Revisiting my old neighborhood

This used to be my neighborhood, this tangle of crowded, car-filled streets packed with tourists and commuters and buildings belonging to several colleges. I used to work at one of them, in a second-floor office that opened off a squarish conference room, the view from its plate-glass window offering a tiny, narrow sliver of the Common.

Every morning, I got off the subway at Park Street, hurrying across the Common through biting winter winds and walking more slowly in spring and fall, when the trees bloomed white and pink or put on their lipstick shades of crimson and orange. If I timed it just right, the bells of the Park Street Church followed me down the sidewalk, ringing out familiar hymns, a benediction floating on the air.

After heating up leftovers in the office microwave or grabbing a quick bite someplace nearby, I spent my lunch breaks walking: browsing the outdoor lot (the sale carts) or the first floor (fiction and mysteries) at Brattle Book Shop, riffling through racks of clothes at Second Time Around, following the winding paths of the Public Garden. If it was cold or I needed a treat, I’d pop into Thinking Cup or sometimes Starbucks for a cup of hot chocolate or chai.

I ride the subway a bit farther now, four more stops across the river into the heart of Harvard Square, where I work amid another tangle of streets, in another building belonging to a different university. I don’t get to Beacon Hill or Downtown Crossing much any more; I either have to exit the subway early on my way home from work or make a dedicated journey on the weekend.

When I walk through my old neighborhood, I automatically notice what has changed. The cupcake shop on Charles St. and L’Aroma Cafe down on Newbury have both closed; the little Italian market, shuttered for two years by a fire, is finally open again. The 7-Eleven with its whimsical gold sign is gutted, empty, slated to become a Peet’s Coffee before long. My former office has moved to a different building, farther from the Common and closer to Chinatown. The storefronts change regularly, the scaffolding rises and collapses, in this city where history builds and shifts, layer on layer.

Some things, though, remain the same, appearing reliably as the seasons turn or remaining steady through all of them. The tulips bloom in the Public Garden in May, right as the Swan Boats (and the two live swans) return from their winter hibernation. The rare print shop on Charles St. fills its window with vintage maps and watercolors. The duckling statues still follow their mother dutifully, as dozens of children perch on them and parents snap photos. And the book carts at the Brattle, as always, bulge with discarded books and hidden treasures.

This isn’t quite my neighborhood any more. I am surprised by changes after they happen, rather than taking them as they come. I snatch an occasional hour here, rather than living among these streets day after day. I am a visitor, a former resident, albeit one who still carries the map of these streets in her head, the knowledge of them in her feet.

I don’t miss it as much as I thought I might. Harvard Square, too, offers endless diversion and delight, and I’ve loved tracing out the perimeter of a new area, finding my regular haunts and occasionally making new discoveries. But every once in a while, I get a hankering for a stroll through my old neighborhood. And, to quote the bar that sits just off the north edge of the Public Garden, I’m always glad I came.

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