Evening

As I drive up and out of the tunnel below Boston, the sprawling and slow pastel sunset rises slowly over the horizon. I’ve stolen 30 minutes for myself in this hectic week to walk around Faneuil Hall and the North End. The windows are full of people, and I must have walked past 50 restaurants and bars on my loop. A truly terrible karaoke singer at one lingers in my ears until I find the band playing outdoors at McCormick and Schmick’s. Tour buses are emitting a steady stream of teenagers at one end of Faneuil Hall, while empty and stately horse-drawn carriages circle the other end. The source of the scattered balloon hats appears at the end of my wander, an old and quiet clown entertaining a father and young child amidst the chaos. Lisa’s on a bus to Maine, passing somewhere below me when I pause in the new North End Park, a peaceful slice of green where once stood only noise and rusty steel. I follow only slightly behind for my few miles toward home, hoping she too is watching the vast purpling sky.