On Leaving Davis Square

For the last almost-3 years, I’ve lived down an alley behind a Thai restaurant and a closed not-restaurant. For a few months, there was a dumpster in front of my house, but then the construction finished, and the abandoned restaurant became a stylish little coffeeshop in front. I started to harbor fantasies about getting fancy coffees every morning (on my way to meet the coworker who’s driven me to school since, uh, since there was some Boston bridge construction traffic two summers ago). I imagined having my reliable home wifi from a cute coffeeshop table.

Now that we have a cute coffeeshop out front instead of a dark alley, our landlord wanted to raise the rent by $500/month. Not a typo. Does that sound kinda evil to you, too? Because when my husband wondered if such a huge increase was legal, our landlord changed his mind and just declined to renew our lease, which is of course 100% legal. So we have to move.

No more little rogue garden in the gap next to the Thai restaurant, with the hardy perennials started by my previous upstairs neighbor. No more riding to work with Aaron, which has been such a nice part of my weekday mornings. No more little branch library next to the subway stop, although that’s closed for renovations now, because nothing gold can stay. No more Thai takeout next to my front door, although the Thai restaurant has new owners, who’ve stopped selling cheap bowls of noodles and started selling fusion brunch.  Leaf subsides to gentrifying leaf, y’all.

The neighborhood has had a lively Facebook board for local news, and it’s usually full of my neighbors finding a missing glove or holding a yard sale or complaining about snow parking, but a few days ago, Trump trolls took over the page with truckloads of own-the-libs memes. I don’t really understand most trumpery, but owning the libs is particularly baffling. “New Yorkers hate Trump for his shady deals and failure to pay staff, and I hate New Yorkers, so I support Trump! That’ll drive those liberals drive crazy! I’ll stick it to those liberals by voting against my self-interest! MAGA!” Weird, unwelcome, and generally unpleasant, and this is exactly this type of heavy-handed symbolism that doesn’t work in fiction.