breakfast in berkeley

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I woke up last week to a breakfast of pumpkin pancakes with maple syrup, blueberries, and prunes. Add to that Norah Jones and flannel pajamas and sunlight streaming through bamboo shades and a steaming mug of red bush tea. (All thanks to this lady.) Life in Berkeley has been like living in a work of art.

"Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and well-provisioned breakfast table." (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

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north shore sunset

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Us three girls went on a coastal drive to find the sunset on our last evening in Boston. We never really found it, I suppose you could say, but the drive was the best part anyway: listening to music with the windows down and humming our way through quintessential New England towns.

Massachusetts, I like you.

[all film photos from a stop we made along the drive]
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boston commons

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 A few film shots from my time in Boston last week with Emma, Michael, Heather, and Tom. Such a wonderfully small-feeling city. It was rainy and cloudy all day, so we spent most of our time going in and out of coffee shops and bookstores.

A few favorites from the day:

+ Paris Creperie - Michael found us this little Parisian creperie in Brookline. Emma and I shared a brie, apple, and cinnamon crepe. I used to think I didn't like crepes, but I don't think that anymore.

+ Brattle Book Shop - A used bookstore ("one of America's largest and oldest") near Boston Commons with an outdoor section in the alleyway. Bought a beautiful mustard yellow 1954 copy of Fear and Trembling for a dollar!

+ Black Ink - A wonderful little paper and "unexpected necessities" shop in Harvard Square with lots of Weck jars and letter-pressed cards.

+ Clover - A locally-sourced food truck near Boston Commons. Tom bought some beer-battered bananas and let us all have a bit of those tasty little things.
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crepuscular suspending spectrums

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I am home for a week here before I take off again for a little Californian adventure, with a wayside stop through Boston to visit some friends. I feel very independent to be packing up my suitcase alone and planning time in far away places. I like to travel alone, but I am grateful that there will be dear faces to meet me at each of the stops along the way.

I have also decided that this shall be the Summer of Poetry, or something like that. Basically, I have three goals: (1) Read more contemporary poetry. (2) Always carry a book of poems in my shoulder bag. (3) Write seventy-five poems. That's five a week with one week of vacation. I know this sounds over-the-top, but I haven't pushed myself to do something hard recently. And maybe it will help me see if I really like doing this thing that I simultaneously find excruciating and freeing. I am scared to write this here, but I thought sharing my summer project with the world would force me to actually hold myself a bit more accountable to it.

And after one week, this is what I have learned: to write you have to love words, to really really really love them. To notice them, say them out loud, whisper them at night when you can't fall asleep, keep a log of them with you at all times, underline your favorite ones when you are reading books, just fall in love with the sound of them. Spectrum. Fester. Suspend. Disparage. Crepuscular. 

[click for pc - jess, you and I are taking a picture like this soon]
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