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Boston Post #3
Tuesday, 19 September 2006 07:56 amI'm catching up through Sunday, which was a pretty nifty end to our weekend in Boston.
The high-points to the morning for me were:
Seeing Wendy after Quaker Meeting. She's a writer, reaching retirement age, half of a lesbian couple who we met through Queer Quaker circles, and we got to know them much better while we lived in Boston. Wendy's partner, Polly, is trying to finish her PhD and both dan and I had tons of empathy with the both of them. Wendy's the sort of person who lights up a room, and it was great to have twenty minutes with her.
Walking in Harvard Square before Meeting was quite peaceful. Since it was early on a Sunday, traffic was quiet, so my predominant impressions were tree-lined streets, birds chirping, insects buzzing, very old brick buildings, and lots of cobblestone.
This led me to mostly thinking about privilege and obligation during Meeting. I'll keep thinking about it, and try to come up with something coherent and interesting to write. :)
Subjective time is funny. Dan says that during Meeting there were no breaks between people talking that were longer than two minutes, sometimes no more than 30 seconds. I've got no reason to doubt that, since his time sense is- honestly- much more accurate than mine. But I had a different perception, that some messages were separated by lots of silence, during which time I digested the message and went back to considering what I was meditating on. That silence changed the entire meeting for me. I agreed with him afterward that there were far too many messages, but I thought the overall meeting was "Ok".
We missed seeing Sharon and Mark, who we'd hoped would come to Meeting. Mark is Dan's nephew, who just turned nine; we last saw them when they came to visit us a year ago. But making the connection was going to be difficult, as they were in the 'burbs and apparently had a full weekend as well.
After Meeting and catching up with Polly, we had leftover-dinner for lunch, and spent a little while book-shopping at the Harvard Book Store. They get points for noticing and telling me that a $10 book I was buying (as a Christmas present) was in remainders as hardcover for $6. Bonus!
Back on the green line to our hotel, to meet up with Malia and Amy. Dan had mused that he wished we had their phone number, since there were bound to be a better place to meet them. At the other end of the subway car... were Malia and Amy!
We got off at the Common, and spent the afternoon sitting above the Frog Pond catching up with the both of them. They're great folks; both in their mid-thirties and they've been together three years longer than we have. When I first met them, it was probably about two years into our relationship and I was impressed that they'd been together for a whole *five years*. Heh.
As for that afternoon, we lazed around until about 5:30, then caught our respective trains and d. and I made our way to the airport, getting home late to *![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
roverthedog* already *home*. (It's really great having a neighbour watch the dog for us. We *so* owe them a dinner).
The high-points to the morning for me were:
Seeing Wendy after Quaker Meeting. She's a writer, reaching retirement age, half of a lesbian couple who we met through Queer Quaker circles, and we got to know them much better while we lived in Boston. Wendy's partner, Polly, is trying to finish her PhD and both dan and I had tons of empathy with the both of them. Wendy's the sort of person who lights up a room, and it was great to have twenty minutes with her.
Walking in Harvard Square before Meeting was quite peaceful. Since it was early on a Sunday, traffic was quiet, so my predominant impressions were tree-lined streets, birds chirping, insects buzzing, very old brick buildings, and lots of cobblestone.
This led me to mostly thinking about privilege and obligation during Meeting. I'll keep thinking about it, and try to come up with something coherent and interesting to write. :)
Subjective time is funny. Dan says that during Meeting there were no breaks between people talking that were longer than two minutes, sometimes no more than 30 seconds. I've got no reason to doubt that, since his time sense is- honestly- much more accurate than mine. But I had a different perception, that some messages were separated by lots of silence, during which time I digested the message and went back to considering what I was meditating on. That silence changed the entire meeting for me. I agreed with him afterward that there were far too many messages, but I thought the overall meeting was "Ok".
We missed seeing Sharon and Mark, who we'd hoped would come to Meeting. Mark is Dan's nephew, who just turned nine; we last saw them when they came to visit us a year ago. But making the connection was going to be difficult, as they were in the 'burbs and apparently had a full weekend as well.
After Meeting and catching up with Polly, we had leftover-dinner for lunch, and spent a little while book-shopping at the Harvard Book Store. They get points for noticing and telling me that a $10 book I was buying (as a Christmas present) was in remainders as hardcover for $6. Bonus!
Back on the green line to our hotel, to meet up with Malia and Amy. Dan had mused that he wished we had their phone number, since there were bound to be a better place to meet them. At the other end of the subway car... were Malia and Amy!
We got off at the Common, and spent the afternoon sitting above the Frog Pond catching up with the both of them. They're great folks; both in their mid-thirties and they've been together three years longer than we have. When I first met them, it was probably about two years into our relationship and I was impressed that they'd been together for a whole *five years*. Heh.
As for that afternoon, we lazed around until about 5:30, then caught our respective trains and d. and I made our way to the airport, getting home late to *
roverthedog* already *home*. (It's really great having a neighbour watch the dog for us. We *so* owe them a dinner).
