Travels in mass.

5/29:

Boston gets me excited for NY. I arrive almost at 6:30am so the city is empty except the other bag-carriers like me that just stepped off the plane and got onto the silver line. I made friends with the jet blue lady and she gave me front row seats so I managed to get off the plane quick which means I am travelling among the real Boston-ites who seem to know what they're doing. I'm waiting for the red line train with them, inside the metro smells warm and musty. I also get whiffs of my still-clean hair but I don't think this will last long as I still have more than a whole day left of travel.
Now I'm writing as I walk. Inside, it's not like BART. The seats are all funny and sideways unlike the forward/back facing ones we have in the Bay. I walk the empty halls of Downtown Crossing metro station closely following a middle aged woman because I'm scared of being alone down here where the sunlight doesn't reach. I emerge to find old buildings, wobbly streets. I have to walk this alley to get to the park so I put my hood up and quicken my steps. At this hour there are only bums and pigeons. I sit in Boston Commons to write and listen to birds.

A plastic bag slowly and gently drifts by infront of me. I am in a new place, everything catches my eye: A young lady smoking, a flabby woman jogging, a flutter of wings, a dad with his baby, a black porsche stuck in a flash mob of slow white taxis, the sea of green park infront of me accented by the red blanket that covers a sleeping man (reminds me of one of my moms' favorite painters), the stone carvings on the buildings (a boat, a goblet, an eagle), a rumble I can feel shaking the bench I'm sitting on (must be the next train).

I've been sitting in one place for too long now so will move on to Boston Gardens, to utmost serenity. I'm not homesick yet, but I still find comfort in similarities between new places and home. I see old men doing tai chi here in the park just like those foggy Berkeley mornings on the Ohlone Greenway.