377 days - Blog #141 or My Last Commute or the Tapestry in the Rearview Mirror

I'm just getting home after a dinner out with friends.  Even so, I am mindful of the date and the fact a year has passed since the last time I drove to work in Boston. 

There is a lot less snow today than there was a year ago - the which I remember vividly because I stayed in Revere so I wouldn't have to battle the elements that last morning.  And before going to the office, I shoveled my car... my beloved Kermit... out of a snowbank.

I wrote this blog when I got home - after another round of shoveling that night.  I never published it, for fear of it being too sentimental.  But, really, I think I needed to come back and read it today and remember the beauty and exquisite tapestry of that last commute home.

“Memory is a selection of images. Some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain. Each image is like a thread. Each thread woven together to make a tapestry of intricate texture and the tapestry tells a story and the story is our past.”

I thought tonight was going to end quietly… and it is, ultimately… with a glass of wine, my lit up Christmas tree, and Pandora shuffling holiday tunes.  I ended up taking a detour to this end around 4pm when I went out for a parting drink with my co-worker.  We went to the bar where we sat five years ago to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama.  No matter what you think of what has happened since, that was an amazing day… and a day I was glad to be in JP, drinking beer at 11am in a townie/hipster bar watching that history take place.

I thought about that significant day in my time at JP.  Of other visits we made to that bar over the years.  The finality of the moment… and the very normalcy of our conversations about work, about politics, about inane quirks of people we know.  But glad that as the lights faded to black on my job, I was leaving with this very friendly connection.

I decided to drive her to the train at Back Bay.  It allowed me one more drive through the city at night.  Something in which I have always delighted… even when it was an exercise in getting myself unlost.   Of course, that led to the fact that I know my way around the streets of Boston pretty well now – or at least well enough to get myself unlost with a shorter duration of eventually.  The added bonus tonight, of course, was the moon rising over the horizon, with just enough of a golden tint to seem like a discovered treasure.

I got on the Pike and turned on my iPod.  I expected the later hour would grant me a smooth ride… but it was very stop and go from the Allston tolls.  I decided to get off at Newton Corner and laughed when I realized the universe was directing me partially through my old commute in that circle around the Sheraton (although it’s a Crown Plaza now) – but I knew it as the Newton familiar Circle of Death.  Well, I figured the detour was igniting a bit of nostalgia… and this was my last commute out of Boston.  Why not take a route that would highlight the significant spots of my life in the Athens of North America in the last ten years?

I drove down Washington Street, passed the church selling Christmas trees that were always way out of our price range and Marty’s, the best liquor store to have within walking distance and a monthly Saturday visit to cash in my roommate’s beer bottles.  

I turned left to head to Washington Park, the apartment that brought me back inside 128 ten years ago.  I remembered how my first visit was after a snowstorm and the park was covered with white stuff as it was tonight.  I indulged a smug smile at the poor quality of the shoveling of the walk and sidewalk… but maybe now that it isn’t a negotiation of rent, it isn’t a priority.  The house looks the same though and I saw a light pour from the window of my first bedroom.  It’s been six years since I left there, but the memories are warm and bright.

I headed down the street to Newtonville and decided to pause at the local Starbucks.  I didn’t really need a caffeine boost… but so many coffees were bought there.  On the way to the job that just ended.  To meet friends.  Even after I moved to the other side of town.  Or out of town for a veggie dropoff.  The interior has been updated.  But I remembered suddenly a birthday seven… eight years ago when the barista offered to go across the street to buy soy milk because they had run out.  I said just make it a mocha.  He just made it free.  I liked that Starbucks team.  Who knows where they are now?  But they made my day, especially that random birthday.

I got back in the car and drove to West Newton, happy to see my back way wasn’t icy… and yet narrower with snow still not completely cleared.  I thought I could stop at Shing Yee or Blue Ribbon for dinner to go.  But then let the thought pass by for an excuse to come back and go with friends.  But, as I came down to Washington Street again and saw the lights on the mini village common the nostalgia welled into a sadness… maybe a tear… until Smashing Pumpkins came on the radio.

I went down Auburn Street, but couldn’t stop to look too long at the old apartment as someone was right behind me.  I saw Judy’s lights were on, but the upstairs had the shades pulled so I couldn’t see if there were any festive lights.  I wonder if Judy misses my shoveling neurosis.

Then I followed a very familiar path to the Pike.  I went on the ramp and left Boston.

But the ride home offered a strange soundtrack of memories as well.  Both Garden State and The Last Kiss albums came into play.  I had a thing for Zach Braff movies, what can I say?  And one reminded me of driving to visit my friend Karen in Marlborough from Washington Park.  While the other was tinted with that sweetness of my last serious crush/infatuation.  As I said Smashing Pumpkins showed up on the speakers, reminding me of the novel I wrote whilst living and running on the streets in Newton.  And, happily, one more time as I pressed the gas pedal on the highway, some of Hans Zimmer’s music from The Dark Knight movies came into hearing.  One of my impish pleasures of driving.

Then I came over that hill of 290 when suddenly the lights of the city start to break apart the darkness.  I saw the sign I’ve passed many many times.  I read it.  I saw it.  It meant something.  Welcome to Worcester.  Yes.  Indeed.

All those places I drove by that had echoes.  Living, vibrating echoes where a piece of me will always be in some invisible form.  Woven into the tapestry of my memory.  They make me smile as my eyes pull heavily signaling the day’s close.  

But, as I headed further along the shutes and ladders of the 290 gridwork, I heard Stevie Wonder sing out “Music knows it is and always will be one of the things that life just won't quit.”  I smiled at the present moment.  It is good.  It has so many colorful threads to add to the tapestry.  And it is good to be here.