home.

i barely took out my camera while i was home. when i did, it was to document our adventures in food, which (believe it or not) was only a small portion of the trip.

i love going home. and i love returning to new york. (pick your jaw up off the floor--yeah, i said it: i love returning to new york. and that is true. because, for now, it's home as well).

but man oh man is there something about returning to that place you grew up. that place you made your first mistakes, had your first kiss, first failed, first flew, first loved. there's something to returning to that place that marked you--imprinted itself.

it helps me find my axis. my center. the very core of who i am.

because when in texas there is knowledge and remembrance in getting behind the wheel, cranking up the radio and pressing my foot against the accelerator. or walking along the bayou and touching the part of me that's a low-country-gal--one who grew up on the ranches of friends, alongside horses, swinging across creeks and rivers, fostering imagination in skeleton houses.

and then there's the immediate and tangible love of family. and well, that's one of those things that i've yet to find adequate words for.


















(i must say that i love looking at these pictures because i'm reminded that food is 80% adventure in color. and yes that percentage is made up by yours truly, but you get the point).

(and can you find the hidden allergy medication? that's one of those things that translates from place to place. that and funky seasons . houston is warm, new york is warm, but definitely our actions are not at all responsible for changes in weather patterns. nope, global warming is definitely not happening). 

it's good to be home.

image. 

a week at home. just not long enough.

new york's winter this year was so long and so hard that i began to pine for time in texas months ago--my body literally craved it. so i gave myself a week. a whole week. and yet i blinked and it was over.

i wish i could bottle the time. stretch it. make it last. but as quickly as it goes there is no way to measure the value of dinners at home or time spent in the car with my mother--trying out the restaurant of my father's choosing, or just perusing large air-conditioned stores.

last night we invited our dear, dear friends maria and gail over for dinner (maria took care of me when i was just a wee of a thing). maria took a look at me, tilted her head, and in her lilting italian accent asked if i'd fallen in love. it was the loveliest compliment.

maybe time at home, dinners outside, time with the people you love most in the world--maybe those are the next best things to actually falling in love. i can't wait for that day when they all intersect.

this week i traded the manhattan skyline for home.

the last photo is of an old bulletin board in my closet at home. there's a sheet of white paper on which i've written "because sometimes i like being friends with you so much--i can't breathe." i was nineteen, in love, and it came to my in dream. six years later it's still there--the post it note, that is. always makes me smile when i see it. 

weekend getaway: austin

i took to the texas highway this weekend to visit my friend whitney in austin where she's just begun law school.

i wish i could describe just how much i love the city of austin. it's different from all others in texas: the terrain, the politics, the concentration of light.

the city is just a little bit weird. and when i say a little bit, i mean quite a bit, and in the best possible way.

it was good to be surrounded by weird. to have a good girlfriend to talk to. to eat far too much tex-mex. (even) to take in a football game {and not to worry i was outfitted in the right color}.

and of course ice cream. always, always ice cream.