“It’s a fine line between falling and flying”

-Cloud Cult, Hurricanes and Fire Survival Guide


Whit and I went to Boston this weekend. It almost didn’t happen. For one thing, Ginger the cow is eminently due with her first calf, and I, being the control freak that I am, almost couldn’t leave the farm in the capable hands of my husband, Kyle. For another, the sheep are so close to lambing that they need to be monitored at least four times a day. In this arena, I am truly needed, because if they are in trouble, my hands are smaller and can get the lambs out if they’re in the wrong position inside of their mothers. And lastly, Greg, who spent the summer with us and was planning to visit, hit a deer and totaled his Jeep. It screwed up his plans to visit the farm, and he had no way to get from Burlington to Jersey, on his way to a semester abroad in Tasmania.

It worked out, though, and we ended up staying with her friend in a cute little apartment in Newton Center, right outside of Boston. We had exactly 25 hours in the city, exactly 25 hours enough for me, before returning to this rural haven.

I love to people watch, and the T subway system in Boston is perfect for this. In a six foot area, you can hear three different languages and see nine different types of fashion, from Goth to Punk to Prada to Patagonia. There are entire conversations being carried out, like no one else is there, riding along with you, on cell phones and in face-to-face conversation. Ninety percent of the passengers are hooked into music, off in their own world, on their way to wherever.

We took the Orange Line to my favorite part of the city, Chinatown. I love it here-the raw ethnicity of it, the privilege to have access to ingredients that I can’t find anywhere else, even in Burlington, to cook my favorite food and being immersed in an element completely unfamiliar to me. Whit has never seen me in an Asian supermarket before. She’s only seen the frugal me, the coupon budget oriented-justify every penny me. When we hit that market, I was a little insane. We had just fifteen minutes before they were going to shut the door on us. We found another couple of gringos, raiding the aisles rich with sauces and noodles and chicken feet and preserved eggs, and we called questions to each other- “have you found any ginger?” “no- have you found the fish sauce” “it’s near the Sriracha.” “What are these? Fermented lettuce? I’m getting it.”

Whit followed with the cart, and green bean vermicelli, candied ginkgo, ground bean paste, palm vinegar and galangal root found its place in the cart. At the end of fifteen minutes, we (meaning I) had filled the shopping cart full, and we headed to the check-out as the lights snapped off, plunging the store into darkness. I took a breath, grateful that we hadn’t missed the store’s open hours; Whit was grateful that there were only fifteen minutes of misery to have endured.

We searched quickly for a place to eat-mainly because we both had to pee pretty badly. Luckily, we stumbled onto a Vietnamese restaurant that had been listed in the Zaget’s guide. The food turned out to be just plain awesome. We ordered enough food for four people and paid $30. Admittedly, the noodle soup had beef in it that we both didn’t care for (are we just spoiled with the taste of grass-fed beef?), but everything else was spot on. From pickled lotus rootlets to spring rolls in peanut sauce, we ate and ate and drank mango shakes and fresh limeade.

After eating for about an hour and a half, we hopped on the Green line to Whit’s friend’s apartment. I was pretty much ready to pack it in for the night, and I thought maybe that it would be a great idea for me to just go to bed and read so Allie and Whit could talk but Allie wouldn’t have it. Nope, I could’ve done that if I had stayed at home, she said. I was going out with them. Allie, Adam, Whit and I went to a small little bar on Beacon Street called Union City and sat and talked about the perils of having new jobs just out of college and what to do in this economy. Everywhere around us were boutique stores and beautiful clothes, with no one to buy them, all with 75% off signs attached to them. I tried hard not to worry about these people sitting here with me, with their new jobs, knowing how much hope and energy that they were full of.

On the way back out of the city toward home the next day, we sat on the commuter train; Whitney was obsessed with finding a song with the lines “I’m sick of being sick and tired.” She put her iPod on and started searching through the songs. “Is this it?” and then she gives me the one of her ear buds, and I start sharing the music. We’re listening, while outside, Boston is flying by the train’s windows, late winter light streaming in, and the tick of tracks becomes the song’s bass. I feel like I’m in a movie. Like I’m close to flying.

At home, Brad and Kyle are making dinner. I tell them of our adventures, and they listen. Brad asks about the subway doors and the gates to get into the subway and the colors that delineate the different trains. Then, Greg arrives, having been rescued by Whit who has spent yet three more hours in the car to get him from Burlington. All of a sudden, we’re all here, in this one place, laughing, and talking, and wondering where the next adventure will take us. We fall back into a comfortable routine of board games and banter, animals snuggling close, shutting out the cold January winds and chill that surround the house. Silently, I begin planning an Asian feast for the next evening’s meal.