Perspective

Boston Harbor

We rolled out of bed on Monday for breakfast before loading our packs yet again.  By this time we were tired of packing and repacking several times each day.  We waited with the gals from Brooklyn at the bus stop and they showed us how to hail a bus.  Our bus ride back to Boston was fairly uneventful and the bus was right on time since there wasn't nearly as much traffic.  We got to Boston around noon and checked our packs into storage for the day.  We then went off to discover the city and its history.  Arthur's feet were still very tender but with a few doses of ibuprofen he managed to put in a few more miles as long as I promised not to get us lost and take the routes with the least number of steps.  Our plan for the afternoon was to do the Freedom Trail, a walking tour of the historic sites in Boston.

Boston Commons

The trail snakes through Boston for about 2.5 miles, starting in Boston Common and ending at the obelisk erected on Breed's Hill (where, confusingly, the Battle of Bunker Hill was mostly fought).  It would be easy at this point to make a very long blog giving a brief description of each of the 16 stops along the Freedom Trail, which I indeed started doing in a first draft, until I realized how impersonal it was coming across and that good descriptions are already available on the internet.

Lantern outside of North Church

Statue of Paul Revere

Instead let me focus on the sensation of standing in a place where something of national significance occurred, such as the Boston Massacre, the Battle of Bunker Hill, or where William Lloyd Garrison gave his first antislavery speech.  We are all temporally removed from these events, yet by closing the gap spatially, I was awed by how real those events yet seemed to be; the anger and hostility present outside a town hall just before somebody says or does the thing that triggers shots being fired, the fear present in young men watching as the best-trained army in the world marches toward them, the sound of a powerful speaker evoking feelings of conviction of men standing next to other men in whom those same words produce animus.  These moments from so long ago helped form the world I move in every day; they color my beliefs and aspirations, they inform the structure of government under which I live.

Similarly, there are the men whose efforts drove these events, ideas, and motivations.  These men the history books revere are buried here, they walked these streets and rubbed elbows with other flesh and blood beings.  One of the hardest things to think about is how these men would think.  Out thoughts and feelings are forged by a world far different from those living 200 years ago, albeit one they helped create. How did they think in their world?  Would we feel the same way looking through their eyes? There are a lot of people deriving a lot of authority for their arguments based on their belief that they can answer these questions; several of whom I really don't think have put in the necessary work to speak with the certainty they do.  I don't know if I came away with a more informed outlook on these questions walking along the trail; all I can say for sure is the question became something tangible and present instead of an airy theoretical idea.

Well, speaking of airy and theoretical, lets see if we can't leave our readers some tangible thoughts to take away from the Freedom Trail.  I have written before about my love of fine craftsmanship before; Paul Revere's house had some wonderful artifacts of period silversmithing and the USS Constitution Museum (for the ship, not the paper) gave wonderful accounts of how colonial naval ships were made. The aforementioned museum was among the highlights of the trail; a real must see for any history buff.  Even the buildings, erected without the benefit of power tools or heavy machinery, were wonders to behold.  Alex enjoyed this aspect especially, including people's use of window boxes for gardening.  Among the historical sites, the location of the Boston Massacre moved me most, and I can't justify why.  There is a marker on the ground, but no monument is erected; perhaps the lack of ornamentation allowed me to focus on the event instead of the memorialization of it, I'm not sure.

Site of Boston Massacre

USS Constitution -"Old Ironsides"

More could be written, but alas, that is always the case.  After the Freedom Trail, we dined at a wonderful little Italian place whose zuppa di pesce napoletana is a meal who, several weeks removed, I still find myself thinking back to with fondness.  We made our way back to South Station via the Greenway, a series of parks that form a beautiful path through the heart of the city.  Being in and navigating a strange city after a week in the wilderness was a little different at first so we were excited to see the Greenway- it led right to the Station so no navigating needed and there was "citified nature".  It had also been a very warm day and people were just getting off of work so there was quite a few people hanging out throughout the Greenway.  At this point, we were exhausted, so we headed for the subway and were fortunate to have the hotel van right there ready to pick us up.  It had been a glorious day.

On our flight home the sky was clear so I spent a lot of time looking out the window.  I never seem to get tired of staring at the landscape below from a plane.  At 30,000 feet dimension is lost so everything looks so smooth and flat.  The ground horizon blends and disappears with the sky.  Rivers snake through the land without rhyme or reason, flowing where they want.  Country roads and mile sections are laid our like a grid work with the occasional clover-leaf interstate exchange ramps.  Small towns and large cities made up just a small area of the landscape compare to the land in fields and pastures.  While the Midwest may be termed "Fly Over States" I think it is some of the most interesting terrain to fly over.  Endless forest, deserts, and oceans get monotonous out a plane window.  During this flight I thought about seeing the world around us through different perspectives.  This trip was full of different perspectives-- looking down on rural America from 30,000 ft at hundreds of miles per hour, watching trees and landscape whir by at 50 mph from a bus window, walking at a few miles per hour paying attention to each rock and tree root, appreciating the distances covered looking back across ridging line, looking at summits looming ahead and wondering what adventure lies on the upcoming trail, wandering through a maze of rock piles in thick fogs and clouds, a bird's eye view from a vista or summit at mountains beyond mountains, meandering through city streets thinking of the history that has played out on these bricks and cobblestones, and watching the sea of humanity bustling about at airports and on the subway.  This reminded me of one of my favorite travel quotes by Saint Augustine:  "The world is a book and those who don't travel only read one page."  Arthur and I love to travel and take adventures, experience new things, and meet people from around the world.  We turned several pages in our book with this trip and enjoyed seeing from different perspectives.  I must be honest though, after everything we saw and experienced, driving across the Flint Hills of Kansas on the interstate still exhibited a unique beauty. Yes it's very different than the White Mountain peaks' splendor, but still beautiful.  It's good to be home.  Omnia Vincit Amor.