Have you ever pre-written a post in your head before doing something? I had an idea what the post about our marching in the Gay Pride Day parade in Boston would be but it turns out I don’t have the power to pre-write, pre-view, or even pre-determine my life. I saw this quote in the middle of our odyssey and felt like the earth was telling me something.
As a family, we tend to be homebodies. We have our adventures but we try not to be full dance card kind of folks. Yesterday was CRAZY. My first born’s best buddy had a birthday party in the morning. We went early because we had to leave early to try and make it to the parade in time to meet up with my son’s school to march. We rushed from the party (which was hard to leave) to the T, we figured it would be easier and faster to take the T. Remember the words “easier and faster”.
Here are the boys getting their Charlie card (Poor Charlie!). You can see the optimism in these first shots. I always appreciate public art, sanctioned or not, and tried to capture the calm coolness of these neon drops above the platform. And I even saw beauty in the maze of metal in my bird’s eye view of the station. Fool.
After we board the train, a metal voice box tells us that the the train only goes as far as Kendall and from there we will have to take a shuttle across the Charles River into Boston and then get back on the T again. We decided to get off at Harvard Square and take the #1 bus all the way down Mass Ave into town. Beating the system, that’s us. We’re still feeling good at this point. Seeing the time, and realizing that we’re not going to make the rendezvous before the start of the parade, I believe I might have said something like, “Well let’s enjoy the adventure.” Again, Fool.
After lugging the stroller up endless steps but still feeling like we got this, we board the bus. The driver totally yelled at us to hurry up and get on and then haul ass to the back of the bus. I didn’t completely loose my mind but I did managed a lame, “Do you SEE the stroller?” Still glass half full at this point, we bump down Mass Ave imagining we’re moving towards music, dance, fun, and friends. We get off the bus once across the river and get on the T to try and catch the group who we’ve spoken to by phone at this point and they are on the march. We carry the stroller up the steps and can hear fabulous music and cheering and we ask some people watching the parade if they’ve seen the schools march by yet. They said we were a couple of minutes behind so we haul booty through Boston Garden and try to catch them. We ask again and this time it’s reported we’re about 5 minutes behind and we’re near the State House where we think the march ends. The little guy is beginning to loose it a bit so I go to get the snacks I packed for just such an ocacssion and nothing. No bag of yummy distracting belly filling food. Anywhere. I still don’t know where that bag is. At the end of the day it wasn’t back at the car nor was it forgotten at home. Gone. We stopped the chase and tried to at least catch some of the parade.
I always cry at parades and this one was no different. These signs below made me proud to call Massachusetts home and I got choked up.
I must have caught this float in a down moment, a little lull in energy maybe. Helped to dry my eyes though.
I didn’t quite catch the vibrancy of this group. Visually, it was one of my favorites.
And this pair was reminding us all to reuse, recycle and reduce! And doing it in style.
Then the full disappointment, of not getting to march for my big guy and of me loosing the snack bag for my little guy, hit and we had to make a new plan. So we walked through the Common, still thinking we’d run into our crew, towards China Town.
We ate at one of our favorite restaurants that we don’t get to as often as we did pre-kids. Check out Buddha’s Delight if you are ever in the area. It’s a completely vegan “mock meats” pan-Asian bit of edible heaven.
This is me bragging – look at my boy with no trainers on those chop sticks!
With full bellies we felt ready to start the trek back home. Did I mention that we had plans to go to dinner at the home of my husband’s oldest childhood friend? So we lugged the stroller down the steps and this time there was a fire somewhere on the tracks as well as the structural problems on the Salt and Pepper bridge. We walked through a labyrinth of pee smelling tunnels to get to Park Street where we were told the shuttles weren’t running and blah blah blah. I’m boring myself with this recount. I’ll speed it up. 6 hour outting, hot weather, tired people, busy streets, long walk, beautiful statues, wonderful sprinklers, finally made it, late to dinner, great time, lots of wine, full day. Proud. Proud to be allies, proud of my family, proud of Pride.
