An Opportune Moment

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The Past!

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  • Close to Home

    I’m From Boston

    November 8, 2016

    I remember the first time someone introduced me as “from Boston.” It was the summer before E and I started our senior year at Tufts. We took a road trip down to Asheville, North Carolina to visit his sister, Far, and while hiking we struck up a conversation with some people on the trail. They asked where we were from and Far ended up answering, “they’re from Boston.” I made a note of it because it was also the first time we were introduced as a unit. I’m from Rhode Island and E is from New Hampshire, but we are from Boston. Our relationship is from Tufts University on the…

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    Emma No Comments

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  • Looking for America

    Vacation / All I Ever Wanted

    November 7, 2016

    You should probably listen to this song while you read this post. And no, don’t worry, it’s not The Go Go’s. In September, E and I took a vacation to Utah. As it turned out, I hadn’t taken a vacation in a long time, and I really, really needed one. Yes, I’ve traveled a lot, but until recently I hadn’t done the sort of work that necessitates vacationing. I interned and worked part-time positions with clear end-dates. Taking a year-long fellowship felt like a big commitment. In February, I started a new job — full-time, permanent — with more responsibility, challenges, and stress. And then I proceeded to work 9-5,…

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    Emma 5 Comments

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    Charleston Tea Plantation!!! (The Most Exciting Tea Tuesday Yet)

    August 27, 2013

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    September 17, 2013

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    July 30, 2013
  • That Time I Studied Abroad

    Fez and Fever Dreams

    November 4, 2016

    Some of my travel experiences feel like fever dreams. When I studied abroad in Barcelona, my program brought us to Mallorca for a weekend, and I was sick the whole time so my memories of that trip are particularly hazy. I picked and ate a fig straight from a tree in a stranger’s yard, and it was fresh and delicious, like nothing I’d ever tasted before. I drifted in and out of sleep on a scenic train ride, and I swam in the Mediterranean Sea in the dark, and there was a castle, and my friend got to practice her medical Spanish vocabulary by explaining my symptoms to a pharmacist.…

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    Emma No Comments

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    Churros con Chocolate

    November 24, 2016

    Fleeting Encounters Over Tea

    April 16, 2013

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    June 22, 2012
  • Hawaiian Summer Camp

    Compost Burritos and Other Stories I Tell About Hawai’i

    November 3, 2016

    A friend and I were talking last night about feeling settled in Boston. We appreciate the lives and communities we’ve built here but we still feel the pull of distant places. “I didn’t mean to get so comfortable here,” I lamented. We laughed at ourselves for wanting more when we’ve had so much already — she’s lived abroad in Mexico and Mozambique, and I spent more than three months backpacking Europe before moving to Hawai’i to work on a farm. It’s always amusing to tell stories about living on Maui to friends I’ve met since the experience. People are surprised when I tell them I lived in Hawai’i for a…

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    Emma No Comments

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  • Close to Home,  Tea Tuesday,  Wandering India

    India, Incoherently

    November 2, 2016

    I’ve been thinking about India lately. Disparate thoughts. Not terribly coherent. It’s hard to be coherent about a subcontinent; I worry about simplifying or fetishizing. My partner, E, and I moved last month, and since then I’ve eaten dinner at Momo N Curry, a Nepali and Indian restaurant a few blocks away, about once a week. I ate momos (Nepali steamed dumplings) for the first time in McLeod Ganj, a community in the foothills of the Himalayas, and I’m always excited to see them on menus in the US. But what really sold me on this restaurant was the carafe of free chai by the front door because it tastes…

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    Emma 2 Comments

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    Wild Raspberry

    November 23, 2016

    I’m a New Englander, btdubs

    May 24, 2012

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    March 26, 2013
  • That Time I Studied Abroad

    fall, autumn, otoño, tardor

    November 1, 2016

    Fall is my favorite season to travel. And it’s my favorite season to stay home. Sometimes this is a dilemma. When I studied abroad in Barcelona several years ago (that’s a polite way of saying, it’s been a while), I felt like I missed Fall. I enjoyed a seemingly endless Summer, but swimming in the Mediterranean Sea in October wasn’t enough for me. I’d never been away from New England for more than a week and here I was living in a place for months where the leaves didn’t seem to change. There was no crispness in the air. I anticipated my return to the misery that is Boston in…

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    Emma 2 Comments

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  • Tea Tuesday

    I Want to Buy You a Cup of Plum Deluxe Tea

    February 10, 2015

    Happy Tea Tuesday and welcome to An Opportune Moment’s first ever giveaway! This post comes to you in 3 parts: Part the 1st I want to talk about customer service (Or, why I’m having a giveaway) By now, I think you’ve all heard about the fire that destroyed my apartment and most of my possessions, including my elaborate collection of teas and tea accoutrements. Someday, I will write a blog post that doesn’t link back to that event, but today is not that day! Anyway, I am a sporadic twitter user at best and, back in November, I happened to sign in and see that Plum Deluxe (a lovely lifestyle…

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    Emma 12 Comments

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    June 18, 2013
  • Close to Home,  Meta-Blogging

    I’m So Glad 2014 is Over

    January 5, 2015

    Hello friends, It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on the ‘ole blog in part because 2014 was kind of terrible. At the very least, there was a lot of upheaval in my life last year. Anyway, I got an email from wordpress a week ago inviting me to look back on my year in blogging, and it was pretty pathetic — I posted seven times in 2014. Seven. I’m hopeful An Opportune Moment will rise from the ashes of 2014 (see what I did there? You know, because my apartment burned down… was that joke too dark?) and become a fun outlet for my writing again. To help…

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    Emma 11 Comments

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    Righteous Fury: Thoughts on Politics and Religion

    October 30, 2018

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    March 29, 2013
  • Feeeeelings

    Let’s Talk About My Apartment Fire

    September 7, 2014

    On Saturday, August 9th, my apartment burned down. I’m going to tell you the story, but first I need to work through the semantics of what happened. “Burned down” feels wrong because the building is still standing, if structurally unstable and unlivable. I can drive by my former apartment and see one tattered curtain still hanging in the living room window. “Burned up” is the more accurate phrase when we think about how fire actually spreads, but it also seems to imply whatever has been burned is now gone. “My apartment caught fire and burned for several hours” is a truthful description of the events, but it doesn’t convey the…

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    Emma 11 Comments

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    And then I got published in a newspaper

    August 9, 2013

    Let’s talk about my dead dad

    June 13, 2013

    Do other people’s life decisions ever make you question your own?

    November 21, 2019
  • Uncategorized

    Once in a Lifetime

    June 26, 2014

    I’ve been home from Senegal for about a month now, and I still haven’t written anything about that trip. Instead, I’ve been helping my mother move, reading novels, running daily, working part-time at the Museum of Science in Boston, and generally trying to be a good and happy person. My 3-week trip to Senegal feels like it was years ago — but isn’t that just the way of it as we grow older? Time speeds up and events slip into the distant past at a horrifying rate? Anyway, it’s about time I wrote something about Senegal. Let’s start with: It was fantastic! I mean, look at this photo of me…

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    Emma 5 Comments

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    November 9, 2016

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    February 19, 2019

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