October 20, 2017 (Friday)

by Yule Heibel on October 19, 2018

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.”

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