OUTBOUND TO WONDERLAND

by F. Solomon

Not unlike the beginning of Anna Karenina, all cities are the same or maybe just the people in them are the same, as they would be if you placed them anywhere else.

Take me for instance, I was in Boston this week and I am a native New Yorker if ever there was one. While Boston looks nothing like New York City, it has the same types of things that I would have seen or been drawn to in New York. I like to travel to other cities, I think it is important to leave my city--albeit the capital of the world--to appreciate it all the more and to gain perspective about life and thus writing. I was a New York City born writer in Boston, looking for inspiration and there was a lot of it.

I went down into the "T" and on the platform, and I realized I was on the platform outbound to Wonderland. Call me Alice. Like in any other city on the streets I got lingering looks from men, saw people I would have avoided if I was in New York--talking to themselves and no cell phone in sight--and shivered because it was cold, as it would have been in New York; the temperature is actually colder in New York. Still, I went to the wharf and got a lovely picture of the water and you could have sworn it was a summer day.

Naturally I was compelled to go into every book store I passed.  I had to run out of Trident Booksellers with my life because I was picking up all the discounted books like a mad person. I spent more time than I needed to at Hotel Chocolat. It's funny, my trip to Boston was so that I could go to the Museum of Fine Arts but people kept telling me about the chocolate and cookies, specifically at The Boston Chipyard, from which I waited for fresh baked banana chocolate chip cookies, and I still have spoils....

My trusty iPod Touch, filled with Boston apps, helped me to plan the itinerary for my trip, but an app can not replace the helpfulness of people when you ask them how to get around. My waiter handled my iPod like a pro as he navigated the train map in one of the apps. A gentleman working in the T took me up out of the train station to show me which direction to walk to with that famous Bostonian accent out of Wonderland....

...now back again.  Once I hit New York, I was extremely happy to return to. There is no place like home.  Call me Dorothy. I am happy that home is New York, which I think it is the best city in the entire world. I see it in every other city like a lover that I am missing.  But it will not be my last trip to Boston by a long shot. I almost missed my train home to go into Espresso Royale Caffe to buy a dirty thai tea latte.  Got inspired to write the first paragraph of my new story in a cab heading to South Station ,heading home and of course, it is a romance....


Photograph by F. Solomon