Filed under: Massachusetts | Tags: autumn, new england village, salem, witches, yellow house
When I use “kitsch” to describe Salem, I mean it in the sweetest way possible. It’s a strange place – a quaint New England harbor village chock-full of museums competing to capitalize on the witch-history trials of the 1690s. From goddess shops that sell real herbs and oils for spells, to Hallmark kitchen witches for your country-style home, Salem covers the gamut for every witch in your life. I wonder what’s it like living in a tourist town? It’s disconcerting to have thousands of people walking along your streets, few places to find quiet.
yellow house. this is the house next to the house of the seven gables.
Roger Conant, founder of Salem. He was not a witch.
fences
a distant relation to the schreckengost family
anchor
bewitched
satan and friends
shadows at the seven gables
Filed under: Massachusetts | Tags: boston, ether dome, massachusetts general hospital, medical museum, surgery theater
Most people don’t consider touring a hospital as part of their vacation. But that’s what Jeff and I did one Tuesday in Boston last month.
The site of the first ether-induced slumber, the Ether Dome is on the 4th floor of the Bulfinch Building at Mass General. Walk purposefully through the lobby filled with patients and workers in scrubs to the oldest wing of the hospital. There is a tiny room displaying daguerreotype prints unearthed from an old basement, a Victorian-era wheelchair and the 1830s wedding suit of one of the first doctors to use ether in surgery. It’s hard to imagine that in the center of those gleaming hardwood floors, doctors cut open patients for a roomful of men in bow ties and black overcoats. Now the daylight shines hard through the stained glass dome, casting shadows around the room, making you think your eyes are playing tricks on you.
odditorium
the first operation, painting detail
skeleton detail. photo by Jeff.
the mummy. photo by Jeff.
skull. photo by Jeff.
surgery theater
ether dome
Filed under: Massachusetts | Tags: boston, cambridge, getting lost, metro, playing hooky, september
We spend an unusually warm September Tuesday riding the Boston metro – walking around, getting lost, meeting up with Vicki for a giant plate of fancy mac and cheese. I found a gorgeous ’50s sweater dress for $18.00, a cheap copy of Deadly Intent: Crime & Punishment Photographs from the Burns Archive from Harvard Bookstore, and Jeff fell in love with a bowl of ramen from Wagamama. It’s fun doing nothing all day, really, while everyone else is at work.
airplane, north end. photo by jeff.
a church, north end
metro
ida's, north end
getting lost, beacon hill
saint michael, north end
old friends. photo by jeff.
Filed under: Massachusetts | Tags: grainy photos, lynn, massachusetts, setting sun
In Lynn, Massachusetts there is a house that was a church. Where once stood rows of pews is now a living room. The kitchen is on the altar, and the office is full of art and music instead of Sunday school children reciting Bible verses in unison. The bathroom was the confessional and the stairs to the basement are only accessible via a trap door in the hallway floor (you probably didn’t even notice it when you walked in). And high above is the master bedroom, where the choir sings.
A few blocks away from this clever, beautiful home is the ocean. Jeff, Marta, Dan and I took a walk along the waterfront as it grew dark. The sky looked as if it had just swallowed the sun and for a moment, I wanted to trade my Steel City to live near the sea.
lynn at dusk
lines
marta
love
Filed under: Massachusetts | Tags: bennington street, doorbells, east boston, garden kitsch, harbor, natural light, pay phone, scup's
view of the harbor
Arrived in East Boston on a Saturday night. We get lost because the roads split into roundabouts, so Dan and Marta come to rescue us in a catering business parking lot. It’s dark, but the neighborhood is in full swing – children riding their bikes to the corner store, families sitting on the front stairs, calling out to each other. Cars in a traffic jam. Down the street Diva’s is closed, but pulsing with purple lights, the windows filled with child mannequins dressed in club wear. There are pay phones still intact and people use them.
We fall asleep to the sound of a baby crying, someone calling out to close a window, the click and whir of clothes in the dryer. The sun wakes me early, so I grab my camera, still in my nightgown, and sneak into the hallway to capture the morning light. I tiptoe through the apartment again to the back porch, to see the neighborhood waking. You can track generations of tenants through the lawn ornaments preserved in the back yards – two cows overturned on their backs, which Jeff later mistakes for two cats. A swing set sinks into the grass. The upstairs’ neighbors have lost their laundry on Dan and Marta’s porch, and the pair of shorts stays there for the rest of our trip. I am thinking about the baked eggs with tomato and bacon from Scup’s, the homemade side of pickled fennel, onions and peppers, because it’s almost dinner now and I’m hungry. Thinking about how nice it is to step into someone’s life, even if it’s only for a weekend.
mr. and mrs.
the first picture of the morning
the virgin has her back turned to us
disappear
sunday
secret garden
relic
view from the second floor bathroom of scup's
Filed under: Massachusetts | Tags: crane beach, ipswich, jumping, redhead, sand ridges, sea grass, windy
The challenge with being at a crowded beach on Labor Day is finding empty spaces for taking pictures. No offense, but I don’t want ugly strangers in my damn photos! We could walk out for a long stretch with the clear, cold water only reaching our knees. We were even lucky enough to sneak in a beach nap, but were jolted awake by a 12-year-old serial killer in the making, trying to slingshot seagulls to their deaths. We left sunburned, sun exhausted and ready to welcome fall.
windy
yellow bucket
pensive Jeff
sandy
happy
Filed under: Massachusetts | Tags: clouds, east boston, evening, indiana county, morning, sleeping
One of the wonders of traveling for me is waking up in one place and mere hours later, being in another. It’s simple and obvious to say, but think about how amazing it is being at home in the morning, then fly over an ocean, for instance, and by evening be in another country, on another continent. We spent Labor Day weekend in Massachusetts visiting friends, but we drove the long 10 hours. I sacrificed my treasured back roads, sucked it up and gripped the Jesus handles so we could make the most out of our extended weekend.
east boston, 7 a.m.
a visual depiction of how I feel about highway travel
almost home, somewhere in indiana county
