Myth Happens

Today, we walked.

Just from Lechmere to North Point Park, for starters. We've visited the park now three Aprils in a row, so we're calling it one of the traditions of spring. I like it more and more each time, tucked into the little stillness of water between the Lechmere Viaduct and the old seawall of the Boston & Maine Railroad. Daffodils and forsythia, canals and willows greening with sun, red-winged blackbirds that flit among the climbing structures and the magnolia, curiously unafraid. (And a lost river! At this point in the post I fell down a small K-hole of research about the industrial canals and railyards and warehouses of Lechmere Point, plus the two Charles River Dams—we walked over the incumbent on our way to the North End, but its predecessor turns out to be under the Museum of Science, which makes an incredible amount of sense of the little cut to its west side that always looked like a lock; there were tugboats tied up there when I was a child—out of which I extricated myself with difficulty and several ideas. I'd already decided to use it as the setting for a canalpunk story for ashlyme, but Miller's River sealed the deal. Now I just need the time and sleep and strength to write it.) It was ridiculously photogenic. Clear sky, sun-struck water. Green Line trains pulling over the viaduct between Lechmere and Science Park. Ducks swimming out onto the Charles proper through the lock under the Craigie Drawbridge, all in a line like McCloskey's picture book. We could never get a view of them in their amphibious moments; they came ashore (or launched) directly under the North Bank Bridge and we were walking over it at the time. North Station still uses the old Signal Tower 'A' of the Boston & Maine, small bricks and copper in the shadow of I-93 and the unfurling cable-stays of the Zakim Bridge. Cormorants in the water. White-winged gulls. We spent a little time on the other side of North Washington Street, trying to get a better look at the massive remains of the old bridge's turntable; we were defeated by not being able to walk through the pumping station of the current Charles River Dam. We banged on the interactive bells as we went by. I find it difficult to believe that no filmmaker has ever set a chase scene on the locks—they are exactly the kind of huge interactive assemblage of gears and moving parts that summer blockbuster showdowns love. Our goal was Pizzeria Regina for dinner, but they had a line around the corner, so we wandered off disconsolately down North Margin Street (which I will insist on referring to as "No Margin," because that's what it said on the first sign I saw) and ended up at Antico Forno, which was great. The bread pudding was a bridge too far, but I regret nothing about the limoncello.

And then we walked to Harvard Square. Roundaboutly. We hung around the big top of the Big Apple Circus at Government Center and tried to guess the act inside from the music. We walked down Tremont Street and mazed ourselves in little brick-backed streets with black iron fire escapes until we found the memorial plaque for the Cocoanut Grove. We picked up Boylston Street again at Copley and stuck to it until we hit Mass. Ave., at which point it was late enough that we gave a brief glance after the 1 bus and then thought better of it: we just walked its route over the Harvard Bridge, counting Smoots, the dusk-blue water and the shadow-blue sky and the sodium and LED streetlights rippling at the river's edge like Tiffany glass. Detoured to Central Square so that Rob could show me where the Cambridgeport Baboon wasn't anymore, then actually stopped at 1369 in order to rehydrate. And then to Harvard. I found Le Guin's Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989) at the Harvard Book Store and we did not make the 96 because it left five minutes before its stated time; we watched its taillights disappear. Rob tweeted about it with extreme prejudice ("Missed Bus? Tough—Adjust"). Somehow we were not so brought down.

derspatchel estimates we walked at least seven miles. That's easily the farthest at any one time since he broke his ankle for Christmas. It was lovely. Walking a city is one of the things that makes it a place for me, not just the scenery outside my head. We hadn't had much chance these past four months. I don't know that anywhere I live will ever feel like my city, but I like this one a lot. So, spring.

I got back to my computer to find that strange_selkie has tagged me several nice things on Tumblr: hundreds of digitized diaries from the First World War, a thing I should turn into a story, and some porn. Also, this is some time ago now, but I can't shake the conviction that I'm actually looking at Tilda Swinton as Alan Turing.

Have some wonderful portraits of genderqueer women. I'm going to read some poems and shower and damn well sleep.