Back to Quincy.

[Larger.]

From when I went to Boston last fall. On our first full day there, the Mrs. was at Harvard doing research. I stayed at the hotel in Quincy and did some work of my own. We were at the hotel where we stayed in 2001 when we came up apartment hunting before we moved there. It was near where we wound up living. My old hood. It was a nice little neighborhood for walking, and our apartment community was a block from the beach. I used to take the long way back from everywhere except class (it took nearly two hours to get home from Boston College via walking and the subway) because I liked the neighborhood.

That day, in the hotel, I could not stand the idea of what was outside. So I put on my mp3 player and took a walk through North Quincy. I took my favorite walk from the subway to our apartment but could not get any photos in the courtyard because of a lady walking too close behind me and her badly behaving kid. I walked through, went to the beach and took photos. Walked down my old street, down my favorite long way to get to the subway in the fall. I used to listen to Tori Amos’ Scarlet’s Walk on those walks in the fall of 2002. Applying to PhD programs, having no idea where we would be the next fall. Scary at the time, but exciting, I guess.

We had a neat balcony that caught indirect sunlight in the afternoon and had a weird blue glue. I liked to sit at the little bistro table we had and drink tea whenever I could be home a half hour before sunset. The planes on the way to Logan passed overhead very lowly and slowly several times a minute. I could see everyone coming home from work, getting a hug. The best hug they’d get all day. Putting on bathrobes and flannel things and making dinner, eating, relaxing.

I miss my last year in Boston pretty often. But then I was always pining for Baltimore. I always got on Amtrak excited to see my friends and family and favorite city. I’m where I want to be, and I think my affection for 2002-2003 has more to do with other things than a quiet little shore community in Quincy.

Photo Friday: Travel.