Boston was dressed up

It isn't every day that you walk into a train station full of zombies, unfortunately. But last Saturday I did. Absentmindedly, lost in my own thoughts, hidden between the musical comfort of my earphones, I pushed open the door to the North Station. As usual, I was assailed by the station's usual public-restroom acrid smell as I walked down the hallway. The station had its usual crowd: businessmen, bums, scruffy students, and those shady people who hang out in public places for no apparent reason. I walked past a businessman in a suit, an old lady in a purple fleece sweatshirt, a homeless looking man in blood soaked rags... wait, what? Double take. He had scars across his face, purple bruises under his eyes, white pasty skin, and a trail of bloody gore from his mouth and down the front of his shirt. Had my long awaited zombie apocalypse finally begun? Did this mean that I didn't need to finish my masters? No, wait a second, what was that? A vampire? Zeus? a convict? And someone who I can only describe as an African-American Gandalf? The conflicting mythologies cleared up any doubts: no apocalypse, just Halloween.

It really shouldn't have caught me off guard; after all, I was on my way to a Halloween party in Beverly. But somehow, when you aren't in your own costume you forget these things. When I walked into the main ticket lobby, I saw that there were all sorts of people in costume waiting for the train to Salem. Due to the unfortunate nature of it's history, Salem has become an icon for all things witch-related, and therefore the place to go for a Halloween party. An estimated 100,000 people flood that little town at the end of October; some looking to have an actual occult experience, most simply looking to get drunk and maybe cursed by a disgruntled warlock. Well, it was just my luck that the train to Beverly has to go through Salem, so all those colorful characters got to ride with me.

As soon as the platform numbers was announced, an unholy exodus of the undead shuffled quickly towards the train, hoping to get a seat. Unencumbered by fairy wings, vampire capes, or prosthetic body parts, I made it into the car much faster than the ghouls behind me. From my seat, I watched the train fill up with all the curious freaks waiting to get to Salem. A biology student sat next to me dressed as a convict. His odor was particularly compelling. I found out he was a bio student because he was talking to a girl who must have been a classmate of his before she died and became the corpse she was that night. It is always funny to see people in costume but out of character: a convict and a zombie talking about fungus growth (fairly relevant to a zombie, I guess); a vampire eating cookies; satan talking to his mother on his cell phone; all four members of K.I.S.S sitting quietly... And yet, I was really the odd man out. Later on that evening I would be dressed as a monk, but on the train I was one of the few normal looking humans there. Being the only person not dressed up is just as awkward as being the only one that is.

Life, trees, visits from friends...

The trees have finally done it. The cold snap we've had in Boston over the past week has finally kicked autumn into high gear. My walk to the bus, which was once dreary, is now painted in the kinds of shades that we come to expect from a fire, not a tree. My best friend in high school came to visit me last week to catch a glimpse of the trees. It's a shame he didn't come a week later, because the hillsides are ablaze with fall now.

It is odd to meet up with old friends. Charles is now married, has a child and one on the way, and has a good paying job in the field he was trained in. On the other hand, I am still in school, working part time at a job that doesn't particularly excite me or pay me that well. Looking at all the other friends I have around the world, I can see that age matters very little in determining where you are in life. I have friends who's situation resembles that of Charles, and others who are still in phases that I feel like I left behind a long time ago. I don't think we are that much different than the trees are. Looking out the window, I can see ancient trees and young saplings all changing colors and losing leaves. In the same way, we work according to seasons not years.

I am standing at the edge of a season. I am certainly not in the carefree college or bachelor phase of life anymore. I began to tire of it years ago, to be honest. But I am not in the married yet either. I am looking forward to the next season of life but I still can't help but mourn the one I am leaving behind. Someone once told me that the very nature of Change is both loss and gain. You can't have it both ways; in order to move forward, you must leave something behind. There are very few events in life that mark such a clear 'before and after' as marriage. Perhaps it is only rivaled by the arrival of a new life or the loss of a loved one. In these cases, you wake up to a completely changed landscape than the one you saw the day before, like waking up to the effects of a silent midnight snowstorm.

