When I landed in Boston Logan after a couple months in the land of the Southern Cross, I expected to be either bored or hyperactive. Because I fell in love with New Zealand and I wanted to continue the affair; I didn’t really want to come home just yet. The adventure down under reminded me the joys of living in another country, and I returned even more restless than when I left.
I dithered on whether or not to use up the year of the working holiday visa, but being a mature individual, I returned because reality called—banal reasons like money, apartment, bills, and the wonderful dance of work-finding. I knew I’d taken a risk when I left a perfectly good job to work the harvest in New Zealand. I didn’t know whether things would work out with it again. So I knew I’d have nothing to do with myself for a couple of weeks except get my routine back together, and that’s precisely what wasn’t so motivating.
Then my bag showed up second in luggage carousel, and I thought it was ridiculously awesome. Really though, when does that luck happen? Usually, I wait for at least twenty minutes, hoping and praying the airline didn’t lose it. That random bit of luggage luck made my day. I figured Boston can’t be that bad after all.
What saved me from being pissed off at being back in the US was the fact it was summer. After feeling the chill of imminent winter in the Southern Hemisphere, the abundance of greenness and long daylight hours were welcoming. Yes, it still managed to be gray and foggy when I stepped out of the airport. It was drizzling. But it was warm, and nature was alive. Oh, glorious sauna-like humidity and heat! I didn’t miss you, but I’ll take you anytime over nor’easters and digging my car out from two feet of snow for the umpteenth time in single digit weather.
Boston is alive and kicking in the summer—though it’s really not its best weather. The best one happens in October, when the colorful palette of foliage reminds you New England is, in fact, beautiful. Temperatures cool down a bit, and the sun shines photographically ideal light upon the world. It’s my favorite season in New England. Summer, on the other hand, is hot, humid and sticky.
But this time around, I love it nonetheless. Everything is growing, green, alive and…abundant! The best of all are farmers’ markets, which are at their plentiful. There’s nothing like the taste of just-picked local heirloom tomatoes and strawberries, and of course grass-fed protein grilled outdoors. It takes two minutes to get dressed. Flip-flops everywhere are acceptable. The waters of the Atlantic warm up just enough to be bearably swimmable (there’s no Gulf Stream help here as there is on Cape Cod), like just over 65F. There’s nothing like swimming in the open ocean in relative comfort and enjoying the fact that the water isn’t going to turn you into an icicle. There are free movies in Boston Common. There are concerts on the Esplanade. There are Red Sox games, outdoor eating, and free manicured tennis courts.
When you don’t get sunshine year round, you really appreciate it when it’s here. It makes you almost forget it was ever different. Nature’s tricks, eh.
I know this city intimately. I’ll always have a soft spot for it. It’s been my home for many years. It’s a city of many personal firsts: first college experience, first job, first love, first swim in the Atlantic, first oysters and beef tartare, first elations and disappointments, first roads to practice driving on, first memorable wine, first time being paid for writing, etc. I’m enjoying it over the summer—but perhaps more so only through the lenses of a soon-to-be outsider. I’m restless and, as usual, the desire to explore overweighs the status quo. My next move is to a state with weather much like Boston’s, where the ocean is on the “wrong” side. Why? Because they grow grapes there, and I want to be at the source and continue what I started in New Zealand – learn about the winemaking side of things at the actual winery.
Boston Harbor at Sunset
