On 20 Years In & Around Boston

As of today, I have spent exactly 20 years residing in the Boston area. That's 7,305 days, folks. I have lived in this area longer than I've lived anywhere else having spent nearly 40% of my life here. Of course, these 20 years in and around Boston have been cumulative not consecutive. 

In the grand scheme of things it is far better to have commemorated this milestone today than it would have been on March 27, 2020. That day was my 20th anniversary in the United States but there was little cause for celebration as it was the early days of the COVID pandemic. 

At the time, I had been living in New York City for just over 18 months and would depart for Atlanta seven months later. And seven months after that I made my way back up to these here parts. While I lived in the Fenway and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods in Boston, this time around I settled across the Charles River in Cambridge within spitting distance of Somerville. In fact, I commemorated this milestone at a Peruvian restaurant in Somerville's Union Square neighborhood with a couple of friends.

One of my dinner companions I asked me if I planned to live here for another 20 years. I replied that I hoped to be still be alive in 20 years. But if I am alive in 20 years time I hope it will somewhere in this general area because it is my spiritual home. That spirit is perhaps felt most strongly when I walk on the Mass Avenue Bridge between Boston and Cambridge or when I see Boston on the Red Line between Kendall Square/MIT and Charles/MGH. But it is also there when I walk around the Jamaica Pond or the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Back Bay, attending the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Southie or on the days when I'm lucky enough to find Remy The Humanities Cat on the campus of Harvard University. It's there in spades when I get into the ring in the New Year with the Marx Brothers Marathon at the Brattle Theatre in nearby Harvard Square and it is there for my day trips to Concord to walk to my favorite spot in Walden Pond. 

My nearly three years away from Boston made me miss it so horribly that I never want to live anywhere else. I hope I never have to face another situation that would compel me to leave here. Should such a situation come to pass I will move Heaven and Earth to make sure I can stay here. On that note, I leave you with an obscure song by The Byrds called "Boston".