The Story Beneath My Feet

She was entering her senior year, at “the college,” shorthand for Harvard University’s undergraduate school. But already she was planning to take her postgraduate career across the country to golden California. This much I overheard from a stranger, riding on the “T.”

With one hand gripping a side rail and two feet spread upon the shifting floor, I stood, balancing the East Coast ride as if I were surfing the Pacific ocean. I laughed to myself about the irony of the ride and the Harvard student’s remarks: my home state was becoming her adventure destination, just as Boston has become mine. As I listened to her muse about the unique California culture and its endless sunshine, everything about her dreaming was immediately familiar. The wonder, the excitement, the stereotypical assumptions-all that goes along with moving into the unknown, it was all there, but written in the opposite direction of my own great move. California is as exotic to her, I thought, as Boston feels to me.

And as I rode the remainder of the way to my stop, it occurred to me that the story of Boston’s exoticism could be told almost entirely from the perspective of one’s feet. In an average week, I probably spend about 2 hours traveling on the “T” and 3 to 4 hours walking the streets of Cambridge. I have not so much as sat in a car in almost 3 months. But this is not about mere comparison.

It is about the soft, hollow feel of brick beneath my boots, which gives each step a bounce more generous than concrete and a sound as rich as the clacking of horseshoes. It is the narrow staircase I climb to our third floor apartment, fumbling with scarf and keys, unzipping my jacket swiftly so as to beat the enfolding heat of the building. In less than 5 steps I must strip as many layers as possible before the indoor temperature reaches a suffocating intensity. It is the feel of the smooth wood floor, (ubiquitous to New England) upon my bare feet as I slide across the flood of morning light. It is standing in a late afternoon flurry of red and orange leaves that spin so hypnotically, you actually believe the world has been shook like a snow globe.

Living on the East Coast is an adventure I could chronicle in so many ways, but for today, the contours beneath my feet say it all.