Your love letters to Boston

Also: I was in 4th grade when JFK was shot. I remember it like it was yesterday [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  November 26, 2023 Dear Cog reader, I’ve had a connection to Boston for as long as I can recall. I grew up near Hartford, Connecticut, but I distinctly remember being in the back seat of my family’s station wagon racing down Storrow Drive on the way to visit my aunt and uncle at their North Shore home. My aunt’s handwritten directions included this line — “Look at the pretty sailboats!” (for the Storrow section) — which was lovely, if not exactly helpful in telling us where we needed to go. After all those trips up 84E to the Mass Pike, I eventually went to college in the Boston area. I had my first apartment here, my first internship, my first paying job. The T was my first foray into public transportation. Boston’s where I ordered my first drink at a bar (it was a whiskey sour at Punter’s Pub, near the MFA) and where I met the man who became my husband. I could write a love letter to this city, which is precisely what we’re featuring this week: The first in a collection of [“love letters” to Boston]( We didn’t exactly start out with this love letter idea in mind. At the beginning of the project, we wanted to understand from our readers and contributors what it meant to live in Boston and find your place in it. It was only after reading the dozens of submissions that we realized people were writing love letters to our fair city. It turns out that loving a place is not so dissimilar from loving a person. Sometimes love happens all at once — at first sight. And sometimes it comes on like a slow burn, when the affection between friends (or even enemies) evolves, until one day, you discover what you’ve been looking for has been there all along. Despite my time in Boston as a kid and a young adult, this city was a slow burn for me. It wasn’t until I left the 617 area code for a few years that I realized how much I missed it. I had mailing addresses in St. Louis, New York City and Washington, D.C., before I decided that Boston was the place I belonged. On the water, full of history and culture, a real city — but not too big, and easy enough to leave and return to all in the same day. Maybe you’ve got a small story or moment that sticks with you — something that makes you feel connected to Boston? Maybe it’s even more top of mind this weekend, as many of us are gathering around tables and firepits and football games with family and old friends. Email your reflection to us at opinion@wbur.org and put LOVE LETTER in the subject line. We’ll keep collecting these stories, and maybe even feature your love note on the radio. We certainly have much to be grateful for. Cloe Axelson Senior Editor, Cognoscenti [Follow]( Support the news   Must Reads [Was it love at first sight or a slow burn? Your love letters to Boston]( We set out to understand from our readers and contributors what it means to live in Boston and find your place in it. But after reading dozens of submissions, we realized that what we’ve actually compiled is a collection of love letters to our fair city. [Read more.]( [Was it love at first sight or a slow burn? Your love letters to Boston]( We set out to understand from our readers and contributors what it means to live in Boston and find your place in it. But after reading dozens of submissions, we realized that what we’ve actually compiled is a collection of love letters to our fair city. [Read more.]( [I was in 4th grade when John F. Kennedy was shot. I remember it like it was yesterday]( It's been 60 years since JFK was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Deborah Sosin was a precocious fourth grader in '63. She remembers where she was when she learned the news, and how she watched the story unfold on television in the days just after the assassination. [Read more.]( [I was in 4th grade when John F. Kennedy was shot. I remember it like it was yesterday]( It's been 60 years since JFK was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Deborah Sosin was a precocious fourth grader in '63. She remembers where she was when she learned the news, and how she watched the story unfold on television in the days just after the assassination. [Read more.]( [Lots of older Americans are reinventing their lives. Here’s why it matters to all of us]( Anthony Brooks started paying attention to stories about people who reinvent themselves in interesting ways about 15 years ago. He collected so many that they became WBUR's "Third Act" series, reminding all of us that it’s never too late — or too soon — to dream big. [Read more.]( [Lots of older Americans are reinventing their lives. Here’s why it matters to all of us]( Anthony Brooks started paying attention to stories about people who reinvent themselves in interesting ways about 15 years ago. He collected so many that they became WBUR's "Third Act" series, reminding all of us that it’s never too late — or too soon — to dream big. [Read more.]( What We're Reading "... I keep wondering if the key to seeing each other’s humanity is in somehow recognizing how universal the terrible ongoing nature of loss is, how human it makes us, how frail, how essential each day is, when none of us has any idea about the next." "[The Empty Seat at Our Thanksgiving Table]( The New York Times. "The decision would effectively outlaw most efforts to ensure that Americans are not denied the right to vote on the basis of race as the Fifteenth Amendment demands." "[The Decision That Could End Voting Rights]( The Atlantic. "My love for Israel is strong enough to survive my exasperation with the policies of its current government. It might be unrealistic to expect the same of my daughters." "[A troubling split at my Thanksgiving table — and the nation’s]( The Washington Post. "We felt like we belonged whenever we walked into Fresh Pond, and still do. And isn’t that what it means to feel at home?" — Alysia Abbott, "[Was it love at first sight or a slow burn? Your love letters to Boston]( ICYMI [I've walked every day for 12 years]( It’s been 12 years since I made my walking promise and I’ve never missed a day, writes Libby DeLana. Most days, it’s very simple: out my backdoor by 5:30 a.m., walk for an hour. A few years ago, I calculated that over these many mornings, I’d traveled the circumference of the Earth. [Read more.]( [I've walked every day for 12 years]( It’s been 12 years since I made my walking promise and I’ve never missed a day, writes Libby DeLana. Most days, it’s very simple: out my backdoor by 5:30 a.m., walk for an hour. A few years ago, I calculated that over these many mornings, I’d traveled the circumference of the Earth. [Read more.]( If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are. 😎 Forward to a friend. They can sign up [here](. 🔎 Explore [WBUR's Field Guide]( stories, events and more. 📣 Give us your feedback: newsletters@wbur.org 📧 Get more WBUR stories sent to your inbox. [Check out all of our newsletter offerings.]( Support the news     Want to change how you receive these emails? Stop getting this newsletter by [updating your preferences.](  I don't want to hear from WBUR anymore. Unsubscribe from all WBUR editorial newsletters [here.](  Interested in learning more about corporate sponsorship? [Click here.]( Copyright © 2023 WBUR-FM, All rights reserved.