New England weather seems to have a character of its own. Last Friday, it was rainy, windy, and absolutely awful. At least to me it was, but to my friend Mira, it was the best day ever. I guess it is the kind of weather where a climactic movie scene would be shot – it’s still terrible though.
Me and Amy Xuan ‘24 at the Citizens Bank Opera House after watching Hadestown
Nevertheless, my roommate and I had plans to go see Hadestown – – a Broadway Musical based on a Greek tragedy – that evening, so we braced ourselves for the weather and took the 4:30 shuttle out to Boston. Thankfully, the rain stopped as we got off the shuttle.
The first time we went to Boston together, we got lunch at a random little ramen shop by the Boston Common AMC Theater. The next time we walked about Newbury street, we went to Shake Shack of all places. This time, once again we went to a ramen shop down the street from the Hynes Convention Center subway station. We joked about how it would be a funny story – being so indecisive about restaurants that we always find our way back home: a ramen shop.
We ate quietly. There’s not much need to talk over food when you’re with someone you are really comfortable with. It’s a calm silence – the lapse in conversation when you are with a close friend. Eventually, we started chatting about high school again, scrunching our eyebrows at unnecessary club hierarchies and the eccentric summer camps in which we both partook.
It’s oddly nostalgic to talk about the past so often. One day, we will graduate college and meet new people at different workplaces. With those people, we may talk about our college days – isn’t that crazy? We will talk about our roommates, about the friends we have right now, because in the future, they may become the friends we had. It’s interesting to think about friendship – the bonds that last 12 years from first to twelfth grade or the passing gems of relationships where you know someone incredibly well for just a few months and then part ways. I have a friend who believes every friendship will pass, and no relationship could last forever because over time, people inevitably change. We go to different colleges, take on different specialties, and pursue different careers where we meet different people and make new friends. I think there’s some truth to that, and I think growing apart is just a saddening, but natural part of our lives. I still hope to stay in touch with my friends and to challenge just how long we could preserve our inside jokes, or for how many years we could be comfortable in each other’s silence before it returns to the awkward stillness between strangers. I hope I can find ways to treasure my current friendships well into the future in spite of our individual careers and diverging paths, because I don’t want to let any of them go.
Anyways, we took the Green Line to the Citizens Bank Opera House to watch the musical Hadestown! We got Mezzanine Left seats for $65 dollars each. Without giving too much away (but at the same time giving everything away), Hadestown is based on the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. The show itself was incredible – with Hermes as host of the evening, the atmosphere in the theater was so lively. The Fates were my favorite – the three of them are so sassy, and their harmonies were beautiful. The ways they worked with the set was also interesting to see. For instance, in the song “Wait for Me,” mist covered the stage as lanterns swung down from above, casting rings of light on the dim, misty stage. During intermission, the line to the bathroom was so long – we just randomly sat down on two seats downstairs and stared at the ceiling, chewing on candy while dissociating and digesting what we’ve seen.
It was a slow walk back to the shuttle stop in the evening. We got Inbound and Outbound directions mixed up again and had to ask strangers if we were going the right way. On the train, there was a suspicious puddle of water on the seat in front of us (probably from someone’s rain-soaked jacket). Everytime the train lurched and the puddle of water shifted a bit closer to us, we laughed in fear. Since we had 20 minutes to kill before the shuttle arrived, we took a short walk around the neighborhood by the Hynes Convention Center. We joked about how we’re both going to be listening to the soundtrack nonstop in the coming weeks (so far, that has held true).
We are always a bit shocked by how fast the shuttle ride back is compared to the hour-long ride to 45 Mass Ave. As we approached the Wellesley Chapel, rubbing shuttle-ride-nap-grogginess out of our eyes, Amy turned to me and asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to eat ice cream?”
“Yes.”
We ended up carving some cookie dough ice cream out of a pint we still haven’t finished from her birthday party in September. With mismatched portable spoons and plastic and glass bowls, we mixed caramel brownies we generously received from a friend with the ice cream and ate. At that point, we were barely conscious – mumbling jokes and giggling over nothing – so we quickly showered and went to sleep at around 2 AM. It was a warm evening – literally, because the heaters were finally working – and metaphorically so. This is a memory that I want to remember for a long time.