MY NEW YORK | spring is a total show-off

with the bombings in Boston last week, the manhunt that ensued, the gun legislation that failed to pass, and all the lives lost i am both bewildered and discouraged. it was unfathomable. much of last week was unfathomable.

and yet, as all that was happening, spring erupted in her multi-colored splendor.

and there must be a lesson in that.

if you are a longtime reader you know that i am big fan of cheryl strayed and her dear sugar columns. the refrain she utters column after column, piece after piece, is as follows: every last one of us can do better than give up. 

that is my thought for this next week. i can do better than give up. i can choose love and compassion and empathy at every turn. i can practice kindness despite my anger and despite my fear. i can be better than i want to be.

i hope this week is better than last. and i hope we all might find some beauty in the changing of the seasons.

and for inquiring minds...

i write on my photos using a wacom tablet.

and edit with VSCO, afterlight, and

adobe lightroom (when editing anything not taken on my phone).

round these parts

 

 

the weather right now is a knock-down-drag-out fight between late winter and early summer.

which means i'm perpetually dressed for the wrong season. sandals when everyone else is in boots. winter coats when there's no need.

to say the whole thing is frustrating would be a pretty apt description. but the trees are beginning to bloom and the selection of flowers at the grocery store is becoming more interesting and varied.

i first fell in love with this corner of brooklyn that i now call home just about a year ago. it was springtime affair. love at first sight. and to see it again in this light brings such joy. i'm breathless in anticipation for the explosion of green that is surely imminent.

there is but one magnolia tree on my street--and it is enough

and returning home tonight after a fifteen hour day it was all of the sudden in bloom.

full bloom. perfect and pink and full against the darkening sky--april and its promise of rain.

april and its gift of rain.

and green.

and trees in bloom.

i never understood spring until i moved to new york.

but i'm pretty sure if there is a meaning to this life, it has very much to do--everything to do--with the cycle of trees and how when spring arrives the leaves come back.

 

 

day by day, old joy comes back to me | noah & the whale

a perfect brooklyn sunday (also know as: peter-paul and sjoerd do life on this side of the east river)

when Natalie called me on thursday and told me she had met two Dutch men visiting from Amsterdam and that we'd all be going out on friday night, i thought nothing of it.

and then friday night proved one of those evening that people who don't live in new york think we new yorkers have all the time.

can i let you in on a secret? i can probably count those nights on both hands (and keep in mind i've been in new york for nearly nine years now).

but when they do happen? they make all the other nights worthwhile.

i think those nights must happen to Natalie more often than the average new yorker--1. because she can make friends with anyone and 2. she's better at saying yes to life than anyone i've ever met

when Peter-Paul and Sjoerd (yup) and i went out on Sunday (Natalie had general conference) they asked if i was hesitant when Natalie first called--wasn't it odd to go out with two strange men? i thought for a second. if anyone other than Natalie had called than yes, i would have been skeptical. but coming from her, it seemed just as it should be.

i think much of the point of living in new york and being young and untethered is saying yes to precisely those sorts of phone calls.

there is so very much i want for my life. and much of it revolves around stability and what is known. and much as i want those things i understand they will be the death of galavanting around Brooklyn one sunday with two men i've just met. so until that day that brings stability and a child to care for and a more permanent home i will say yes to just as many strange stories as i can--i will collect those definitive new york evenings, attempt to fill two more hands with their numbers and stories.

getting to show the boys Brooklyn was so exciting for me. i wanted them to see what they'd never have found in the tour books.

we did Brooklyn bridge park in the morning (and yes, i made them ride the carousel), followed by vinegar hill house for brunch--there really is something about that teensy-sliver-of-a-neighborhood that makes me feel a little closer to divinity--like its actually three feet up into the clouds.

{i knew they were my people when they always opted for sparkling (gas) water. also they were both very tall, which made me feel petite and feminine, which is not something i'm accustomed to. it's the little things}.

on our way to the train, i heard my name, and ran into my friend Timothy who i allowed to divert us to SMORGASBURG (a flea market of food that's in Williamsburg on Saturdays and DUMBO on Sundays). it was such a classic New York moment. in a city so large, it can still feel so small as you run into friends on the street.

from there we headed to Williamsburg where we walked along Bedford Ave and then got take-out pizza from Il Fornino that we brought to a picnic table near the waterfront.

our final stop on our adventure was the rooftop bar at the Wythe Hotel where we sampled three different whiskeys and soaked in the fantastic view of Manhattan.

it was the perfect day. it really was.

if i had to write a guide book for tourists visiting Brooklyn that would be the day. exactly that day. Peter-Paul and Sjoerd felt like they were seeing something few tourists get to see (or so they said) and i felt like i was falling in love with life on this side of the East River all over again.

when we finally parted ways and i got off the F train in Carroll Gardens i felt the skin around my eyes soften ever-so-slightly--felt the tension i always carry center of my chest release almost imperceptibly. i love the whole of Brooklyn, but there is something about this pocket of it that sings to me.

sometimes i think i moved to the wrong neighborhood--other areas are more exciting, with more young people and more to do. but then i return home to this place and there is that thought and that perfect word: home.

this place feels like home. every part of my body embraces it. and even if, for me, the only joy of Carroll Gardens was returning home to it, that alone would be enough.

vinegar hill, brooklyn

i've been needing a little getaway.

in fact, i'm probably about a month past needing-a-getaway-from-new-york.

but it hasn't been in the cards.

however, yesterday, finding myself with the task of revealing the-off-the-beaten-path-new-york, i knew just where to go.

there is something about the tiny neighborhood of vinegar hill, brooklyn that feels undisturbed--old and historic and quiet. an escape. like it's closer to the sky than the earth.

it was just as good as the three of us needed--and hoped--it would be.

(and the company wasn't so bad either. turns out the dutch could teach lessons in what-it-is-to-be-chivalrous).