It’s September 1, or as it’s known in my neck of the woods, Allston Christmas. All over the Boston area (Allston is a part of the city of Boston, a neighborhood that’s home to lots of university students), the leases are turning along with the autumn leaves. About 70% of Boston leases begin on this day. Just like the December holiday, Allston Christmas is celebrated for more than just a day. It starts in the second half of August and mostly concludes on Labor Day. It’s called Christmas because there’s a bunch of stuff on the street left behind by people moving out—furniture, decorations, etc.—that’s free for the taking.
My town is a bit too far away from Boston to be affected by Allston Christmas, although we have plenty of interesting items on the street on trash day. If it’s trash day where I’m walking, there’s almost always a sofa or entertainment console or some other item that could be useful to someone on the curb amongst the bins. About half of our garden chairs are ones I’ve found on a street. Sometimes we leave a chair or table out there ourselves.
Today being a Friday and the start of the Labor Day weekend, things were pretty quiet on my walk. No moving trucks, no kids waiting for the schoolbus. It was clear that change was on the way, however. A pause before something glorious. The summer flowers were looking faded and dry, true, but the temperature was cool enough for a light jacket. Overnight the fall flowers, with their tight buds and darker hues, had bloomed.
At Allston Christmas, many of the people starting their September leases are college students. They’re transitioning between literal and figurate states. They’re looking forward to the new academic year and getting to know a new neighborhood, but first they have to make it through the hell of moving day. They edge past the U-Haul trucks double-parked on narrow streets; double-park their own; maneuver lamps and desks and bed frames and the etceteras up twisty staircases.
I was lucky that my first big move into my “own” place involving getting seven cardboard boxes, a suitcase, and my clarinet into the elevator that ascended to my fully furnished, seventh-floor dorm room. It was my single truly easy move, despite the annoyance of the speeding ticket I picked up in Indiana on the drive from Maryland to Illinois.
I have always loved moving, even the moves with hassle attached, which is most of them. I like uprooting everything. So I envy the people who keep Allston Christmas going with all that moving in and out. May their sofas make it around the staircase bends. go well. May they happen upon the coffee table of their dreams and grab beautiful upholstered furniture that’s free of bed bugs. (I wouldn’t bet on the upholstered stuff, personally, though. As the news reporters warn, “there’s a reason it’s in the trash.”) And may they avoid getting Storrowed on the way to their new apartments.
Storrowing happens when a vehicle gets its roof ripped off by an overpass on Storrow Drive, a road that runs along the Charles River. GPS systems tend to recommend this route as a way to get from one end of the city to another but neglect to mention that the street’s height limit is ten feet. There are lots of warning signs, on Storrow Drive itself and on the approaches to it, but some U-Hauls get Storrowed every Allston Christmas. Lifelong Massachusetts residents tend to view these unfortunates as doofuses, but I remember what it was like to sob uncontrollably in the breakdown lane the first time I had to navigate the cowpaths that had evolved into Boston streets. There are lots of signs and sights competing for a person’s attention on the way to Storrow Drive.
Soon the newcomers will be settled in, having arranged their furniture and books, and tackling their new lives. Storrow Drive’s overpasses will continue to take out truck roofs, albeit at a slower rate. In their apartments, people will smile at the chuckleheads bringing traffic to a halt. Allston Christmas will fade imperceptibly into December Christmas.
the jeanSpace 