Newburyport

Yes, I know it was released in 2016. So I am a little late on my movie viewing, OK? I recently watched Manchester by the Sea and loved it. It is a deeply human story set on the North Shore of Boston, in winter, an area I know and adore.

I first fell in love with New England when I moved to Boston for college in 1983. I fell in love with the Fall, with Boston, with the picture-perfect towns all around, with Walden Pond and Cape Cod, the Berkshires, New Hampshire’s White Mountains, lobster rolls, clam chowder, Dunkin Donuts, pretty much everything. After college I got the opportunity to work in Boston for a couple of years. I lived in a tiny apartment in the Back Bay and worked on the waterfront in the financial district. It was then that I really had a chance to further explore and discover. With a group of friends, the infamous Boston Gourmet Society, we would spend Summer weekends at the beach in Maine, and Winters skiing in Sugarloaf, renting a ski chalet for the season.

In 2005 I went back, and with added maturity, I really got to appreciate New England. We lived in Newburyport and Milton. Then I moved back to old Back Bay in Boston, I worked in those places and then Natick, and Cambridge and enjoyed it thoroughly. Loved the history, the food, the culture, yes, even the people!

My work during my first stay in Boston was in the financial sector, but on the second round, as a teacher and coach I got to visit schools for soccer, tennis, and fencing all over the Boston area, including Concord, Newport Rhode Island and Exeter New Hampshire! It was beautiful to see the seasons and the foliage, the towns, the forests, and the seashore.

The film Manchester by the Sea takes place during the bleak New England Winter, where everything is frozen, even the ground! Casey Affleck (not the sexy one, the one that can act) nails his performance. It is a tough, emotional film but I highly recommend it. For me it was a double whammy. As an emotional person, I really connected with the plot, and the photography of New England, specially of the North Shore, really drove home the film for me.

So, there you have it, two recommendations in one blog post: New England (the region) and Manchester by the Sea (the beautiful town AND the film). Enjoy.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of my moving back to the US. I do not really know if it has flown by or inched along, I have little concept of time, and more so of ten years, and ten years where so much has happened.

Ten years ago I closed my company in Madrid, my baby that I created from scratch, Inter Tape. I had no clue what to do. It was my then wife, Tracy – and I will forever be indebted to her – who proposed that we move back to the US and encouraged me to get into teaching, how right she was!

Our first destination, where Tracy got a job at was the quaint village of Newburyport on the North Shore of Boston. It was a tough winter: I was jobless – other than subbing at the local schools, we were whacked with a snow storm every week for two months, Tracy disliked her job and we were starting a new life from zilch. But the town was very cute and we enjoyed that.

That summer we moved to a prestigious private school outside of Boston. I got a break teaching Spanish at the local High School where one of the teachers had left for the year on maternity leave. It was a baptism of fire as I have said before, but I earned my wings before starting at the oldest private arts prep school in the country, Walnut Hill. For four years I thrived there, growing into myself as a teacher and loving it, loving my department, my colleagues and the dedicated and talented students!

That was professionally, my private life, unbeknown to me was slowly eroding. I did not make friends, missed the city life and its stimulation, things did not seem to move forward as planned, we lived as dorm parents in a dorm, which takes away quite a bit of privacy, etc. Not to bore you with details, but I lost it five years ago. I imploded my life, my family, my job. Starting from scratch again meant going back to college, this time for my PhD, moving away from Boston, to the South that fascinates me, and being the gypsy I am, setting up camp here.

So that is my tenth anniversary story of my moving to the US! (the abbreviated and concise edition)