Mist in the streets of Boston by Amber V. '24

My friends and I met at noon on the Harvard Bridge, shoulders hunched against the cold. Two of the group had work or meetings so it was just three of us this misty Monday. We started across the bridge, seeking a gathering in Allston.

I’m at Life Alive in Cambridge now, writing this, while beside me a student from another college has a massive book open beside her laptop. Two families with small kids order at the register. Every few minutes, a shadow crosses the window, cast by a pedestrian or two walking by on the street. 

We meandered down Beacon Street and stopped to watch the marathon. The track was lined with cheering families and friends. The runners were going about the pace I’d shoot for in a three-mile race. 

We wandered on, past college kids and people in rain jackets.⁠01 the two weren’t mutually exclusive but it appeared that more people over 25 check the weather Boston felt so alive. Eventually we found a Green Line stop, waited about as long as one would expect for a Green Line train, and were spat out in the middle of Allston. A snack stop and a few address mishaps later, we were in the backyard of a friend of a friend’s place, surrounded by students from BU. We set to mingling, shouting to be heard over the music. 

We went from that house to another, which had a backyard near some train tracks, where I’d been once before, my freshman summer. I was thinking then about sororities, the only MIT communities I’d seen so far, and how I could join one — I wouldn’t fit in entirely, but I liked their gatherings, in a different backyard beside the train tracks. I’ve never joined a sorority, but I’ve watched as several of my friends did, and decided whether they did or didn’t fit in. Some did, and they love it.

This would have been my final CPW, had I not taken a gap year. I keep thinking of what I had planned, though those plans were all nebulous, and involved a lot more scurrying off to work on my own than has ever happened.⁠02 I make efforts to not work alone now. Most evenings I’m surrounded by classmates I can’t help but wonder what the landscape would have looked like without the pandemic ravaging our freshman year. How groups would have formed differently, if we had that precious freshman fall of PNR. We’d have entered sophomore year knowing so many more people. But maybe that doesn’t matter now. 

I spent a good portion of time trying to find the perfect group that could fulfill all of me. Lately, though, I’ve come to realize that my different communities serve different parts of me. Some friends love going out; others hang out in my dorm. Most everyone will listen to me describe the projects I’m working on but some will have a mechanical project of their own to bring up, too. Some will go to protests with me, and my little sister will inspire me to go to more. I’ve found outlets for my writing at Harvard, and in a few friendships at MIT. I find house concerts in Allston, often populated by Berklee bands, and meet new people with cool fashion between sets.

I love meeting new people. Getting enough sleep this semester reminded me of that.

My friends and I wandered away from Allston and eventually wound up at an MIT frat’s barbecue, where I met new people who were at most one connection away, a friend of a friend, if we hadn’t shared a class or been to the same club or event. I’ve had this sort of encounter more and more as time passes, and the MIT community, with so many social pockets, feels closer.

I caught up with more people — a current classmate, a former one, a senior in my living group I think is super cool — and got my fourth and final burger of the long CPW weekend.

It’s fun just wandering amidst a crowd on the street, sharing in its energy, and talking to strangers you will probably never meet again. But it’s also cool meeting new MIT people who are in overlapping circles. I was thinking of all the communities at MIT: how I’ve grown close to some and hover on the fringes of others, and how there are always more to connect to.

I remember years ago feeling a sort of nostalgia for what never was. How sad that I couldn’t get to know deeply all the cities that I passed through, that I’d see the surface of so many icebergs of people and places without knowing the depths beneath. I’d meet travellers in hostels and think, we could be friends; and maybe we could, if they weren’t flying to another country tomorrow.

Now I meet people in courtyards and free food events and loud, dark rooms, exchange majors and living groups and how hosed both of us are. Sometimes I think, we should be friends. And sometimes we are, if one or the other of us isn’t too exhausted, too swept up in psets, too busy maintaining the relationships they have in the chaos of MIT to make room for another. Frequently it takes time, spacing out hangouts amidst the firehose of our lives. Often it takes luck, like being in the same class or walking the same route through the infinite; and dedication, choosing to stop and catch up for a few minutes in the middle of the day. 

My friends and I said our goodbyes to the barbecue and meandered back across the bridge. The mist had set in since the morning; I could barely make out the lights on dorm row. Our shoulders hunched against the cold. We met each other through living on Beast in EC, but we maintain the friendship by pillaging free food events together, psetting late nights, and hanging out every weekend. We carve out time from our busy Monday schedules to cross the bridge in the middle of the day and wander the streets of Boston.