Here's to Boston. City of our fathers, bounded by the regular tides that heralded their arrival and the endless expanses that lie westward still. It defies its borders, jutting out precipitously into a speckled harbor and reaching higher still into the frigid skies so often plagued by swirling winds cast callously inland by the Atlantic. The rooftops bear witness to nature's resentment. Shingled houses abandon their perennial black and grey veneer to adopt the familiar whitewashed facade that always accompanies yet another nor'easter. The snow paints the whole city white. It paints in broad brushstrokes and does more than simply muffle colors under its uniform surface...it erases the clamor of the city as well. It silences everything beneath a blanket of tranquility and transforms a bustling city into a range of snow capped mountains. And for a moment all is quiet. No sounds of cars barreling down narrow streets, no screeching of subway wheels as they round an iron track before disappearing underground. Not even the occasional sullen voice of another pedestrian can be heard within the stillness of the cold night air. Just you and your thoughts alone in the city, a queer companion that serves only to momentarily stave off the loneliness, though never the cold. For that greater adversary something more is needed. A warm body, a warmer smile. Such company is a rare find on frozen Boston nights like the one I find myself in this evening, a treasure that once collected should never be relinquished. Too many solitary figures scuttle around me in the frigid air, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched over with heads wrapped in scarves. Their eyes occasionally glance up from the snow covered sidewalks and meet my gaze. They look so cold out here, so alone with no one to warm them from the falling snowflakes that slowly fill in the footsteps they leave behind.
My body shivers almost uncontrollably from the cold. My lips are nearly frozen and sensation has long since abandoned my extremities. An unexpected icy gust races through a corridor between two buildings and hits my face, singeing exposed skin with the ferocity of any lapping flame. The shock causes me to gasp, exposing my lungs to still greater perils and sending my body into even colder realms, inviting pain on any skin not enveloped under layers of clothing. My ears hurt. My nose stings, and my left hand is nearly immovable in its submission to the cold. But my right hand...my right hand is warm. Blood pumps ferociously through it and each sensation is easily perceived with unchanged tactility. Indeed, had a delicate feather run the ridges of my palm such nuances would not have passed notice. I look down to see the source of my right hand's warmth and find my palm clasped around another hand, smaller than my own and decidedly less abrasive. It's wrapped in a red woolen mitten and gives my hand a gentle squeeze as if to reassure me that simply being held is just enough. My eyes dart from the hand within my own to the awaiting gaze of the woman who possesses both. She smiles. I smile. Warmth returns to my lips. We kiss.
A week later I am back in Birmingham. My flight home was delayed by storms but I make it back to my apartment after catching a ride from an airport taxi. I pay the driver and begin the march upward to my apartment, but for some reason the stairs seem less welcoming than they did as I descended them some nine days before. Maybe I was just excited to get up to Boston. No, that's not it...I was excited about seeing her.
A quick shower and shave before heading to bed. The linens seem cold, an unwelcome departure from the routine I have grown accustomed to over the preceding days. And I'm here alone now, staring up at the ceiling, the overhead fan slowly churning the still air as I absentmindedly reach over to curl my arm around a figure who is no longer there. Only the memories remain now. The memories of soft melodies intermingled with alcohol as our modesty disappeared beneath a canopy of blankets.
So here's to Boston. A city like no other where for nine days I cast aside my southern roots and became a true Yankee. It truly is an amazing city, one where my proclivity for both intellectual and emotional indulgence found no greater harbor. Yet for all its history, for all its culture, its atmosphere and its people, it wasn't the city that drew me here...it was her. A girl whose hand reached out to warm my own, and whose abundance of generosity is tragically matched only by my vanity.
