Can’t say but that I’m not immensely relieved it’s Friday. The past few days, walking to the station with W. in the mornings, have been hard in a number of ways: the end of vacation, back in harness here, and the vile ugliness of E.-Street …it’s as if Ugly has to go somewhere; as soon as one ugly street gets fixed up, moderately upgraded (gentrified is too strong a word), Ugly moves out of there and goes somewhere else. Like E.-Street.
I saw a Quora answer pop up in my email, about Boston, and I clicked through. About why its “suburbs” are so expensive.
(Side note: I find that Greater Boston doesn’t really have suburbs because Boston is really an agglomeration of old cities large and small abutting central Boston – and Cambridge; and many of them actually have their own suburbs, as mine does, but all of them have their own city centers or downtowns to greater or lesser extent: I mean, you can’t call a town or city, founded in 1626 and possessing its own rich industrial history, a suburb of Boston just because it isn’t Boston, can you? Especially when that not-at-all-suburban smaller city is stuffed cheek to jowl into a metro area with other small-to-medium-sized cities just like it in a fractal expanse of roads, buildings, and overall density…)
Anyway…
And the guy on Quora who answered basically said it’s so expensive because it’s so great and desirable here. And I thought, “What am I missing?” Is it me, should I “settle” for the “Boston area” and make do with what I have because it’s so great (but I just can’t see it), or should I push to leave here, find a place that resonates more with my sense of self (whatever that is), has more of the built form and alternative transportation (not cars!) I find attractive?
I was reminded just now of a sidebar quote on page 29 in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way: “When you are feeling depreciated, angry or drained, it is a sign that other people are not open to your energy.”