Journeys

As Craig traversed the eastern part of the country under, I hope, the same clear blue skies that penetrated the frigid temperatures here, we spent our day following routines that felt foreign after the long snow-driven respite of late. Large, over-indulged snowmen and women stood unflinchingly stalwart through the sun’s brilliance in the white blanketed yards of the neighborhood as we drove to school for the first time this week. Tired Christmas trees, waiting at the curb for recycling were revived for winter displays behind the snow creatures, or, in our case, at the entrance to the t-shaped igloo that covers most of the front yard. A snow-king on Sulphur Springs earned his title with a stunning crown of icicles, both delicate and extravagant, that shimmered in the sun. Rem’s own coveted icicles lie in the freezer, crossed like a pair of ancient swords, too cold to hold in his hands and too lovely to relinquish. Without his snow-mates, Rem returned to lavish Captain Hook enactments that necessitated unloading the toys in his bedroom into the living room where a large number of stuffed animals sat piled in a dismantled soccer net as I kept guard.

I paged through more of young Kerouac while waiting in school car lines moving from the earlier, stately New England of Emersons, Alcotts and Thoreau to the gritty, factory landscape of Kerouac’s childhood. During the last week, as Craig alternately fed the fire with wood from the woodpile and scraps saved for various projects never to be realized, I stayed near the hearth to soak in the intense heat and read aloud from Craig’s architectural guidebook for Boston. Brief summaries of buildings old and new that together string a timeline of Boston inundated us with every imaginable significance of a place so thick with historical, literary and academic achievement that the notion of New Englanders’ aloof and impenetrable nature seems well-earned (even if not desirable for a family with no relatives or friends within a six hundred mile radius).

The moon shone from the darkness into my bedroom window like a movie projector light in the theater, interrupting the quiet that finally settled into the house with a bright intensity that felt loud. I looked up distractedly from my book, having read the same page over and over without following the words, and watched time pass as the moon moved out of view. Strangely, the Bo Deans played in my head through the day but I chose Beethoven piano sonatas to lull me toward sleep before the phone rang and Craig’s tired voice, as though he was in the next room, announced his arrival “home” and I could fully succumb to dreamland.