Yesterday morning I finally took my first Sunday morning stroll through Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and ran across this grave stone that always catches my eye. It's use of the word "suburb" that I like:
There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
In my anachronistic reading, the suburbs get downgraded to a temporary waystation en route to our true home, the City of God. But I've discovered since that these lines are from Longfellow's 1886 poem "Resignation" and the OED defines the meaning of "suburb" in this period as "of immaterial things."
Anyway, it's nice to reconnect with Boston now that summer has finally begun and I'm back from my trip. In the last week, I've enjoyed revisiting several of my regular spots with breakfast at the Deluxe Town Diner, a picnic in the Public Garden downtown, a stroll to Coolidge Corner for ice cream, a bike ride to Walden Pond. I still have the North Shore to visit, but it feels good to catch up with these places and the people that go with them.
Suburbs