Sunday, February 25, 2007

"I will miss..." - the Beacon Hill Nostalgia Day

Moving time again. Which means that today was "Nostalgia Day" for me. The day when I suddenly miss every little bit of the neighborhood I'll be leaving. Nostalgia - such a happy, depressing, exciting, sad feeling. Completely contradictory in its emotional nature. Ha!

Today, the list ran quite long as I reflected on all of the things that I loved about living here. Here's a randomly assorted list that attempts to get all of those things gathered together [but it's certainly not all-inclusive!]:

I will miss...
- late night talks with Pete
- the confused smell of several scented candles coming from Tim's room
- the slant of my room [a good 7-10 degrees, I think!]
- having a dishwasher
- the ease of living with Tim and Pete
- my view of the two Hancock towers from my bedroom window
- free heat
- the sore muscles of the 2.5 block uphill walk followed by the 4-flight stair climb to get home each day [yes, I'm crazy]
- the quaintness of the streets on the Hill
- Charles St 2 blocks away
- a really big Whole Foods at my disposal
- Fred's Video and Mike's Movies
- the cozy feeling of walking home through narrow, brownstone house lined streets
- my 10-minute walk to the Commons
- my crosstown walks to the grocery store and back
- my favorite Borders on Newbury/Boylston
- the Starbucks on Charles and Beacon - because it has to fit into the Charles St style instead of plastering itself green
- the new Charles/MGH T-stop
- my close proximity to the BPL at Copley
- the look on people's faces when I tell them I live on Beacon Hill
- my cute little laundromat
- the new laundromat I found this morning that I wish had always been "my cute little laundromat"
- dry cleaning stores on every other corner on the Hill
- the little yappy "punt dogs" on the end of everyone's leashes
- Tim's dumpster diving treasures
- listening to the boys practicing guitar/bass/songs behind the closed doors of their bedrooms
- my showerhead
- the "secret" entrance to a part of the Underground Railroad [it's not actually all that secret, but feels like it, and certainly more exciting if it's called "secret"]
- a new path to my front door every time I walk home
- discovering odd houses, sidewalks, streets, windows, stores, speed bumps on my walks through the Hill
- the fact that getting out of Beacon Hill is easier than getting in, since the one-ways change direction at the top of the Hill
- my proximity to my favorite view of Boston from the Longfellow Bridge
- the sense of connection to historical Boston from living in and around these old buildings on the Hill
- having the apartment number "4R"
- cobblestones, cobblestones, and more cobblestones
- eager tasters for new recipes I discover and attempt to replicate [Tim & Pete]
- Tim's mom's cookies [mmm...]
- Pete's stories and descriptions of work - I will never understand fully what he means, but it's always riveting because he's so animated in the telling of them
- my little spice/baking supply shelf
- climbing the counter to get at the stuff on the second shelf of my cupboard in the kitchen
- the pleasant feeling I always get upon entering the neighborhood
- the UPS store on Charles St
- Panificio
- Antique stores galore!
- half sliding down the icy hills when leaving my apartment
- the rooftop computer room on an adjacent building on our street [complete with computer and comfy chair and desk!]
- rolling around my kitchen with my saved-from-the-garbage, $150+ office chair when I'm too lazy to stand up and walk the 3 feet across the room
- the crazy colors in the painting of a Beacon Hill streetlamp hanging in the living room
- the 3 bricks outside my bedroom window about whose whereabouts I've always been mildly curious
- hearing the things that are supposed to keep mice away constantly emitting their soft clicking in the background of the otherwise silent apartment

Oh, man, most of all...I'll just miss Beacon Hill!!!

[I love that I could have saved myself the trouble of writing the entire list just by writing that last sentence, which pretty much sums up the nostalgic feeling I'm talking about in this post...but then, no one ever accused me of being concise.]

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