Every year I have trouble believing that spring has actually sprung. I open doors to the outside and brace myself for the cold, shocked when I’m not hit by a wall of frigid air. But seeing as I’ve been stepping into mildness without feeling winter seep between the cracks of my coat and my scarf, I think it’s safe to say that we’re past the worst of it by now (though you better believe that I knocked on the wood of my Ikea coffee table right after I typed that). I even got my first sunburn of the season on Monday. It’s been probably the most welcome pain of my life.
I have a few photos of recent warmish wanderings to share with you that didn't make it to Instagram. I used to carry my Nikon around with me everywhere I went lest I stumble into a great picture opportunity, and I have to say that I feel somewhat guilty for relying on my phone for that purpose these days. But I like these images despite their inferior, phone-y quality. Or maybe because of it. They’re grainier and less polished, so they feel like like a disposable camera used to.
One of my best friends lives on Beacon Hill. The sun streams past the fire escape of her neighbors and onto the wooden slats of her porch in the late afternoon.
I took this picture while wandering around Brookline one afternoon. I love that you can't really tell if it's Brookline or some lovely little island house in Greece. A virtual vacation.
A farm in Lincoln, MA, where the trees were thinking about blooming last weekend.
My cousin Ben and his girlfriend Emma found these kitties on a street corner in Brooklyn last fall on Ben's birthday and they adopted them. They brought them to my aunt and uncle's house in Bethesda for Passover. The cats are the opposite of their names; Crash (below) is cuddly and mellow, while Carmelo (below) is feisty and quite curious.
I loved spending the holiday with my family (and making up Haggadah drinking games), especially as it now includes another generation. My cousin had a baby girl last November—she's smiley and and adorable and has the biggest, best cheeks in the world. It's funny how the presence of a baby can soften the edges of a gathering. It's hard not to lighten up with a little human strapped to your stomach in a Baby Bjorn.
This is a drop box at a movie rental place in Porter Square. How the store and subsequent box still exists is beyond me (have they heard of Netflix? Hulu? Amazon Fire? YouTube? The internet?), but I'm impressed. Going to the video store and picking out a movie to watch was one of my favorite weekend evening activities when I was little (second to getting ice cream at Dairy Joy, of course). The drop box made me remember the whole process of renting a movie: Presenting the empty case to the clerk behind the counter to have them hand me the VHS tape in its generic plastic from its alphabetical slot on the sliding shelves behind them. My family probably could have bought three more houses with all the late fees we paid.
I liked these twin lights on a recent evening when I walked through Cambridge.
April showers, you know?
And now for the requisite Rosie and Snug photos.
Lion-kitty paw.
This one could probably use some explaining, huh? Every year on Patriots day people reenact the ride of Paul Revere and the calling of the Minutemen to arms that was the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The church in my hometown of Lincoln rings its bell and actors dressed as militia men run from the house they're having dinner at to go to war, as they would have in 1775. In this case, the house had a bowl of Lay's on the table in keeping with the old New England custom of Sunday dinner potato chips.
The day after I hung out with the Minutemen, I watched the Boston Marathon. I wasn't expecting to be as moved as I was, but I got to the race and burst into tears. It felt so significant after last year's tragedy to see people push others in wheelchairs along the race or make their way down the course with prosthetic limbs, and to watch the gifted athletes move with such grace. The elite women (above) ran faster at the 15-mile mark than I could run at the 1-mile mark of a 4-mile jog.
I spent the rest of Marathon Monday working from my parents' house. We have a pond at the bottom of the field in our backyard and at 6pm my dad announced that he was going to go for a canoe. He grabbed a cooler to sit on since the benches of our boat are all rotted out, and off we went. The sun was sinking low over the water as we paddled around and I felt lucky to be in the world, sporting a sunburn.
Listening to: "Stay Fly" by Three Six Mafia. Because with springtime comes rap. Everybody knows that.
