Midnight in Boston

Back in my unexpectedly fancy hotel suite, looking out at the lights on the Charles.  It's probably 30 years since I've been here, but the feeling of Boston never changes.  It's not home to me in the way that New York City is, but there's still that familiarity, that piece of me that still belongs here.

Belongs here, belongs with the wonderful friend with whom I had dinner... but then, alone, waiting for the bus in the rain, there's time to think again, and none of my thoughts are happy. 

For starters, I don't want to go to this conference.  It would be more accurate to say that I'm frightened to go.  There are people who will be here who are part of a long-ago past, when I was a rising star in this field.  People who I haven't seen in 15 years, people who probably won't remember me... or if they do, it may not be in a good way.  It's a small academic world, and malice travels faster than truth.  Of course, I type that, and it seems more than a little absurd.  But you know how it is, you know you've heard something about that person, and you can't remember quite what, but you look at them a little differently...

Plus of course, there's my future employment opportunity, the fantastic contract that existed for one brief moment and then didn't.  But perhaps will.  Or not.  And the bridges that I might or might not have burned with my other publisher.  There's just nothing like feeling like you're going to be in a room of people who dislike you or are suspicious of you to just make you feel totally creeped out.  And that's everything that I feel about this.

When I was sitting at the bus station, I wanted to write about Michael and grief and walking around wanting to scream, to say, look at me!  There has been this tragedy, and no one can see it!  I can't even bear to think about that now, and the reality it that tomorrow, the next few days, is all about pretending that tragedy never happened.

I don't know how I will bear it. 

I will, of course.  One foot in front of the other.  Perhaps this will be my last conference.  Perhaps it will all fall together in some better way, some unexpected way that will make this all right. 

I can't see the future.  It's as hazy as the moon tonight.