Research Trip to Peter's Park, Boston

  

In this adventure as a dad set out to bring home one leaf from a tree in Peter’s Park. Introducing myself to strangers, my daughter and I asked MBTA riders seated beside us 1) their destination, and 2) one thing on their mind or heart.  

Emad left his nineteen-month-old and rode the orange line to Northeastern University where he is teaching 20 percent and researching 80 percent of the time. 

Esther, on the way to the dentist wore black lipstick, a black leather top open at the chest and white midriff. The Army veteran of a foreign war had been thinking of the state of the world as she rode the escalator from the station. After a tour of three-and-a-half years, Esther had gained a septum nose piercing and dragon neck tattoo. “I’m a veteran and looking for a career,” she said. 

Likewise Meli and her friend discussed their future career field, speech pathology, riding on their way home.  

On the way to the barber, Jamill, which in Arabic means “beautiful one,” wore a dental mask around his bearded chin: his friend, a balaclava (“It’s a ski-mask") and “True Religion” sweatshirt. What were they thinking about? “Ending the year graciously,” Jamill said. 

The endurance of a stay-at-home may be underrated (else be blown away?) A stiff wind seems to grab at the pastry puff clouds sailing like dollops of cream. Presently, I am on lunch break after six hours on the job. I have an oak leaf in my pocket to prove our trip to Peter’s Park, as well as a bag from the CMart where I bought, as stalking stuffers, green tea choco pies, and “Pocky” chocolate and cookies and cream covered biscuit sticks. 

This record, proof of “a conflict of interest” defined as it may be understood in another context, but I am neither a stay-at-home book case, or carpet, refrigerator magnet or ripe banana. A certain motto of mine should mark me less of a house plant than a working writer, between air quotes. This spring I taped up a pink piece of paper on which I had drawn two halves of a broken bird egg, shading the inside of the crinkled shell above which I quoted Saul Bellow: “I’m not an ornithologist. I’m a bird.” Here the contracted “I am,” interests me, but nevermind. A certain story begins “on or about” and then gives a precise moment at which the rising action occurred. When I begin my shift is up for grabs, but this morning at the moment my wife and two, school bound daughters go into our garden to load themselves on the ebike, it’s official: work day begins at 7:56am. 

Serving a hot coffee and then a dish with a chocolate chip scone, Riah shared that yesterday she applied for her Biology PhD. About the application process she said, “My dopamine levels were very high” the surge carried her through the deadline and then plummeted. She showered and watched Steve Carell in Irresistible on Amazon Prime. Doing her Masters she enjoyed Carell in The Office at the end of the day. She returns with a hot chicken empanada and explains her interest in oncology, cellular pathways, mutants. I speculate that all animals can get cancer. “Correct” she said. Thinking of microplastics I asked, can whales? “Yes, but whales don’t get tested.”  

“Humans are the most exposed animals of all.” She is interested in what causes a mutation, “like the sun’s rays UVA or UVB.” I didn’t know there was an ultraviolet A and B. Wearing sunscreen is as important preventing cancer as making sure not to store hot food in plastic. She recommends containers of metal or ceramic, neither of which I own. It can be quite scary, she admits, but “it’s a ratio, a proportion” there is so much to be conscious of, use cast iron skillet instead of Teflon, wear cotton or wool, natural fibers. 

She previously worked in BioTech at Quotient Therapeutics, using her Masters to help develop designer drugs, which has lab space in Kendall Square. There she had full access to medical journals to pursue personal interest in KRAS (“kay-ras”) mutation, following local pioneers like Andrew Aguirre, a researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Professor at Harvard Medical and Karen Cichowski of Brigham and Williams Mass General Hospital, as well as Anupriya Singhal, based in New York at the Sloan Cancer Institute and Joanne Weidhaas at the UCLA Medical School—but another patron enters the café. 

As the calendar reminded me, Tuesday, it was not yet the pre-planned trip to Peter’s Park in Boston. Today, Thursday, if I made it to the park in time, there had been a soccer class for tykes, apparently free of charge, open to walk-ins, which I refused to confirm so as not to dash my hope for this outing. And on that pretext, under an ice frosting sky, my daughter and I arrived at the park, and though the nets were absent from the basketball court, the play structure was alive to us from a distance with the pleasant shrieking of second graders from Croft School. One child chalked a squiggly line completing a challenge course. My daughter beckoned me to sit with her in a picnic table tailored in height for a two-year-old. When I pointed at a pooling of melted snow, she skittered out. I followed and we repeated the procedure, and this time I overturned the ovate leaf, yellowish brown like a banana slug I once picked up and licked its slimy underside toe to the squeal of my older daughters. Shortly, they left for Language Arts. “No, she’s right,” the teacher amplified, “Math first, then Language Arts.”  

Newly arrived, Tracey, who described herself as “I am a woman,” wore her hair, tightly coiled, in braids. Freeing her charge from a stroller, which she folded up, he sprinted to climb the spiderweb. We have a loaner of the same brand, ours came equipped with a snack tray accessory and rain hood, which the algorithm markets if you search engine $300 stroller even though it retails at near $700. They had arrived at the park after a one-minute walk from the Uppa-Baby Hub Center where the stroller was cleaned, a perk on a three-year warranty. 

I didn’t ask about siblings in her care, or her hourly pay, going on eleven years working with the family, suggesting the age of a middle schooler. After taxes, Tracey makes a grand-a-week. “There are no taxes.” In other words, the family paying around $52,000 in childcare isn’t paying taxes. 

As childcare providers we don’t have a union, but could we? For instance, see the California based, Child Care Providers United, Service Providers International Union (SEIU Local 99). Chabelli Carrazana reported 3 December 2025 that childcare providers are organizing a network of resistance against immigration raids. 

But risky as the profession may be for immigration status concerns, or unprotected work conditions, rapid turnover, precarity had not been Tracey's experience. Her daughter turns twenty in April, about as long as she’s been a nanny.  Previously she worked for a Harvard Professor’s family and before that, as a Bank teller for National Bank. She found it boring sitting there, and while they had down time, sure, but sitting and just staring at the glass. “This keeps me young and active.”  

Kids home with mom on the bike, I woke my daughter from her nap. Thanks little one for writing assistance! Signing out at 5pm. And taking the dog for a walk, miffed by a bumpersticker memorializing Charlie Kirk, I’ll debate a silver dollar moon and when and where it would be appropriate to moniker the night air as thick as molasses. I’d like to go there someday, but today spent with my daughter was sweet.