Night Walker

You know what I liked about Boston? Being able to walk almost anywhere at night. Assuming you knew the roads and the neighborhoods, there wasn’t anywhere you couldn’t walk in Boston after dark. I find myself sometimes yearning for a good long night walk and around here it just doesn’t work. This isn’t a city and it’s not friendly towards that type of behavior. Even if I were to take a ride into DC, there’s still a very limited path I can take and be confident in my safety, not to mention that driving to to DC is just too much work for a spur of the moment walk. Even when I lived in the the suburbs of Boston, out around Jamaica Plain, I was still able to walk at night. And maybe it’s just a comfort thing. I suppose the neighborhood there wasn’t much different than here, although the parts I walked through were a good deal more upscale, being just across the street from Jamaica Pond and all. But I remember on at least one occasion taking a walk down Jamaica Way till whatever the street that Triple D’s was on the corner of was named, and then up Centre Street till I got back to my apartment. It was maybe 2 miles; a good distance for a night walk.

I think the first time I went for a good long walk alone in Boston was the first semester of Freshmen year at Mass Art. I had decided that I needed to buy a capo for my guitar in order to allow me to play some Buffalo Tom songs. So I got out the phone book (because this was before I had learned to rely on computers for everything) and checked out the places in the area that I might make such a purchase. There was a Guitar Center on Commonwealth Ave, a Daddy’s Junky Music on Mass ave, and E.U. Wurlitzer as well. I think I made the decision to head up to Mass ave. by Symphony hall and see what I could find. I don’t recall whether I took the T up there or not but regardless, I ended up on Mass ave. and somehow managed to miss both E.U. Wurlitzer and Daddy’s and progressed on towards Commonwealth. Now I had only spent a combined total of 3 or 4 months in the city at this point, but had made a decent number of excursions both by myself and with friends and knew the layout of the main streets well enough to understand that Commonwealth intersected Mass ave. and ran along the Green Line T. So I made my way up Commonwealth, with no idea of how far Guitar Center was up it and eventually arrived quite some time later. Future night walking excursions often involved going to Tower Records or Newbury Comics, both on Newbury street (also off of Mass ave.). I think it probably started mostly during my Sophomore year when I lived a bit closer to all that and when I often ended up walking back to my apartment late at night from my girlfriend’s dorm room. There was something zen about walking alone in the city at night and though I’ve done it countless times and even based my Senior year film project on it, I can’t quite describe it. I think in Boston especially, the city just takes on a life of it’s only, like the night is the city’s time to itself, where so many things happen that normally go unseen. There’s something exhilarating about it and peaceful at the same time, especially in the spring just after it’s rained and the sky is mostly clear.

I still yearn for those walks, they’ve often helped me clear my head, but here…it just doesn’t feel right. This isn’t a place for people, not single people, not people like me. This is a place for families and laborers, for politicians and the upper-middle class. I find it difficult to find the life I want here and yet, I don’t think I know what that actually is. I can’t even drive here except to and from work or any number of other destinations. In Boston I would sometimes drive a loop, taking local roads up to 90…to 95…to route 9…and back home. It was a course I had pieced together from various other routes to get to various destinations and I suppose I could do the same here, but it somehow doesn’t seem the same.

I don’t miss Boston itself so much though and when I do make my way back to the city I find it less and less appealing, but the opportunities it presented and the memories it holds for me… And I think that’s what it is about this place, I don’t have any memories here and I’m not quite sure how to properly create new ones alone…if I even can. I’ve been thinking lately of heading somewhere new once this project is over, a better city, but would that make a difference. Maybe it’s just me.  What’s there for a single guy to do in Northern Virginia and DC when his friends are too lazy to get out of the house?

What are the other people like me doing around here right now?

I want, I want, I want

I want to be 18. I want to 18 and in DC. I want to be 18 and in DC and in college. I want to have friends who like to go out and do things. I want to explore the city. I want to be taken new places. I want to figure out what is fun to do here. I have no repertoire of “fun” in this area. I have no idea what there is to do for fun except the national mall and museums and that’s not really what I call fun.

If I was in Boston with the kind of free time I now find myself with then I would know exactly what to do. More importantly, I’d know what to do on dates. I have no idea where to take someone on a good date around here. If I was in Boston I could suggest going to Harvard Square, Fanuel Hall, Newbury Street. I could suggest going for drinks and James’ Gate, Flann’s, The Cask and Flagon, The Other Side Cafe, or any number of other places. There are places to get dinner that are out of the way and different. There are places to walk, trendy shops, indie shops, record stores, galleries, old neighborhoods, new developments, places that I know.

I lived in Boston for the better part of 10 years. I went to college in Boston and I explored the city to the point where I can give directions to Fenway park from any point in the city. I don’t know DC. When I meet someone new I don’t know where to take them. I don’t know what’s cool and what’s lame. I don’t know what’s fun and what’s boring. I don’t know this place and I don’t know how to know it. I’m alone exploring an alien landscape, but not even exploring because I don’t know where to begin.

At first I tried, within my own city, but there’s nothing here. DC may hold more, but where to begin. Where is the good and the bad. Where should I avoid, where should I explore. How can I be fun and exciting, and confident and interesting if I don’t know where to go? I’m drowning here and I don’t remember how to swim. It may not even be the city, perhaps I’d be like this anywhere. I think maybe I spent so long trying to attain my career that I forgot how to have fun. I don’t know where to begin.