On Being a Cantabrigian

A few days ago, I made my return to Boston after an exile of two years, eight months and eight days. Not that I was counting or anything. 

Yet this time around I am not a Bostonian. Yesterday, I moved into a house across the Charles River in Cambridge. Yes, the one with the piano in the room. While I was sorely tempted to return to Jamaica Plain, the room was furnished and the rent was less expensive. All of which now makes me Cantabrigian. 

Actually, I'm very close to the Cambridge-Somerville line. I might be all of a 100 feet away from it. But I'm a Cantabrigian just the same. 

During my 18 and a half years living in Boston my sojourns to Cambridge were an essential part of my time here. Seldom did I feel more joy than when I would walk on Mass Avenue from Fenway/Back Bay to Harvard Square passing M.I.T. and Central Square. I spent those hours at Club Passim, The Cantab (before they banned me for life), The Out of the Blue Gallery, Charlie's Kitchen, J.F.K. Park and Leavitt & Peirce, Inc., the tobacconists that sell a wide variety of mustache waxes.

Now I am but a 15 minute walk from Harvard Square and, for that matter, Harvard Yard. One of these days, I hope to cross paths with Remy The Humanities Cat - an orange tabby who spends his days roaming Harvard's vast campus crashing classes and dorm room parties. The pandemic has curtailed this but hopefully he will resume his normal life as we resume ours.

I'll be spending a lot of time in Boston as I will start my job in the Seaport District later this month. But when it comes to being left to my own time and own devices, I wonder if I will now journey along Mass Ave from Cambridge to Boston as I journeyed from Boston to Cambridge for so many years. 

I'm sure I will. But I'm also sure I will get to know The People's Republic of Cambridge in a way I've never known before.