i remember at the age of nineteen sitting on the weathered red chairs in the lobby of juilliard when a dear friend in his fourth and final year took a breath, appraised the chair, appraised me and said: it's going to be strange not coming here every day. i'm not sure how i'll do it.
no one tells you how hard the time just after college is. no one prepares you for it.
for the countless hours you traverse the city taking more classes, meeting more people, working never-ending jobs to pay the never-ending bills, all the while wondering what possessed you to get a bachelor of fine arts in the first place? for those nights you find yourself on the bathroom floor because really that red wine did not go down well or really that guy was so-not-the-one, but this feeling, well--goodness, it sure does feel like a broken heart.
(or the nights, like tonight, you find yourself sitting propped against the toilet because the bathroom is the only place you can connect to the internet).
but then again, no one prepares you for how it's better than all that's come before. how it's richer and fuller.
for that first phone call from a girlfriend to tell you she's pregnant--for how much fun it is to watch these people you love marry and grow families. and how you get to choose--yes, choose!--who you surround yourself with. who you love. who you laugh with. who you call in the middle of the night--from the bathroom floor--when that old sadness creeps in.
and no one says how there's nothing so much like love in this life. love of a child. of a friend. love of all those small things that amount to a life.
and lord help me, if there's anything i've learned from naomi over the years, it's how to love the small things.
the thing is, watching as she and josh parent eleanor--as they give selflessly of themselves, i have a feeling that in the coming years i'm going to get a good schooling on the big things, as well.
dear naomi, josh, and little miss e: thank you for a wonderful weekend, your wonderful friendship, and the love you so freely give.
(plus, it's so fun to hang out with people that lug their camera everywhere and take just as many photos as i do {most people don't get it}).
travel
trading in manhattan for the district and old friends. (mostly for the friends).
it was the window boxes that i couldn't get enough of...
in travel
there is a part of me that can't get enough of boston. a part of me utterly taken by the ubiquitous red brick and dark shudders. the cobblestone streets. window box after window overrun by flowers in bloom. it is lush and small. quiet and complex.
my brother's not so keen on the city. he's a southern boy to the core and finds it difficult to meet people, finds the girls not terribly attractive (i think it's less about the girls and more about the proliferation of parkas and subsequent lack of pearls and sundresses). but i'm hoping he sticks around there a bit longer so i'll have many more chances to visit.
after bringing the babysitting phase of my life to a close, enduring a sixteen-day-never-ending-cold, and then three weekends of (1) a mother in ny (2) a bus to connecticut to be with my grandfather and aunt and (3) a short stint in boston i'm breathing a bit easier tonight just glad to be home. glad that for now new york is home. glad to go to the grocer and get my cut of cheese and bouquet of flowers. glad to walk down the hill toward the hudson. glad to feel as though i'm a little more in my skin here than ever before. a little more in a place where anything is possible. even if it's still hard. still terrifying. still deeply upsetting at moments. because more and more it's feeling deeply worthwhile.
visiting boston.
i was meant to take the 6:30 am bus saturday morning. the 6:30 am bus to boston. to spend a day-and-a-half with my mother and brother as my mom made her way back from london via a brief few days in beantown.
at 6:40 i woke up in a panic. what day is it? where am i? what's going on?
i was safely in my bed on 181st street. and the bus was just gone.
i eventually got there. took a later bus. endured the traffic. was rewarded with twenty-four hours in the land where paul revere and every other great patriot once resided.
it wasn't much time and we were all of us tired. but long walks through the back bay area and south side, dinner at a the french restaurant, gaslight, and getting to see my brother taste ben & jerry's for the very first time made it all worth it.
of course i didn't get home till 1 am last night and i'm now off to an 8:20 dermatologist's appointment. yes, i too am wondering about my ability to manage time and plan for future events. why did i schedule my time as such? who knows? what made me think i could make that 6:30 bus? oh heck if i know.
happy monday. xo.
weekend in boston.
i apologize for the dearth of posting around here. i've hit the winter-has-gone-on-far-too-long-funk.
that's it.
that's the whole of the explanation i can offer up.
but this weekend i've been in boston visiting my brother and attempting to overcome the winter blues. and i must say what a difference it has made...it certainly doesn't hurt that we saw a brilliant concert by my personal favorite, the head and the heart and then drove to new hampshire sunday morning for a day of skiing.
my camera powered off about two minutes into sunday, but for now i'll leave you with these.
