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I love that dirty water

Until this year, I didn’t realize how strongly I felt about NOT swimming in the Charles River. I knew it had been horribly polluted in the past and I knew (thanks to a friendly duck boat driver!) that in recent years it has gotten much cleaner. A certain kind of duck is back, meaning a certain kind of fish is back, meaning pollution levels are not where they used to be. Great! But still, it’s hard not to think of the Charles as kind of gross – it runs through a major city and has large, multi-laned roads on either side, but, maybe most importantly, the Standells’ “Dirty Water” is played frequently and sung along to enthusiastically throughout the bars, stadiums, and streets of the city. Since I first moved to the Boston area in 2004, I’ve been singing about that dirty water, meaning I’ve had 13 years of internalizing the fact that our river may be beloved, but it is best loved from a distance.

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Guayaba y Queso

In 2009, I studied abroad in Cuba. I applied on a whim during a slow day at an internship and pushed back my college graduation by a semester in order to go. My family and friends were surprised, concerned, and confused to varying degrees (“Are you a communist?” “Aren’t you scared you’ll be kidnapped?” “Just…why…?” No, no, and because it’s CUBA, y’all). My favorite question, though, was from my immediate family: “Are you just doing this for the food?”

It wasn’t a completely unreasonable question.

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Taking time to rest

I don’t like to admit when I’m sick. In fact, as I start to feel less myself – lower energy, sore throat (it’s ALWAYS a sore throat) – the more deliberately active I become, overcompensating to prove that I’m FINE, really! I stubbornly carry on as normal, becoming more and more visibly run down until finally even I can’t ignore it any longer. At that point, my whole body shuts down in protest, and I settle into the sickness, visibly and, not at all dramatically, wallowing in self-pity as I’m forced to take significantly longer to recover than if I’d just given myself a break in the first place.

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Swimming Saves Lives

I have always been a water person. Growing up an oblivious/imaginative kid in Rhode Island in the era of the Little Mermaid, my mom quickly realized that I needed to know how to keep myself afloat. I was never scared of the water, which in turn scared her immensely. According to her, the chances of me wandering in too deep without realizing were about equal to me waking up on any given morning, truly believing that I was a mermaid, and jumping in above my head without a second thought.

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All my love to Boston

I’ve spent a lot of time staring at my computer screen, trying to figure out what I could possibly write about the bombings at the Boston Marathon. It would feel so wrong to not write anything, but I can’t seem to find the words to do any of it justice. This isn’t going to be eloquent, and it probably won’t be coherent. I know it won’t capture everything I want to say, but I have to say something.

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