Dear New England
Are you there, New England? It’s me, third-generation West Coast Gen Xer, and I have a few things on my mind.
First off, I’m from California — NOT “Cali.” No one in California refers to the Golden State as Cali unless they are transplants from Boston, where, for some inexplicable reason, all nouns end in “ie.” Apparently, I’m now an Eastie who originally came from Cali and who just booked an appointment with a hair salon in Southie. Quit it with the Cali bullshit.
Before you ask me, let me start by telling you that I LOVE the Boston weather. I love nor’easters because I think the snow is pretty, and I look good in boots and scarves. The clouds that block the sun several days a week? Fabulous — now I can go outside and not worry about my fair skin turning to liver-spotted leather. And I adore the steady rain that soaked the city for 24 hours straight yesterday. Seriously. It relaxes me and gives me an excuse to wear a ponytail. It makes me happy for the trees. It quenches a primal thirst that I began to experience after 12 years in parched, dusty, prickly Arizona. It reminds me of the El Nino storms that I used lull me to sleep when I was growing up in Cali.
(By the way, rainy days aside, I really want to buy that pair of Tory Burch wedges I saw at Copley Place, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to wear wedges on a subway or while walking the uneven sidewalks in the South End or in rain storms that come and go faster than shoe trends. I’ve yet to see a woman wearing anything other than sneakers or flats. Have you given up on heels, New England? And while we’re discussing fashion, can you give me a few words on wearing dresses in a city that seems perpetually windy? Some advice, please.)
And your sunsets — WOW. Everyone makes a big deal about your football team and your baseball team and your historical sites and your universities and your fall foliage, but they should really be talking about those orange-pink-purple sunsets that rival anything I’ve seen in Hawaii. For reasons still unknown to me, the sunsets are accompanied by a canon boom from the Coast Guard station in the North End. I can hear it from my apartment. It was disconcerting the first few times––the sound of an explosion in a big city in 2018 and all. Now I look forward to it. Ending the day with a bang. Nice, Boston.
You know what I don’t love though? Being ignored. I don’t know whether to blame that on New England indifference or the millennials who seem to have a freakish Vulcan-mind-meld control of the city. If you don’t want to meet up for lunch to share ideas on the freelance landscape in Boston, that’s cool. You can tell me. I’ve been making a living as a writer for 15 years — I have thick skin. If I bombed that edit test or if my resume betrays the fact that I’m 40 years old and better versed in “copy” rather than “content,” could you at least send me a polite email from an address that doesn’t accept replies? But responding to my follow-ups and inquiries with silence? That’s just tacky. And I get the impression neither New Englanders or millennials want to be seen as tacky.
But hey, two thumbs up for lobster rolls and oysters-in-the-raw as a food group. You absolutely got that one right. And kudos on eating so much buttery shellfish and somehow staying so trim. You jog on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway on your lunch hour and you take the stairs at the Aquarium T stop without losing your breath. You cross-country ski down my street in the snow. Your marathon attracted 30,000 runners — in the pouring rain. You’re inspiring. I didn’t realize how unhealthy Arizona was until I spent an afternoon people watching in the Seaport. Now I take the stairs, too.
But where are the waves and the seaweed and that salty smell of sea air? How can I see the sea but not smell it or hear it? That’s just wrong. Hey Atlantic, don’t be a tease.
New England, my relationship with you is too new to know if it’s lifelong or just a fling. It’s in that early emo stage where I might laugh and cry multiple times in the same afternoon. Some days I think I want to move into a brick row house and spend my summers on the Cape and buy trench coats in every color of the rainbow. Other days I want to close the curtains and browse real estate listings in the south of France while texting my Westie friends.
Dear New England,
Thanks for not being boring.