a word from a stranger

Street strolling home, another long day was coming to a close and the sun had long gone home before me. The early autumn cold stung my cheeks in the dark. The wind tossed the branches back and forth in front of the streetlights, shifting the light and shadows on the brick buildings nearby. My shoulders sagged under the weight that only a city can place on someone who is going home to an empty house after a long day of work in a crowded town. Long days give way to even longer trips back to bed. I dragged my feet across the cracked city sidewalks; gravel and smashed acorns ground together as I walked the long stretch towards the bus that would take me home.
"You good?"
It took a few seconds to realize that someone was talking to me, and by the time I turned he was leaving, perhaps he was thinking that I had ignored him, but in all likelihood not meaning to stop anyway. I took off an earphone and watched him for a second. It was hard to make out the shaggy haired man as he walked away through the shifting shadows of the oak trees that line fenway. "Huh?" I though, or spoke, sluggishly.
Without stopping, the man turned towards me, so that he was walking backwards "Don't worry brother. It gets better!" he said in an honest tone with a slight hippy inflection of the 1960's. As he was about to turn around again, the light caught his face for a second as he flashed me a grin before walking away. Somehow, I believed him and felt better.

Wedding bells are in the air

Wedding bells are in the air.
It makes sense. Bells have to be in the air in order to make sound. If they were on the ground then they wouldn't be able to vibrate and create those wonderfully rich tones. If wedding bells are, say, in the dirt, then they just clank like someone hitting a train rail with a hubcap. And that won't do. Unless it is a hobo wedding in the 30s, then it might be acceptable. Everyone could rattle on empty bean cans to request speeches or clamor for kisses. But I'm not a hobo. If I were, I certainly wouldn't have made it alive to 26.

It is strange, I have officially known that I was going to get married since June; and unofficially for longer still. I mean, I knew that Jessica was the girl for me pretty soon after we started dating. Don't ask how, I just did. But even so, the fact that I was going to get married didn't really sink in until this past weekend when I went to visit her in Kansas. Jessica was going to be the Maid of Honor in a wedding and she needed a date. She told me that it would have been unbearable to be there without me and I didn't really understand what she meant until the ceremony started.
Suddenly it all started to sink in. The church, the pews, the groomsmen walking in the various family members... the groom waiting at the altar for his bride. "That is going to be me", I realized in a kind of surreal shock. The rest of the wedding seemed like a dream sequence: everything a haze where the future and met the present. I could see my face on the groom's body, Jessica walking down the aisle instead of her friend, my friends and family sitting in the church, the vows echoing through the church in our own voices. I'm getting married. It has finally sunk in; and I feel just fine about it. Nervous? Sure. But also confident and excited. Getting warmed up, sprinting up and down bell-tower stairways, pulling on heavy ropes... I'm going to be ringing those bells in a few months.

Autumn soon.

"Autumn is coming" the breeze says in its crisp, cool whisper. Then, after leaving my earlobes chilly from its breath, it floats past me and into the trees, where it tries to tug the leaves off of the branches.
"Not yet, my friend," I tell it. "Those leaves are still too green for you." The breeze just shrugs and floats away, distracted, playing lazily in the warm sunlight. It knows that it is just a matter of time. The trees may be green, but they are fraying red at the edges. A dry summer usually means a dull Fall; so perhaps this past Summer, with its disappointingly cool days, will reward us with a brilliant Autumn. I certainly hope so.
I remember the last Fall that I was here, four years ago. I thought that it would be the last New England Autumn that I would ever get to enjoy. I still remember putting on my jacket and scarf and heading to the woods behind my old college to take a walk. It was later in the season than it is now, and the forest was burning with brilliant reds and oranges that reflected off the pond. Already the branches were showing through the trees, outlined against the cloudy sky. I walked solemnly, aware that I was witnessing something that was holy in one way or another. Somehow, the most sacred thing about life is our own participation in it; and I could feel that then, as I walked alone in the woods. The sound of my breath and the crunching of my feet along the gravely trail did not seem out of place with the lonely cry of the loon or the rustle of the breeze in the dry leaves...
"Not yet, my friend" the breeze mocks gently, poking at the seams in my jacket.
"But soon..." I answer.

The old city seems much newer

I have returned to Boston. Back to a city that I thought I knew well, but has turned out to be little more than a familiar stranger to me. For a suburban college student, Boston was merely an outlet for entertainment. Now my brain fumbles with familiar sounding street names and neighborhoods, unable to place longstanding landmarks like Kenmore, but easily recalling the names of now defunct nightclubs like the Avalon.

I'm facing the crude reality of life in the city now. Dodging traffic, wrangling subways and buses, and trying not to spend money... in theory it should be familiar territory from when I lived in Madrid, but it all seems just different enough to be disconcerting. It is often harder to deal with new things that have a scent of familiarity than with those that are completely foreign because you expect things to work a certain way. I get more annoyed with the subtle differences of the trains than I would if they were rickshaws or walruses.

