Among many impressive sights in Salem, one was this, at Pioneer Village, of a very small cottage replicating those built in 1629. I imagine that this is the sort of cottage that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne moves into, “abandoned by a discouraged settler,” after Pearl’s birth. When I think “cottage,” I think of little English cottages with diamond pane windows and a rose trellis. Hester’s cottage was no doubt a rude shack, like this, no bigger than my writer’s cabin at home. Its windows would have been small, with wooden shutters that latched, and no glass. The hearth would have been its central feature. The inhabitants probably slept sitting up (to avoid choking on smoke) on thin mattresses. I like to imagine that Hester had a bedstead. And now Hawthorne has me imagining her a real person, and not fiction. Good work!

So far my trip has been AMAZING! (Note to self: All that anxiety was a waste of time.)

I did not find a hotel, at least not one with a reasonable price attached, so while in Boston I  stayed with the daughter of a good friend of mine–and felt as though I had met up with family. I spent Saturday walking all over Boston, both the Freedom Trail, and Harvard. On Sunday I took a commuter train to Salem so I could see Nathaniel Hawthorne’s birthplace and The House of Seven Gables. (Little did I know I would be walking into Halloween Town.) I’ll tell you more when I finally reach the retreat center and get the pictures from my camera uploaded.

Thank you, thank you to all those people who told me, “Just go — it will be fine!”