Just came from a fabulous couple of weeks visiting Massachusetts, seeing extended family I haven't seen since college or longer, and meeting some of my cousins' kids for the first time. The trip was organized around an informal memorial service for my wonderful Grandma Stefie who was always our favorite relative. In life, she insisted that we had better not have any kind of a grand production or spend money on a service after her death, so we simply gathered at the site where her ashes were to be buried, shared some memories, said her favorite prayer, then went out for a delicious brunch in small cafe with a couple of her friends in Pittsfield.
My sister and I drove aimlessly without schedule around the cute summer towns of Berkshire County, stopping for ice cream at Friendly's and flea markets and shops. We spent one day visiting our hometown of Lexington, our old house and our backyard, all of which was remarkably the same despite almost 30 years gone by. My dad and I visited the beautiful Clark Art Museum in Williamstown, my parents went to their 50th high school reunion, and our entire family gathered one Saturday at Tanglewood -- theoretically for a symphony concert, but Kristen and I mostly played with our cousins' adorable kids on the lawn. Pictured left is me meeting my little cousin, also named Lara! My grandma would have just adored this.
The second week of the trip was me, on my own, getting re-acquainted with Boston since I never drove a car there before and since the main roads have changed quite a bit in 11 years. I had a couple of meetings with friends who are well connected in the non-profit industry, and several friends of the family suggested that next time I visit, to come and stay with them a week, which was very comforting and generous. The roads were definitely a challenge to learn, especially during an unexpected downpour the last two days. I've learned that street signs are often not posted, mis-posted, or not called what they are listed as on a map, and you need to rely on a combination of instincts ("Hmm, this looks like a big, main road"), landmark directions instead of streets ("Take a right after the brown church"), and a good sense of direction ("If the highway's to the right of me, I must be heading South now"). It really helps to have a resilient car that can change lanes quickly, flip a u-turn in three seconds, and honk or flash brights as needed. Enterprise Rent-a-Car must have sensed this and kindly assigned us a VW beetle, which was the perfect fit, though it didn't exactly camouflage me as a local.I feel like something big has changed in Boston, though it could just be my now-outsider's perspective. There's a tremendous pride in the city, not just in the Red Sox, but in the buildings and neighborhoods and shops and streets. People really love their city. And there was a friendliness to strangers which almost startled me at times. I was actually approached through the car window a handful of times by strangers who must have seen my puzzled scowling at the map, and shouted from outside "You lost?" then offering to help with a shortcut (of course). This even happened when I wasn't lost but just trying to roam around and... OK, let's be honest, I was always lost.
When we were out in Pittsfield, earlier in the week, my mom mentioned offhandedly that her own mother, who died when I was just three years old, had never wanted any of us to leave New England. She would never have approved of our family moving to California, but we happened to move about a year after she died when my dad got a job there. I never knew that before. It really struck me, because I've been wondering all summer why it is that I'm feeling a strong pull towards Boston again. Probably both of my grandmothers in heaven are working their superpowers on me.