I’m writing
my blog early this week. I’m not really
writing about me; there isn’t much to talk about anyway. If you need a review, I have a stress
fracture in my foot, am learning to balance on crutches, and can’t run for an indeterminate
amount of time. Yada, yada, yada, and you're all caught up. Now I would like to
write about something that is very important to me.
As some of
you know, I lived in Boston for a while.
That’s right: this girl born and bred in Manhattan voluntarily moved
into Red Sox territory. I admit, I never
fully absorbed all of Boston’s culture and nuances; I’d eat a “hero” instead of
a “spuckie”, would not let the word “frappe” replace what I know as “milkshake”,
and I flat out refused to consider the letter “r” as silent when it ended a
word.
Now, I wasn’t
a total outsider either. It was in
Boston (OK, Cambridge. Let’s not split
hairs) that I discovered Burnt Caramel flavor ice cream at Toscanini’s, and to
this day I still prefer to use the word “wicked” instead of “very”. I even refer to my Metro-North monthly train
ticket as a “T-Pass”.
Because I was
always on the fringe of feeling like being a Bostonian, I got to observe those
people who truly are. They are loyal,
which is how places like Regina Pizzeria and Mike’s Pastries stay around for
decades. They are dedicated, proven by
how they waited
for years (and years, and years… Sorry, still a Yankee fan) for the Sox to win
the World Championship. They are tough:
they’ve endured record breaking heat and the highest amounts of snowfall in the
same year. They are welcoming, which
explains how I was able to sneak on to the MIT Women’s Rugby team and stay there
for 8 years, 4 as their hooker (yes, it’s a real position), 4 as a coach. (And if you go to some rival school, don’t go
telling on them. Trust me, except for my
ability to steal the other team’s ball in a scrum, I added little to their success
and if anything was more of a hindrance).
And they throw a hell of a marathon. As a runner myself, I’ve been in
conversations where people aspire to “qualify for Boston.” It’s a race on every runner’s bucket list.
On
Monday some sick people tried to take away a part of Boston. Well, you picked on the wrong city. This is a place where people protect their
own parking spaces (and help me to understand this: if I dig out a spot and you
dig out a spot, we each dug one and park in one. What part of that math isn’t working?). Do these people think Bostonians are going to
back down when their biggest event of the year gets destroyed? On the contrary, Boston will unite even more
and get stronger than it already is.
Future Boston Marathons will be even more amazing, with displays of
community and solidarity. The Boston
Marathon – arguably the best marathon in the world – will get even better.
I lived in
Boston for 15 years of 44, really just a fraction of my life that will get
smaller every year. I never fully
learned my way around (though in my defense, it is possible to stand on the
corner of Tremont St. and Tremont St., and there is a piece of highway where
you are on 95 North and 93 South at the same time). But it was a very important place for me: I
met my husband there, got married there, gave birth to my first child
there. Although it was just one part of
my life, right now I’d have to say that the Spindells said it best: “Boston,
you’re my home.”
Think I’ll
have a spuckie for dinner tonight.
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