When I think of Paris, I picture these gray-blue rooftops and their red-orange chimneys. Of course, I also picture the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, and a whole host of other prominent landmarks. These places are so iconic, such a part of our cultural consciousness, I could picture them before I’d ever visited Paris. I remember my mother and I were so surprised to see Parisians walking the streets of their city wearing berets and carrying baguettes that we started to keep a tally. The behavior seemed too obviously, stereotypically French to be real, and yet there it was. Conversely, no one had ever told me about…
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So Much Moss
When I visited my brother and his partner last Fall, I’d never been to a temperate rainforest before. They live in Vancouver, which is a city known for its proximity to wonderful hiking and skiing, but neither of them are hikers, nor skiers. In fact, they’re pretty indoorsy people. Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, just north of the city, is a nice compromise when you’re looking for natural beauty accessible by public transit. We had skipped this particular attraction the previous year when our mother was with us because she has a fear of falling. The suspension bridge for which the park is named is 450 feet long and strong enough…
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Can’t see the forest for the baobab trees
I don’t have much to say today. It’s a sad, bad day and I’m tired and scared and in shock. I’ve been avoiding the news and social media. I set a goal for this month to help me start writing again. I’m trying to post a photo and write a couple hundred words on this blog every weekday in November. Today is a weekday — a sad, bad, weekday — but a weekday nonetheless, so, here I am, writing a post about baobab trees. The thing that struck me most about baobab trees was how solitary they are. The climate they live in is dry and their root systems are…
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I’m From Boston
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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Vacation / All I Ever Wanted
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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Fez and Fever Dreams
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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Compost Burritos and Other Stories I Tell About Hawai’i
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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India, Incoherently
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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fall, autumn, otoño, tardor
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…
