Beacon & Joy

I lived for a few years at a pivotal time in my life at the corner of Beacon and Joy Streets.  I always loved this address because it sounded, to me, like a quite hopeful and happy place.  Like the beginning of something.

It turned out that, in my own life, it was the beginning of something.  I got married while living at that house.  I had my first baby, and started to come fully into who I am deep down at that house.  I got up the nerve to start my first website.  To dedicate myself to being creative (instead of the lawyer I had been prior— and a lawyer whose inner creativity had felt long-ago left for dead, at that.).

Over time, we grew out of our apartment with that hopeful sounding address and moved further down Beacon Street.  Still somewhat bright sounding, but without the helpful addition of Joy in the title.

And, eventually, we left the city of Boston entirely; moving first to Washington, D.C., and then clear across the country to California.

It’s funny, looking back, because when I lived at the corner of Beacon and Joy, I felt that it was a geographically challenging address, because it was at the top of a a steep hill.  I thought, “How is this sustainable?  How can I be expected to trek up this hill with groceries and babies?”  Now I live in San Francisco, land of impossible hills.  So there is irony in this tale (if not all of them, really).

But I also think there is some irony in the fact that I still feel like I live on the corner of Beacon and Joy.  Not geographically, of course, because I live thousands of miles away from that pivotal corner in my life.  But in the sense that I try to embody a hopeful place, a positive outlook on life.    I try to appreciate the good that is all around, even when it takes some doing to find that good.  That is what Beacon and Joy meant and means to me.  It’s why for years I’ve wanted to name something, anything, after that corner.  Because it feels so poignant and meaningful to me.

So, here it is. . . something named Beacon and Joy.

And I hope it, too, is just a beginning.