2002-02-21 - 9:46 a.m.
I drove to Norwell, Mass. yesterday. In the early morning. It was the opposite direction of my normal commute. I listened to "Great Big Sea" all the way down Route 3. I tell myself. Every time I go that direction. That despite how confusing it is. You *really* do take 93 North in order to go south. Eventually. You really really do. The maps are not lying. Logic is irrelevant when it comes to Boston directions. Go north to go south.
What I love about the South Shore. Is that there's always sand on the sides of the road. Everything seems flatter somehow. And there's always sand. Which just seems to work.
I like living near the ocean. I always thought I was a River girl, until I moved to Boston and I realized I'm still a River girl. But there's the ocean too. And it creates its whole, own dynamic. Harbors and seafood and lobster shacks. I love lobster shacks.
Growing up inland. Way inland. Eating lobster was a huge event. Something you went to a fancy restuarant to do. Something you paid huge bucks to do. Something almost, nearly unreachable. The ocean was on the other side of those mountains, and it was easier to cross the Mississippi into the West than it was to get over those mountains and find the ocean and lobster.
In Boston and the South Shore. There's sand on the roads and lobster is served in shacks. And you pull. Rip. The damn thing apart and it's messy as hell and there's always this big bowl in the middle of the table that you throw the shells in and let the water drain out. And it's easy to get lobster here and you almost forget about the Mississippi altogether and you start referring to the Charles as a River even though most of the time, it looks more like a really long, strung out pond.
I said Wicked for the first time yesterday with no trace of irony or sarcasm.
I think that happens about the time you start singing "Great Big Sea" songs on the way to the South Shore, going north on 93 in order to go south makes sense, and wondering just when it is that the lobster shacks open up again. And notice all the sand on the side of the road.
I don't know.
I had been in one of those cold, dark funks. The ones where it just seems pointless to come out of. Like it's too goddamn much trouble.
And there was just something about driving to Norwell yesterday morning and singing to a CD. That made it seem not so very much trouble at all.
