a stressful evening and proceeded to shatter every glass object against the wall of our room.  And I, in a fit of desperation, apparently threw away Laura's care package from her parents because I couldn't trust myself to stay away from the chocolate chip cookies! I did not remember doing this and was so horrified that I sent Laura, her husband, and their two boys a make-up care package as soon as I got home. It did not reassure me that upon hearing this story, Rob said "that sounds like you."  I guess the craziness of freshman year doesn't lurk far beneath the surface . . . the more things change, the more they stay the same.