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My Expotition: an essay by Sigerson
Aug. 10th, 2007 10:46 amYesterday I undertook an Expotition. I packed my bag, hopped on the T, and traveled to the Boston Harbor Islands.
The first island was Georges Island, which was almost entirely taken up with a large fort built in the 1830s and used right through WWII. I was confused by its architecture for a long time--you can't see a whole lot out of the rifle holes--and finally figured out that it isn't constructed for a land force, but for firing volleys at ships. The riflemen are there just to secure and support the cannons, really. It's squat and grey, but covered over with grass and turf (in some places, intentionally, in others, just overgrown). Sumac and apple trees were everywhere.
The bright blue and green day outside contrasted with the beautiful decay within. The walls were plaster fallen away from lathe, brickwork half-exposed in some places and crumbled away in others. The towers for the 12" guns had huge wells filled with greenish water. Inside Bastion C, which had been enclosed to make more internal space, the rooms were cavernous and covered with scrawled graffiti. One wall had giant neon green words drawn by someone who evidently found this room as creepy as I did: "DIE" and "HELP" were written in two-foot letters. (There's a kind of meta-graffiti to that; it wasn't written to mark this person's existence, but to cause an effect in the viewer. And had it been anything but neon green spraypaint, I might have been unnerved.) None of the rooms are lit, of course--and there was one passage, pitch black, that made me very uneasy. It went on further, but I turned off to the first sunlit hallway, eager to get away from both the darkness and the screams of enthusiastic junior high kids who had discovered how well brick echoes.
The rooms in Bastion C had half-eaten apples scattered all over the floor.
I left Georges and took the shuttle to Lovells, where I played in tide pools. I sat on seawall blocks and watched the tide go out. I was also watched by lots of rabbits (small, unafraid and brown; huge and grey; black and skittish). Tide pools were both fascinating and horrid. On one hand,all the hermit crabs were great, and they seemed to have personalities, from the tiny ones poking at each other to the big one eating something leisurely. On the other hand, walking through a tidal area means walking on snails. Lots and lots and lots of snails. They were everywhere, and every step I took went *crack*. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stealthmuffin, remember that awful moment with the frogs? Like that.)
From Lovells, I decided to head home. Shuttle to Spectacle Island (which looks like a great hike, now that it's open to the public), then ferry back home. There were moon jellies everywhere. I saw one with five rings in the center instead of four; it looked more like a deformed six-pack than an overambitious jellyfish.
All in all, it was a very solitary but beautiful day.
And that was My Expotition. Next, I hope to go to the Lowell Quilt Museum!
The first island was Georges Island, which was almost entirely taken up with a large fort built in the 1830s and used right through WWII. I was confused by its architecture for a long time--you can't see a whole lot out of the rifle holes--and finally figured out that it isn't constructed for a land force, but for firing volleys at ships. The riflemen are there just to secure and support the cannons, really. It's squat and grey, but covered over with grass and turf (in some places, intentionally, in others, just overgrown). Sumac and apple trees were everywhere.
The bright blue and green day outside contrasted with the beautiful decay within. The walls were plaster fallen away from lathe, brickwork half-exposed in some places and crumbled away in others. The towers for the 12" guns had huge wells filled with greenish water. Inside Bastion C, which had been enclosed to make more internal space, the rooms were cavernous and covered with scrawled graffiti. One wall had giant neon green words drawn by someone who evidently found this room as creepy as I did: "DIE" and "HELP" were written in two-foot letters. (There's a kind of meta-graffiti to that; it wasn't written to mark this person's existence, but to cause an effect in the viewer. And had it been anything but neon green spraypaint, I might have been unnerved.) None of the rooms are lit, of course--and there was one passage, pitch black, that made me very uneasy. It went on further, but I turned off to the first sunlit hallway, eager to get away from both the darkness and the screams of enthusiastic junior high kids who had discovered how well brick echoes.
The rooms in Bastion C had half-eaten apples scattered all over the floor.
I left Georges and took the shuttle to Lovells, where I played in tide pools. I sat on seawall blocks and watched the tide go out. I was also watched by lots of rabbits (small, unafraid and brown; huge and grey; black and skittish). Tide pools were both fascinating and horrid. On one hand,all the hermit crabs were great, and they seemed to have personalities, from the tiny ones poking at each other to the big one eating something leisurely. On the other hand, walking through a tidal area means walking on snails. Lots and lots and lots of snails. They were everywhere, and every step I took went *crack*. (
stealthmuffin, remember that awful moment with the frogs? Like that.) From Lovells, I decided to head home. Shuttle to Spectacle Island (which looks like a great hike, now that it's open to the public), then ferry back home. There were moon jellies everywhere. I saw one with five rings in the center instead of four; it looked more like a deformed six-pack than an overambitious jellyfish.
All in all, it was a very solitary but beautiful day.
And that was My Expotition. Next, I hope to go to the Lowell Quilt Museum!