You would think that this place has lost its charm, but it hasn't. I have been faced with its reality, but that does not diminish its beauty. Boston has a very real romance to it; whether it be in the respectable lanes of beacon hill, or the raucous college areas, a breeze of inspiration floats above the streets. It has a bit of the academic spirit that permeated Oxford, but without the judging eyes of its tradition. It has a bit of New York's energy, but avoids demanding your soul in order to tap into it. The city, much like its citizens, bubbles over with overzealous idealism; but you smile, pat it on the head, and hope that you can tap into that inspiration and do something great.

Update.

OK. Its been a while. I'll admit that. I had pretty much given up on blogging, since all my friends had seemed to do the same, and part of the appeal of blogging is the communal factor. I think facebook and other networking websites have killed the newsletter/rant appeal of personal blogs. Nevertheless, It seems that I have been most prolific at blogging when I have had something to procrastinate from, when I have been busy and reading. It seems that most of those requirements are fulfilled in being a student... So, rather predictably, when Grad School started up I found myself with the impulse to write again.

So, yeah. the past few months have been packed with news that I haven't included here. So lets summarize in order to provide context to subsequent posts:

-I got engaged to the greatest girl in the world in June. We met at a thanksgiving party 2 years ago. The rest is history.

-I got accepted to Grad school to do a masters in English literature at Simmons College in Boston.

-I left the lovely country of spain and moved back to boston. It wasn't an easy move, but it made sense, considering the few possibilities available to me in the motherland.

-i am living in Boston, studying. Waiting until Christmas break when I will go to kansas and get hitched. Then I will move back to boston with my love.

That about sums it up.

Children?

I've been working at the school for about 2 months now, and so far so good. Despite what the sarcasm of my previous post may have implied, I actually like my job. Working with children is a new experience for me. I have taught adults and teenagers, but this is the first time I have ever worked with kids this young. I teach 6 year olds, first graders. After a few months, I have gotten to know them a bit and begin to appreciate them as little people. It is amazing how adult they can be, even as young as they are. You can already tell which ones are going to be popular, which ones are going to be the lame-Os. Some little girls are already quite catty with each other, some boys are clearly going to be jocks. You have the artsy kids, the class clowns, the nice guys, etc...

Working in my school you see some sad cases too. I work the in the neighborhood with the highest illiteracy rate in the city and famous for having lot of marginal groups such as gypsies. It is a low income area and you see some extremely bad cases of poor parenting. One boy has 4 brothers, each one of a different father. One kid had complained about a toothache for weeks but his mother didn't feel like taking him to the dentist. A little kid came in with a weird case of a chicken pocks that affects only the inside of the mouth, parents just left him there crying all day. There are children that seem quite psychologically scarred as well. One little girl came in after christmas with a phobia of being left without an adult; she was fine in the fall, but now she even clings to the teachers even in the playground. Or the boy who poops his pants several times a day; the school counselor has been working with him. One kid is a compulsive liar; denying things as you watch him do them.

It has been nice to see that most of the kids have taken a liking to me as well. I am not super gregarious, I am mostly pretty quiet; but I do tend to treat them nicely and consistently. It is kind of fun to hear a chorus of high pitched spanish accents saying "hello Ryan!" in unison as you come in the room. Other things are cute the first few times but gets old after a while, like having to to give high fives to everyone or being clobbered by 4 or 5 kids who run up from their desks to hug me.

Today I was told "I love you" by an ecstatic little girl clutching at my arm. I thought, "aww." But then later on I was told something similar that left me quite disturbed. In a different class, a girl told me "so and so likes you!" I didn't think anything of it, as kids do that sort of thing to each other and have crushes on their teachers. But the girl kept taunting her classmate and then said that "so and so wants you to do-" and proceeded to say something so obscene that I just stood there dumbfounded. Now, I dont even think that she knew exactly what she was saying, because she got the... genitalia wrong, but still, I dont even want to know where she learned it. Also, I'm supposed to act like I don't understand spanish, and my act has become so second nature, that I don't even react when I am told something shocking like that. In retrospect, if I am ever told something like that again, I am telling their teacher immediately. God forbid that someone overhear the girl wrong, rumors get started, and I get accused of inappropriate behavior.

Children, children, children.... complicated little people.