I took this picture on my phone while walking through Boston Public Garden at 5pm on an October afternoon. As I stopped, ambushed by the light in this oldest of public parks, I felt like pinching myself, stopping the tourists, and saying, “I live here.”
Actually, I live in a nearby suburb, but my leafy neighborhood thrives because it’s near a healthy city. There is a beating heart at the center of every city, even the ones that aren’t doing so well right now. Density makes for problems (as we all know) but it also makes energy and art and the pleasures of chance encounters with friendly strangers and urban sunsets and silly hats.
I’ve lived in Boston and its environs since 1975 and have watched the city grow more beautiful, more diverse, more delicious. From the shiny new Institute for Contemporary Art on the harbor to century-old bronze monuments, I love to show it off.