The Peripatetic.

I spent a weekend in Boston to find an old friend from bygone days in Beijing, which was really just a few months ago, but it’s a whole world away now. 

We were drenched in rain, but people were interesting and conversations were good.  Some friends are at Harvard now, and I felt submerged in the quintessential ivy bubble I thought only existed in movies (the look and feel, preppy and with real ivy). 

I met a professional ballroom dancer who’s managed millions and some guy who sounded like he walked straight off the ESPN channel — everything he talked about felt like he was calling a sweet football play (he could make eating a bowl of noodle soup sound like an exciting move).  He did hedge funds in New York for three years before moving to San Francisco to work in a biotech company.  I think that was his big, interesting move, that great cultural leap into a place where everyone hated him for trying to recreate Manhattan on the West Coast.

It took him six months to realize he had to change himself first.  It’s what my mom said about people moving to the Caribbean, where she grew up: you knew someone was finally adapting when they stopped trying to change the island and started trying to change themselves.