Pre-Journey in Boston

Newton, MA
Sunday, May 6th 2012

On Thursday I will embark on a month long journey across the country and specifically the southwestern states to work as a Trail Guide at Yosemite National Park in California. This statement, upon being written, seems as if from an earlier, simpler time. Most college educated twenty-something women are not doing similar excursions. For that reason I feel both unique and alienated from mainstream society.

For the past 5 1/2 months I have been employed as a Dog Walker in Boston, MA. This is also the location of my upbringing, yet I no longer feel that the place maintains the sentiments of "home". This loss of home is an uncomfortable yet liberating realization, and therefore I cannot wait to be as free as I feel by beginning this adventure.

Walking dogs is a trade of servitude. I am myself from a privileged stock, was well provided for and sent to college. I still know that if needed, I will have help though I prefer and am expected to be independent. I believe that due to my comfortable upbringing, I have become increasingly intrigued about the lives of the less privileged. The jobs within service have an endearing quality to them. Though I do feel the occasional pangs of resentment for those who earn their weekends off, I also feel grateful that these people endure their grind that the people of service are able to fill in the gaps. Those in service are the mortar between the bricks of society, and we feel our interconnected and bonding strength as it flows through the walls of normalcy.

The dogs themselves are of course oblivious to these social nuances and are able to provide the unconditional warmth which allows the job to be enjoyable. I will surely look back upon the many lonely days spent alongside my unspeaking companions and the unspeaking humans that surrounded me as I walked in Boston.

When I think of California, I with warm. I think lightheartedness, possibly to the point of shallowness. I think of gigantic white windmills, of the ocean, and an arid land. I think Frontier, and I think of the unfulfilled hopes of those who once migrated there in search of a brighter future. I think of newer times when I think of California.