As I finally get my room back to its somewhat livable condition, I stop back at the computer to skip a song (I prefer Sovay and Banking on a Myth to The Naming of Things today) and I notice that the clouds have taken over the sky in this perfect sort of navy that you really can’t get unless you’re near the water. I know I did this while I was actually at Dover, but I can’t help but let the skies take me back to those temperatures, that damp biting cold that just wouldn’t let go, the silken pebbles and the hues of green that really don’t seem to belong above the horizon.
It’s different here. When a storm blows in, it doesn’t blow in swiftly. You can’t decipher it on the air, the humidity doesn’t stick to your skin. Here, the air may go damp, but gradually and with a kiss of cold that I’ve only known by the water. Instead of making everything sticky, it seeps in, biting at the warmth beneath the skin.
Depending on circumstance and disposition, it must seem fairly awful, but I can’t help but absorb it. This is why I’m here.
I’m overwhelmingly in love with Boston. I love this city for all of its histories, both Revolutionary and mob. I love it for its beauty and culture and people and accents and identity. I love that every other mailbox downstairs is labeled “Donnelly” or “Connelly” or “O’Donnell” or “O’Connell” or the occasional “Finnegan.” I love that I can watch the sailboats glide along the glowing water at my bus stop each morning and that sometimes, if the wind is carrying in, I can hear tugboat horns. And you know how I feel about tugboats.
I do not, however, love my job or my apartment or the way I’m demanded to be patient, to wait quietly for the moment when I’ll finally have that incredible brownstone or triple-decker, when I’ll finally land that job that means something to me, the confidence I feel in the back of my mind but don’t radiate like I mean to.
I miss Josh particularly on these Dover days, these days that aren’t particularly cold, but the ones that get into your marrow under their grayblue skys and the green that intervenes occasionally. I begin to think about who I thought I’d be at 26 and realize I’ve never really had any idea who this age might see.
So perhaps I’m doing fine in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it’s alright that I’m already casually scouting the Idealist.org ads before the first snow has fallen. Maybe I’m lucky that these skies and these winds make me think of Dover and Matthew Arnold and all of the possibilities out there. When have I ever been the type to be easily satisfied, after all?
