So you may remember my recent trip to Chicago and some of the emotions it brought up. I had been pretty stuck in central Ohio for a while, and had become pretty complacent with that status quo, and anxious about its disruption, but that trip ultimately reminded me I'm not made to be in perpetual permanent context.

As a result, when my company asked if I wanted to go to Boston for a week, I decided to just go for it. After all, when will I ever make out to New England? I'm not much for tourism, but I'm pretty far from my home on the West Coast as it stands, why not blink out a little farther when I can?

I didn't do too much aside from enjoy some good local sushi places on the company dime, but I did take an evening to experiment with the local public transport and rode a train into the city.

I was a little anxious at first, getting lost on the East Coast. But then I remembered I'm a city rat and I've done this a thousand times.

It's a very pretty city, weirdly clean. Part of me finds that comforting, but of course I know wherever there's a clean city there's the forced relocation of the homeless, shoved into the cracks away from the prying eyes of tourists like me.

It's a real big privilege to be a tourist. Having had a lot of periods of my life being poor, it's always strange to me to be one of the well-to-do outsiders wandering through someone else's context.

I've felt pretty separated from most every place I've ever wandered through though. No matter how much I wanted to belong, I've always felt apart. Being a tourist in a lot of ways is one of the most honest feelings for me, sticking out and knowing I do, visiting some place that I don't belong in. I so rarely feel like how I present to the world.

The highlight for me was making it down to Revere Beach. I haven't been to an Ocean since 2008, and I wasn't keen to really take the world in back then. Most of my life, I didn't really like textures against my skin, didn't really want to feel anything.

Most of my life has been lived in anxiety, and I found myself around 2010 reflexively recoiling from interacting with the world in any meaningful way. A chance trip to the woods changed me though, helped me feel the rain on my skin. I'll tell that one another day.

I couldn't resist taking my shoes off this time. It was odd to feel the sand between my toes, but it was a welcome sensation I was happy to feel for the next day or so in those socks. Feeling the ocean wash over my feet, cold as it was, it felt like an old friend holding my hand in theirs.

I stayed there for a while, letting myself take it all in. A little taste of my home by the Pacific, wrapped up in my new friend the Atlantic.

I took a look at some wonderfully elaborate sand sculptures and spent some time hanging out with the gulls.

There was a lovely little ice cream place right there on the beach, and the folks within were enamored with my enthusiasm for a mint-chip sundae that I enjoyed as the sun set.

I went back to the hotel feeling like something within me had been fulfilled, some hole filled in by letting myself feel the sand and the sea on my body. My only wish is that I'd brought a towel so I could have thrown my whole self in.

But there's always next time. I should try a little better to ensure the wait isn't so long.

I like to think that the universe brings me to places I need to be, usually to do something or learn something, but this felt like it was for me. A tiny little comfort in a world no less terrifying than it's ever been, but one I've become accustomed to looking in the eye more and more.

I was happy to come home to my cat and my circles, finding myself in my more familiar context among the neurodivergent alt scene, being a kinda silly wanderer with weird shit falling out of my pockets. There's a comfort knowing this is where I belong.

What's next?