Under The Pale Moon, For So Many Years I've Wondered, Who You Are, How Can A Person Like You Bring Me Joy

--"The Sign", Ace of Base

I've never lived anywhere outside of Southern California. Well, to be technical, I guess you could count the year my family lived in the Philippines before moving to the U.S., but I barely remember anything before I turned five. I doubt I'd remember anything in my first year of life. For all intents and purposes, I'm a SoCal kid and a SoCal kid I'll probably stay. That being said, people often wonder why I have such an affinity for Boston and all its various suburbs. What is it about a city I only started recently visiting that has caused me to visit five out of the last six years?

To be honest, I really don't know. I mean--I've been a Red Sox fan for some twenty years now, but that had never prompted me to fly out here before. In fact, if it hadn't been for attempting to follow Rilo Kiley on their Execution tour, I might have never gotten up enough gumption to fly to Boston at all. Chicago had always been the city I wanted to see growing up. I wrote stories about the Windy City, I made plans to visit when I was younger, and I even told myself that Chicago is where I wanted to be when I was older. It was something mystical about that city. But once I actually made it to Boston, I knew this was a place where I belonged. Chicago is nice and all, but let's just say the dreams of desires you have as immature kid who's never been anywhere in his life are vastly differently once one is older and more experienced. Had I known then what I know now I wouldn't have wasted so much time dreaming of a city that, frankly, is vastly different than what I thought it to be. Had I known anything about Boston, I would have wasted so much more time daydreaming about it than any other city.

Yet here it is, my fifth trip in almost as many years, and I'm still finding new places to go. I've done all the touristy activities in previous visits so I'm finding on this trip that I'm not so much in a hurry. I pretty much hit all my favorite haunts--Faneuli, Newbury Street, Boston Common, Boston Garden, J.P. Lick's, Legal Seafood, and, of course, the Union Oyster House. Now, though, I'm hitting those out-of-the-way spots that I never had the opportunity to hit before. It's been a great trip and it's probably only going to get better once Nancy Drew finally gets up here today. You're always more inclined to find the joy in a place once you're inclined to show it to somebody else, after all.

It's interesting to me how much I love this city even though I skipped last year to go to Chicago with Breanne. It's the closest thing to visiting an old friend, finding some of her changed, older somehow, and yet finding her not so different than when you last left her. There's still the same energy in the air. There's still the same wonderful lot of people to get to know. There's still the same great history and character to the old girl that I'm betting isn't going away any time soon. If anything, I've changed more than the city has. When I first started coming here, everything was new. I was in awe of everything I saw and everything Ashley showed me when she took me on that first driving tour. I was like a kid in a candy store--if that kid had never even tasted candy before. Now it's all passe. The city's not going to impress me with anything new and different. After five years, I think I've seen most of it has to offer. And you know what? That doesn't matter. It's precisely because I've changed, because I'm not as wide-eyed as I was before, that I'm able to still love so much of this city. Coming back, I'm looking at the city with different eyes.

I'm seeing it from the perspective of someone who's an old pro at this place or, as my shuttle driver put it yesterday, as somebody "who's practically a resident now."

It's a weird feeling not to have to take a guide book anymore to get to anywhere I'm going. It's a weird feeling to be able to give directions to Fenway, to Harvard Square, to this T station or that restaurant, all on memory alone. It's a weird feeling for people to ask me how long I've been living here after we're first introduced. The way I gush about this city to its residents, people make the assumption that I'm a longtime Boston native.

I take it as a compliment, actually.

I've made it past that stage in the relationship where I'm newly in love. Now I'm onto the stage where nothing is new, but the love is still there. I'm onto the stage where I'm comfortable and happy precisely because I know what I'm getting and how good what I've got truly is. Boston's my city and I know now there's really nowhere else I'd rather be.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers