Massachusetts: A New Leaf

A year ago, just as the weather was just beginning to warm, the world was beginning to close in on itself. Before we had fully wrapped our minds around the scale of pandemic - before any talk of vaccines, or masks, or even social distancing - we put ourselves in quarantine, hoping things would blow over after a couple of weeks of “flattening the curve.” I remember the jarring juxtaposition - shut indoors and isolated, robbed of my final months in my home city, just as the trees were budding and flowers were blooming. In some ways, it felt like I’d entered a parallel universe right then and there and never exited again. My usual spring rituals became tense rather than jubilatory. From one afternoon away from palliative care consultation in a nursing facility, I remember more the act of removing my homemade cloth mask, to eat ice cream on a bench in Patterson Park, than hardly anything else from that brief, sunny reprieve. Less than two months later, we jettisoned our belongings, uprooted our lives, and left behind our home of eight years. The whirlwind - political, personal, metaphysical - has been raging inside me since.

Which is why this spring, one year later, has been special. The vast majority of Bostonians have been vaccinated, and the world is finally opening again. On the first warm day of March, I and seemingly the entire town of Brookline find ourselves outdoors, partaking in New England’s little rites of spring: strolling aimlessly, marveling at the beautiful lawn beds of daffodils and tulips, enjoying each warm ray of sunlight, and watching the joy on our neighbors’ faces (their faces!). Jane and I take our origami canoe and plop it in the trunk, going for paddles and hikes on the weekends between house and condo viewings. Finally, after a year of uncertainty, it feels like I’m finding my center again, my sense of direction. It feels like we’re finally moving forward, ready to turn over a new leaf in our lives.

———

March 20, 2021: The virgin voyage in our new canoe. After awkwardly unfolding and assembling it on the muddy riverbank, we paddle several miles down the Concord River, through Minute Man National Historic Park and the Great Meadows Refuge. And (painfully, slowly) back upriver again.

March 27, 2021: An early morning trip to the south shore of the Ashland Reservoir near Framingham. Too cold (and self-conscious) to break out our origami canoe in front of the anglers and other boaters, we take a walk along the shoreline and watch sunrise light upon the pine trees across the water.

April 4, 2021: A springtime stroll down the Emerald Necklace, exploring homes and side streets in Jamaica Plain and the Moss Hill neighborhood. The cherry trees are just beginning to bloom here in the city. We have lunch at Cafe Beirut, followed by ice cream at J.P. Licks on Centre Street.

May 1, 2021: On May Day, we make a pilgrimage to Cape Cod to see the famous herring run up Stony Brook. We spend all morning perched over the fish ladders, watching the beautiful, silver bodies swarming in the pools, leaping up the falls and slamming themselves against the stone walls in a race toward survival. Partway through the morning, the gulls join us for their breakfast buffet.

Massachusetts: Frostfall

The New England winter is finally here. For a few months, I was beginning to doubt that it would ever arrive, as we passed a bleak, rainy Christmas and a grey, drab January here in Boston. But at last, things have started looking up. A series of snowstorms have left their unmistakable mark on the city sidewalks, and the temperatures have stayed below freezing for the entirety of the past week. The banks of the Muddy River are lined with frost, and the Charles has frozen over. Our showshoes in tow, Jane and I have gone out to find wonderful new places to explore. I, as usual, have been in search of the challenge that was so elusive in Baltimore: genuine, salt-of-the-earth winter photography. Snow and ice have the magical effect of reducing the landscape to its simplest and most beautiful elements: crisp patterns and leading lines, sharp contrasts between areas light and dark, and bursts of colour amidst fields of white. It also forces the photographer to think fast and to work quickly; one’s lithium-ion batteries and fingertips will not last forever in the harsh cold. In short, winter is a test. A treat. An invigoration. And it is all the lovelier for having been anticipated for so long.

———

February 6, 2021: A morning walk around Moore State Park, in Paxton just northwest of Worcester. Lindsey first introduced me to this place in October, and it is gratifying to return to see the rhododendron-lined paths cloaked in snow, Eames Pond frozen over (and hosting an impromptu ice hockey game), and the nearby stone-fenced hill transferred into a towering expanse of white. We walk to the nearby sawmill, where I work on long exposures of the falls, before walking back to our car through the forest. It’s a long, stop-and-go drive home along Rt. 9 (note for next time: just take the Pike!).

February 7, 2021: A casual Sunday workday at home turns into a snow date in our courtyard, when the sky opens up and begins to dump on us in the afternoon. Jane helps me make my first snowman, whom we name Dr. Pepper (for the long green implement pulled straight from the Chinese supermarket to our fridge to his face). A few minutes into his existence, I get a little too handsy with Dr. Pepper, and he is ruined, gone from us all too soon.

February 13, 2021: An early morning trip up north to Groton, where we climb Gibbet Hill with our snowshoes and poles. Traipsing around the ruins of Bancroft Castle as sunrise lights upon the village and its steepled church, we take some lovely portraits at the top of the hill. A gem of a location; we’ll certainly be coming back next fall. After returning to the car, we drive a few miles down the road to the Groton Town Forest, where we take a short walk along the Nashua River before heading home.

Cape Cod: The Great Dune

The Cape is undeniably better during the winter - many friends, colleagues, and patients have already said as much during our short time in Massachusetts. Sure, there’s something to be said for America’s classic summer vacation: the colorful umbrellas and towels spread over the beach, the slow sunsets and long nights sipping ice-cold lemonade, the ice cream stands, the seedy motels, the fish fry joints. But return to the Outer Cape in the wintertime, and one is greeted by a totally different landscape: elemental, stark, and beautiful. Icy winds howling across the endless dunes and their intervening valleys. Storm clouds blowing in from the Atlantic across Cape Cod Bay. Lines of breakers pounding on the shifting sands. The absence of summer’s two great pests - biting insects and seasonal traffic - don’t hurt, either.

Jane and I drive out from Boston on a Saturday morning for a brief overnight stay on the winter Cape. Fully bundled up with only our eyes exposed to the biting chill, we leave our car by the highway, hiking up into the massive dune system of the Provincelands. Steep as the Great Dune is, the undulating sand, rendered firm by recent snow and ice, is easy to cross. We crest the top of first ridge and turn back for photos toward the bay; the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown is visible to the south, a sentinel on the horizon. To the north, we catch our first sight of the Atlantic Ocean, a distant, blue-grey haze beyond the series of peaks, some of which are topped by little shacks and wooden fenceposts. We drop down into a trough of wind-blasted sand, descending toward a valley filled with pitch pine, beachgrass, and other dune vegetation. The dwarven trees, clinging to each other amidst ripples of sand and snow, make for quite an otherworldly environment. We walk through this little forest, emerging at the valley’s other end, atop the last rise before the foreshore. The waves are roaring toward us here, driven forward by an offshore storm. Jane walks along the bluffs while I photograph her with the crashing ocean.

After a long return walk to the car, we drive back south and grab a delicious takeout lunch at Mac’s Seafood Market & Kitchen in Eastham (crabcake sandwich and fries for me; a cod sandwich and a bowl of chowder for Jane). Now past mid-day, we retrace our route along the Cape Highway and proceed to Grays Beach in Yarmouth, where the boardwalk over the marsh (a buggy, crowded mess in the summer), is all ours for the afternoon. It is a stunningly cold day; gloves and coats on, we creep to the end of the rime-covered walkway and photograph the ice jam flowing through the nearby tidal inlet. After this, it’s time for dinner and an early, relaxing motel night, with the heater at full blast and the TV on - a well-worn and familiar pattern for Jane’s and my weekend getaways.