Returning to Boston

Coming back here is fascinating in some ways. On Friday I did several errands which had piled up in the wait for better weather. As I rode the "T," I found myself automatically walking to certain spots on platforms even though I couldn't remember the advantage of exiting the train from the same spot. I only remembered when I arrived at the next station. Things were more or less as I remembered them: the Thai food stand I've always liked, the friars at Arch St., The Chinatown CVS which was new last time I lived here and still seems more orderly and easier to deal with than most, St. Paul's by Bow and Arrow in Cambridge, the Central Square post office. I noticed that Rodney's Bookstore was going out of business, which made me sad. Having told a precise employee at Schoenhof's Foreign Books how long I had been out of town, he was able to explain to me the changes in the layout that had occurred since.

This morning I returned to the parish where I lived and prayed for four years during studies. I concelebrated the Spanish Mass with the pastor. It was all so familiar. There were people I remembered gratefully and fondly, and others I remembered only by sight. Names had been forgotten; others weren't really known before anyway. Children had grown up. The permanent deacons were still as unlike each other as one could imagine. The same man lumbered off to the bathroom during the homily, just as I remembered he always had.

So I'm grateful to be starting to feel at home again.