So I’m facing the first free couple of days after exactly four months of relentless work and I’m remembering once again how difficult it is to (re)learn to enjoy free time when you’re so used to running around. Furthermore, as I approach the 50-day mark I’m finding that being as observant and open as in those first few days is a tough, abeit welcome, challenge. Strategies I’ve developed to deal with this include taking purposively different (occasionally longer) routes to get where I want to get, and making an effort to talk to strangers even if I don’t need anything. Perhaps when I’m writing up my fieldwork paper there should be a parallel narrative of self-reflection running along with my observations re Boston – distinguishing between the two is not easy.
The Boston Diaries
- Tremont St Dorchester Friendly Toast Cambridge Mayoral election Copley Square MIT jazz Newbury St Prudential community art politics UMass foliage community Harvard fieldwork Christmas Boston Public Library books Pavement Coffee House Downtown cinema Back Bay Central Square Mihailidis art Boylston St Brookline Savin Hill trains South End Faneuil Hall Newburyport Dallas Mass Ave Rose Kennedy Greenway Coolidge Corner Starbucks snow JFK Bay Village trees work McKenna's public art Hoop Dreams Portraits of America South Station Kendall Square T Old Harbor food stations museums Art in Transit noir North End Boston Common coffee Financial District exhibition EGL Chinatown pedagogy fall Harvard Square Government Center holidays libraries home Thinking Cup MBTA Roxbury Boston Harbor Wenham Emerson Thanksgiving New England collective memory