Three-and-a-quarter years ago, I was on a subway train juddering along the tracks. I gripped my suitcase tightly and—knowing myself—likely gripped a physics paper, too, so that I could read during the trip. I was moving, for my postdoctoral fellowship, to Cambridge from Pasadena, where I’d completed my PhD.
The Charles River separates Cambridge from Boston, at whose Logan Airport I’d arrived with a suitcase just under the societal size limit and ideas that I hoped weren’t. But as the metro car juddered onto the Longfellow Bridge, all physics papers vanished from my mind. So did concerns about how I’d find my new apartment, how much I had to accomplish before night fell (buy breakfast ingredients, retrieve boxes I’d shipped, unpack, …), and how strongly I smelled like airplane fuel.
The Charles stretched below us, sparkling with silver threads embroidered in blue, a carpet too grand for a king. On the river bobbed boats that resembled toys, their sails smaller than my paper. Boston’s skyline framed the river’s right-hand side, and Cambridge’s skyline framed the left. And what skylines they were—filled with glass and red brick; with rectangles, trapezoids, hemispheres, and turrets. I felt blessed for such a welcome to a new Cantab.
I vowed that afternoon that, every time I crossed the Charles via metro in the next three years, I’d stop reading my paper, or drafting my email, or planning my next talk. I’d look up through a window, recall the river’s beauty, and feel grateful—grateful for the privilege of living nearby and in an intellectual hub that echoes across centuries; for the freedom to pursue the ideas I dream up; and for the ability to perceive the beauty before me.
Humans have a knack for accustoming themselves to gifts. One day, we’re reveling over an acceptance letter or the latest Apple product; a year later, we’re chasing the next acceptance or cursing technology’s slowness. But an “attitude of gratitude,” as my high-school physics teacher put it, enhances our relationships, our health, and our satisfaction with life. I’m grateful for the nudge that, whenever I traveled to or from home throughout the past three years, reminded me to feel grateful.
I wish you a Charles River, this season and every season.
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