Dateline: Boston, Part 1

This afternoon, after an obligatory stop at my stylist's so he could do his magic and ready me for my conference presentation tomorrow afternoon, my husband dropped me off at the airport and, shortly thereafter, I took off for Boston, the city of my birth.

I almost forgot to take a picture of Columbus as we flew over it, and although I didn't get a picture of Boston as we flew in, this is the view from my hotel room, way up on the 25th floor and right in front of the John Hancock Building.

The view is absolutely breathtaking, and it was 91 degrees and sunny outside , just like I remember all those summers here. There's something about Boston that simply speaks to my soul in ways that nowhere in Ohio, or, actually, anywhere else but Puerto Rico, does.

While I rather famously get lost in Ohio all the time, I'm in my element in Boston and navigate the city and the "T" (not the subway, not the Metro), like I was born here. Oh, wait. I was born here! And while cows are responsible for the meandering nature of its streets, moles must be responsible for the snaking implausibility of its underground system. But I love taking the "T" when I'm here. I don't even remember why I felt I had to have a car (probably because I was young and wanted, more than needed, one)!

I smile a lot while I'm in Boston, for no good reason. Perhaps it is the dizzying (and unimaginable in my small college on the hill) diversity of the city. Six Chinese college students sitting at a table in a Chinese restaurant, laughing and enjoying their tea and their dinner. Eight Indian students walking across the platform of the subway, speaking English, laughing and joking with each other. Several Latinos, speaking Spanish, trying to figure out where they were going next.

Or perhaps it's that magically blue Atlantic that frames the outskirts of the city, or the glorious Charles River with its white-sail sailboats gleefully skimming the water almost until the darkness envelops the city. Or perhaps it's the impossible variety of possibilities of what to do, to see, to hear, to eat, to experience.

My husband and I had thought this trip would be our chance to have a break after a too-busy semester and a not very happy year, but it didn't work out and I'm here by myself and go home again tomorrow, right after my paper is done.

But although there's no way I can enjoy myself as much under these circumstances as it would've been if he had been able to accompany me, I lived here without him, in my pre-Ohio times, and I know how to be by myself in this city. And I like it.

Today, after attending a very interesting panel on Native American Transnationality, I took the "T" into Harvard Square in search of matching Red Sox T-shirts for my lovely friend KG's husband and baby. And, of course, an infant Red Sox baseball cap for TMG!

After my loot was secured, I stopped at the Chinese restaurant where I often ate more than 20 years ago when I first walked through the hallowed gates of Harvard as a first-year student. The restaurant is still here, and while the man at the front desk doesn't recognize me now at age 47, I still recognize him and many of the waiters and waitresses.

Once the sun started to drop, I decided it was time to take the "T" back to the hotel and call it day. Tomorrow there's more panels to attend and questions to ask and my own presentation to get through. And then this trip to Boston, perhaps the shortest I've made, will be over. I will be sad, but glad I'm going back home to my husband.

That's also when I'll start trying to find the very next chance I can get to return to Boston.