6 Carlisle Rd.
Westford, MA
On Wednesday I was in Northeastern Massachusetts, driving to New Hampshire to visit a client, when I pulled off of 495 to get gas. After getting gas, I was hungry, and I had some extra time, so I started looking for one of the usual standbys to grab breakfast: maybe Panera, or Starbucks, or some Mexican chain that served breakfast burritos. Instead, I ended up at Paul's Diner.
Paul's is the kind of diner you can't find in California, or in any gentrified neighborhood, or in the strip malls that litter the country - no 50's nostalgia memorabilia, no jukeboxes, no guacamole, no inflated prices, and only open for breakfast and lunch. (It is not the other type of classic diner - the Greek-owned, 24-hour kind with a twenty-page menu.) I had an egg-and-cheese sandwich on an English muffin and home fries for less than $4, and it was as good as they come. The home fries were chunks of red new potatoes, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside like I can never manage to make them at home. And they even had free wireless Internet access. I'm already looking forward to having breakfast there next week when I have to go back to New Hampshire.
In between, though, I have to go to Paris for five days, and I'll have little time for anything except work. On the way to the airport I picked up a hitchhiker, trying to follow through on my advice to help other people when you are traveling. He was in his 30s, friendly, fit, clean-cut ... and homeless. He used to have a family and a job (as a graphic designer) in Maine, but then he split up with his wife, and she moved to Massachusetts with the kids. So he gave up everything and moved to Massachusetts, without a job or a place to live, so he could see his kids. He lived in his car for a while, but then it got too cold and his car broke down anyway, so now he's living in a shelter and trying to find a job, but no one is hiring graphic designers. But he does get to see his kids often. "It's humbling," he said about leaving his professional life to become a homeless person. But for him, he didn't have a choice; it was that important to be close to his children.
I couldn't avoid asking myself if I would make the same choice. And to tell the truth, I don't think I can say I would. I like to think I would do anything to be close to my daughter, but the fact is that I already spend about 30-40% of my time away from home. In theory I could get a job that doesn't require travel, but the truth is that I haven't. And this year I'm even traveling more than I have since 2004. I hope Willow will forgive me.
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