In search of community/ Looking for a fight

Find a thing that is beautiful in nature.
Want to know more about it.
Love it.
Fight for it.

Find a thing that is beautiful in your neighborhood.
Want to know more about it.
Love it.
Fight for it.

Then bring those things closer together.

This morning as I walked to the post office, I was stopped by a small, adorable French couple staring perplexed at a City of Somerville parking ticket. "Sorry, we are not from here," the woman said. "Can you tell us why we got this, even when we put the pass in the window?"

There was nothing that I could do other than feel bad for them and explain- when you park at a meter, you have to pay it no matter what. The visitor pass only works in places with signs that say "Permit parking only." The joys of Boston city parking.

The spanking new Union Square post office was abuzz with activity. I quickly dropped my last wedding invitations in the outbox and circumvented the hot, crowded line. A nice, wrinkled old man held the door for me. As I left, I passed by the gentleman I had seen almost every day this past week walking down Bow Street. Sporting a fisherman style hat, colorful shorts, and pulling a shopping cart of personal items, he moved along at a fast clip, animated with a slight stomp/limp rhythm. He always looked as though he was walking with such purpose. But where was he going?

As I rounded the East Boston bank corner, a teenage boy smiled and said hello to me. I passed Somerville Grooves and wondered why the only records they had on display were "Men at Work," and had the usual feeling of wanting to go in but stopping both because I know it will take over my morning, and being slightly afraid of being the only customer, and therefore being an imposter of someone who goes shopping for records regularly and picks out obscure, sought-after vinyl.

In the papered-over former Sherman Market window, I spotted a small post-it with an inconspicuous penned note. "Coming soon! www.graciesicecre.am" Oh god- I can't wait for Union Square to have an ice cream shop. Three years I've lived here, and every summer my partner and I bemoan the absence of an ice cream establishment.

And that was my morning in Union Square. To answer the question: where do I live? I commit to taking walks in my neighborhood in just the same way I take hikes in Middlesex Fells. Identify the community members, inspect them, determine what makes them grow and how they work together. As my partner said to me Saturday after we had a neighborly experience on Saturday night when we were grilling chicken in our garage: "See: we live in a community!"

What had happened was, as we were heading into the house for more grilling ingredients, a wide-eyed, stooped old woman in a purple nightgown and purple crocs was startled by our appearance from around the bushes. She shuffled along after giving us an inquisitive, slightly disoriented look. And my partner and I stopped and realized, she looks like she probably shouldn't be out on her own. Inside, we looked up the number for the retirement home, called, and gave them her description. The girl on the end of the line sounded concerned and asked for me to see if she was still walking down the street. I ran outside and reported, "Oh, she is coming back!" The woman sounded and relieved and said they were sending someone out to meet her. A little while later, I noticed she had left a voicemail thanking me for letting them know about their resident who was out and disoriented. I thought back to the moment where I was admittedly debating whether I should make a big deal out of something that might be perfectly fine, or offending a woman who was just out for a walk by assuming she was lost. And I was glad I had made the effort anyway, because what if I hadn't? It was a lesson in being a good community member, one I hadn't experienced to that extent in the three years we've been living in this apartment.

And the reason why my partner had said "See!" was because I was recently complaining that we don't live in a community. That people don't say hello to you on the street. That Somerville is too transient for residents to be invested in taking care of each other and common spaces. Perhaps its not as apparent as some other places, but that shouldn't stop me from getting out there and involved. You never know what you might find.

Next place to explore in my neighborhood: Milk Row Cemetery, the 19th century graveyard next to Market Basket. It only opens to the public a few times a year, and I've never been. The poster says the grounds "may be appreciated as a peaceful retreat for reading and contemplation." Tonight from 6-8pm. I hope to learn a few things there. What historical treasures can I find? What is peaceful contemplation in 200-year-old graveyard like? And who else of my curious neighbors will venture out to explore it tonight?

Coyote Day

Today was Coyote Day.

I had already gotten what I needed from my hike in the Fells. Time on the trail, time exploring the pine-needly hills off the trail, and a quiet granite shelf to sit upon over the reservoir as I journaled.

Along the way, I wanted to know more about sassafras, which I found everywhere I looked. It seems it's been so long I had seen it that I thought it might now be rare. I associate sassafras with childhood walks along the sidewalks of Popponessett, where I'd try to distinguish it from poison ivy before picking a leaf, mashing it up, and smelling its sweety mintiness. But no, maybe it's been there all along, and I hadn't stopped to notice it (and smell it) in awhile.

So when I had received all those things, I dusted off the pine needles and red mites and continued along the reservoir in search of the trail back. Up and over knolls of granite, pine, and canada mayflower, I glimpsed an orange trail blaze, and hurried up the scree slope toward it. Feeling a sense of pride in my navigation skills, I hiked on with relative thoughtlessness, compared with the slow, quiet, observational way I had hiked in.

Then I saw it. 

A dog off its leash, like countless ones I had seen already.

Its fur was sandy brown, and it was large, heavy, straight-backed and straight-eared. There was something about how it trotted along the trail, so light on its feet, and then dashed up into the woods at the sound of my footsteps. It wasn't a dog of the domesticated variety, but a wild coyote.

Coyote.

Coyote is my namesake, back when I taught environmental education at IslandWood on an island in the Puget Sound. We saw them sometimes there, and once someone found a family of mother and cubs hidden beside Mac's Pond. At night, and not joking, usually around the full moon, I'd sometimes hear their yip-yapping chorus eerily pierce the quiet. I heard them when I lived in the canvas tent in Yosemite, again around the full moon, an even fuller, crazier sounding pack would do the same out to in the meadow below Half Done. 

I have a hard time thinking that the sighting is a coincidence. So I choose to believe that it's not. Coyote is back.

Slushy

It's slushing! Pleasant morning-noon at bloc 11 making playlists and planning life out in my moleskin. Winter's not so bad.