BAFTFT 2: Boston, familiarity, and straight-jacket heat

Written by Jessica George

Anxiously looking out the plane window, seeing the ocean and then flashes of greenery, my heart soared. Once the wheels touched down at Logan Airport, I could hear it ringing loud and clear, "I love that dirty water!*" Boston you are my home. I wanted to shout it from the mountain tops, from Kenmore Square to that little Italian bakery in the North End where customers wait in a line that wraps around the street corner.

Boston brings friendly faces, familiar places and a comfortable feeling that I thought I'd left behind in New Zealand. It almost surprised me how good it felt to be back. The last time I was here, I had a maddening summer. I was finishing up my degree, volunteering at a neuropsychology lab and slinging coffee in Cambridge, all the while spending too much time at the brewery next to the cafe where I worked drinking IPA, Tripel and Brandywine. The sweaty summer heat makes you feel like you’re tied up in a straight jacket and strung up to the ceiling in a drugged out limbo. Indeed, this doesn’t sound all that pleasant and for the most part it isn’t, but every now and then if you just go along with the heat’s boiling affect on your brain, the madness feels kind of nice.

When I stepped off the plane I expected to be met with the same intoxicating heat and I was right, but my nostalgic love for this city overshadowed the sweltering weather. Mother Nature’s wrath didn’t have a chance to fry my brain because my growing excitement had already worked its magic. Boston reminded me of my university days, when I first spread my wings in the art world. With a sheet of mylar and a scalpel, I would create patterns, slogans, characters and homages to my favourite bands. Here I began to remember art for arts sake, before I felt the struggle between the artist and the practical young woman in me.

Rekindling this little light inside me warmed the chill that was left from my last unsettling interview in Chicago. Remembering who I was back in the inspiring, light-hearted university days took a bit of weight off of my shoulders. I used my connections to get a few names at art and culture publications to drop off my writing portfolio. The front desk was far less intimidating than an editor’s quarters. As far as I knew, a faceless, genderless, nameless editor would pick up the portfolio and have some sort of opinion on it. Any more thought than that and I'd open the flood gates to numerous daydream fantasies and nightmares of what could lie in my future.

The days magically passed too fast and after many conversations with old friends, I’d started to forget about the walls of impossible challenges I’d put in place around me since I had returned to the USA. Comfort brings on a whole new aspect of artistic creation. Feeling comfortable gives me the encouragement to create in a supportive environment, but would this environment be challenging as well? I know all too well the daily hum that can tick along when you miss out on the uncertainty of challenge. I may be a fool for questioning the possibility of a more permanent stay in Boston, but what better time to ask questions than when I have the freedom to shop around?

Would the familiarity and comfort coax me into a happy but uninspired lull? Not long ago, my motto was “never stay too comfortable.” I’m sure this is evident in my choice to pack up and move to a country at the opposite end of the world, where I knew barely a handful of people. Comfort is nice but just to test the limits, I had to go to the other end of the spectrum. This thought brought me to the one place where I don’t think anyone can achieve familiarity and comfort for more than a few moments - New York City.

Of all of the places in the USA that I could think of, New York City seemed the least practical to me. It's a place where people go to prove themselves, to explore, to go a little crazy. How could I resist? At the very least artistic, some would say slightly irresponsible (not to say the two are synonymous) Jess deserved to be unleashed in the Big Apple.


* "Dirty Water" is a classic Boston anthem first recorded by The Standells and composed by Ed Cobb. I've listened to it many times when coming back into the city from road trips to neighboring states.

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Jess George is a girl with a plan, or to be truthful, many plans. Some might say, she does too much, instead let us say, she has an ever rotating schedule of interests that feed her ever growing insights into her world. After a three year stint in Auckland, New Zealand where she dabbled in radio, events, cupcakes, hula hooping and writing, she's gone back to her home country, the good 'ol USA. Now faced with resuming a life she'd put on hold, Jess hopes to tackle new territory while documenting her escapades in this vast and sometimes daunting land she now calls home.