08 May 2026 4 min read

A moment of marvel / weekend welcome

Or perhaps a Shabbat blessing / weekend wish.

A Very Good House in my neighborhood.

A marvelous little thing happened this morning.

I was walking home from Market Basket, 30-some pounds of groceries in my camping backpack weighing me down. This has become my Friday morning routine: jog the mile to the grocery store, then walk home with milk and tofu and nutritional yeast and multipurpose cleaning spray on my back, up and down the hills of Somerville. Errands + exercise = I can check two things off my list when I get home. I delight in the efficiency of it.

Maybe it was the heaviness of the goods I’m toting reminding me of the weight of the world. Or maybe it was just my mind’s natural tendency to take a hard turn into the dark places whenever it has the chance. In any case, as I walked, I started thinking real deep about weapons and war, about social media propaganda, about a not-fun conversation with a colleague I’m prepping for….

That’s not the marvelous part.

The marvelous part is that as I was walking along Highland Ave—the halfway point of my trek, the ridge where I catch my breath for a little while between the two major hills—I came upon the Blue House. It’s the home of a local artist. Its official title on Google Maps is The Friend Smithsonian Museum, but Danny and I call it the Blue House or the Glass House. See for yourself why:

Wide-angle view of the Friend Smithsonian Museum / Blue House / Glass House: three stories; salmon-colored siding; whimsical wooden, glass, and metal sculptures reflect the sun's rays.

It was a sunny morning, and the light bouncing off the blue glass brought me to a standstill. I admired the gleam of the silver horse statuettes on the porch roof, the sparkle of the disco ball, the flowers bursting from the wheelbarrow. I forgot about my cosmic fretting.

But even more marvelous was what I started to notice as I kept walking.

Side view of purple cloth awning against a blue sky. The awning has “LollAçaí” in big letters and “Parking in the Rear” underneath. The building’s red bricks and a red stoplight and green trees are also visible.

The perfect purple of the LollAçaí awning…

Foreground/upper right: tree with bright red-pink flowers. Middle/left: red-and-white striped crosswalk. Background: Two-story brick building.

The tree with the shock of fuschia flowers, and how they almost-but-not-quite matched the red paint of the crosswalk…

A scratched-up white sticker with black text plastered to a thick metal railing. The text reads, in all caps: “All stickers except stickers about stickers being prohibited are prohibited.”

The silly sticker plastered to the railing of the bridge over the train tracks…

A collage of seven flower photos. Top, from left: Purple lilacs, a yellow rose, a bush of white rhododendrons. Bottom, from left: A pot of red geraniums, pink petals on grass under a tree, a pot of yellow violets, and a sprig of grape hyacinth.

And the flowers—oh, the flowers!—filling front yards, poking from pots on stoops, blooming from bushes, shaken from trees to litter the grass.

As I noticed (and photographed) these little marvels, I was struck by the realization that every one of them was there by design. Some specific human being made the choice to grace my day with these delights—not specifically for me, of course, but that made it even more marvelous: strangers unwittingly charming strangers. Here were all these people I didn’t know (well, I’ve once met Martha, denizen of the Blue House), making little choices that now brought me joy.

The LollAçaí cafe owner chose that shade of purple for their awning. A resident planted that tree with the fuschia flowers, a city planner decided Willoughby Street’s crosswalk should be painted red for visibility, and an employee of the Public Works Department made it happen. Someone printed that sticker and stuck it on that railing. Many neighbors planted flowers months or years ago—an act of hope—and we’re all now rewarded with their blossoms.

As I began the final long climb up Winter Hill toward my house, I was no longer focused on the weight—literal or figurative—on my shoulders. In fact, I was bursting to tell someone (you) about my marvelous walk.

It feels like everyone I know is carrying something heavy on their shoulders right now. Caring for a loved one nearing life’s end, or for one or more inexhaustible and exhausting new lives. Struggling to manage their own mental or physical health. An unfair workload, a bad boss, a soul-sucking job. And all as we cling to the railing of a world spinning off its axis.

Maybe this describes you as you read this right now. Maybe you’re feeling the lightness and hope of spring today. Or maybe a mix of both.

In any case, here’s my Shabbat blessing for you, or my weekend wish, depending on what you celebrate at close of business on a Friday:

May you notice this weekend some lovely choice a stranger has made.

May you have time to pause and marvel at it.

May it delight you.

And may it make you feel—as you continue to carry whatever weight you’re carrying up whatever hill you’re climbing—just a little bit lighter.