I swear there was some sort of magic at work. (Or maybe it was just the champagne?). But as hard as we tried, we never seemed to be able to end up at the place where we began. Certainly the streets were shifting? Perhaps the situation required a breadcrumb trail…
Looking out
Looking in
Thin Autumn light
Summer is dust
Toddler rustles us awake. Possibly one too many glasses of champagne last night. Flowered dress, low heels for walking, green leopard print socks. Coffee at Hi Volt. Sun already hot an heavy as we make our way down Magazine Street. It moves slowly at 9am, as we do. A man stands on the corned next to some neon that says ‘Kools.’ Blue jeans black tee. We cross the street to stay in the shade. Water drips down from the balconies, soft percussion on pavement. One open sign on the whole block and we take that as an invitation. ‘Goorin Brothers Bold Hatmakers.’ Shelves of beautiful hats stretch to the ceiling in the morning light. Yes, let’s all be bold this morning: first coffee, then hats.
The road to get here was long. It was long, and it wound and wound, and wound. It was one of those small roads- the kind that you can barely see on the map. We skirted the mountains and passed farms where the sun shined down on dilapidated barns, and cows, and on horses manes so that they gleamed. We passed through towns that time didn’t forget, but the people did. We took that road all the way to where we are now.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is like a great winding snake through the trees, past endless vistas where the mountains seem to recede into infinity. Continue reading
the view from Pisgah Peak
Mountains crowded with trees- their leaves rustling on the edges of winding roads that loop back and forth across our map like they were drawn by somebody with a slightly skewed sense of how, exactly, to get from point A to B. Continue reading
I had a friend in college that just couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live on the east coast. She was from California, and we were busy expanding our minds in New England at the time. I clearly remember her saying: “there are too many old buildings. It creeps me out.” I had never thought about history manifesting in that way before. I guess she kind of had a point, but Continue reading
All good things are wild and free.
-Henry David Thoreau
I grew up in a small town in a valley between a river and a plateau on the outskirts of the Adirondack park. As a teenager I did my best to rebel against the confines of the village limits. We all know that in retrospect, almost everything seems better, but damn- I swear that it was idyllic- it was the stuff of all the best scenes of all the great coming of age movies combined. Continue reading
Flavours collect like memories. They are powerful conjurors that dance on the lips and the tip of the tongue. I am an amalgamation of everything I have ever eaten. A stew. A mélange. Continue reading
This is what January feels like in the Philippines, I thought, as our boat motored across a perfect expanse of blue toward the little island of Cabilao. The January place we had just left with its grey and ice and bundled clothing literally melted away.
Blue sky, blue water, warm skin, a thousand dancing diamonds stretched out before me. Continue reading