Last night I found myself with some friends at a bar near Boston City Hall, and, as always, I couldn’t stop staring.

Most people hate it. They think it’s an eyesore, all angles and concrete, too stark and strange for a city built on cobblestones and history. In a neighborhood dotted with red-brick charm and colonial flourishes, it doesn’t blend in. Not with the elegance of Faneuil Hall just across the plaza or the gold dome of the State House catching light up on Beacon Hill.

But maybe that’s why I love it.

To me, Boston City Hall looks like a cathedral, if cathedrals were poured in concrete and born out of frustration. It’s massive, brooding, unapologetic. It doesn’t beg to be liked. It just is.

And there’s something deeply honest about that.

What I’ve come to admire most, though, isn’t just how it looks, but what it is: a civic building. A public space. A place meant to serve everyone, not just the people who think it’s pretty. Even its plaza, vast and often wind-blown, is a space that belongs to the people of the city, not just the tourists, not just the well-dressed, not just those with the loudest voices. Whether you hate it or not, it’s yours. That’s the point.

That idea—that something doesn’t have to please you to belong to you—has been on my mind lately.

I’m working toward a degree in creative writing, and much of the coursework lately has been focused on branding. On building a platform, identifying your audience, packaging your work for sale. I understand the logic. Writing is a precarious path, and if you want to make a living at it, you need a strategy.

But it’s not why I’m here.

I didn’t choose this path to write what sells. I chose it because I wanted to learn how to say what I mean. To write something that might not go down easy, but lingers. To make art that feels real and worthwhile, even if it’s not universally adored.

I don’t want to write a book that appeals to all white women aged 25–60. I want to write what’s in my heart and mind. And if that work resonates with someone, just one person, then that’s enough. If I’m the only one who ever reads it and feels proud, that’s enough.

There’s a kind of integrity in making something you believe in, even if it doesn’t blend in. Boston City Hall reminds me of that. It’s a building that serves everyone, regardless of taste. It makes no effort to seduce, but it stands firm in its function and intent. And maybe that’s the kind of work I want to create, too.

I want to write things that aren’t trying to charm their way into the world, but that deserve to be in it.

Things that are for someone, even if they’re not for everyone.

Because beauty is subjective, but purpose is not. And sometimes, the most enduring spaces (the ones that serve, that shelter, that last) are the ones we learn to love slowly. The ones that weren’t made to be admired. The ones that were made to be used. To be ours.