#why tonight

In this one, I am sitting in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library, waiting to get lunch with my the two favorite colleagues.  I love that courtyard.  I love how it’s an oasis in the middle of a busy city with its fountain, and the iron tables, and its shade.  How it let me breathe and center myself during many a day of hectic studying.

It’s July and I can feel the summer on my skin--sticky hot but not unpleasant.  I am leaving the country in a couple of days and have so much packing to do.  But.  Not just then.  The courtyard is the eye of the storm.  In it I’m safe.

At lunch, my mentor shakes his head and says Alex, a tight smile on his lips.  It’s the third time he has done this.  Alex. As if, if he says it enough and shakes his head enough, maybe I will get to stay after all.  He means to say ‘I love you,’ I think, and ‘I will miss you.’  But these are not things you can say.