Finding Fenway

I barely drive in unfamiliar cities, let alone run in them.

In my mind and in the expressions of many of the faces I've encountered, it seems crystal clear that runners (especially ones who are directionally challenged) don't belong on crowded sidewalks, or in bike lanes or on city streets.


That's what I tell myself, anyway, as I swipe my room card and open the door that leads to the hotel's idle treadmills. I think at least if I get lost around here I might get a sauna out of the deal.

I'm not a huge fan of the hot or steamy.

However, I am a big fan of cities; their stunning architecture; their hidden alleyways filled with bright murals; and their inviting riverside parks, where I pretend to be as I run in place.

So, on a recent trip to Boston, I willed myself to try again. To risk accidentally winding up on the other side of the city from where I wanted to be (which I managed to do twice) as I searched for cross-streets that never connected.

Even after studying maps and consulting GPS, I couldn't tell North from South or up from down. But I certainly understood how Beantown's city planning had been based, albeit mythically, on the travel paths of wild game or the meanderings of cows.

I was lost.

Every turn lead me on a new adventure.

Right onto Hemenway. Left onto Boylston. Through the chain link fence onto a narrow path along the Muddy River.

There it was.

The name alone made me touch my throat in anticipation: The Emerald Necklace ... Approximately seven miles of linear parkways that connect Boston's historic parks. The place got its name from the way these gems of greenery appear chained around the neck of the Boston peninsula.

As I loped around this place, I began to think time stood still here.

A flash of yellow flickered in my peripheral vision. When I turned my attention to the motion, I saw a songbird draft low alongside me. The moment floated on the breeze for longer than seemed possible before the bird banked smoothly and disappeared into one of the many gardens nearby.

Unlike that showy waxwing, I weave my way around the perimeter of "The Fenway Victory Gardens," the oldest continuously tended plots in the country, looking in on all the home-grown marvels that have sprouted here since the 1940s.

Connected but partitioned by fences and locked gates, the gardens are a delightful patchwork of purpose and style created by citizen gardeners. Some tracks feature kitchen herbs and rows of delicate vegetables punctuated by the tightrope antics of climbing squash. While others offer a festival of fragrant flowers dotted with decorative touches like park benches, sundials, even a birdbath shaped like a ready catcher's mitt. I find myself surrounded by a beautiful tangle of color and whimsy that parallels perfectly with the streets of this complicated city. Both seem to have fended off gentrification with tenacity and pride.The changes made over the years included a more humane progress, such as making the space more accessible to people of all abilities.

As I jog along a temporary fence line where heavy machinery is staged I read a sign asking for support in the bid to restore the river banks and buckled pathways to its former glory.

This place might have faced a bulldozer long ago had it been anywhere else. Leveled to make way for something only resembling progress: a high rise building or a shopping center, or maybe a parking lot for a high-rise shopping center. Something developers would undoubtedly name after the very thing they razed: Victory Gardens Plaza.

But who would want to get lost in a place like that?