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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sun tea in large mason jars

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Summer is soon soon soon. And this is soon . . .

[copied from an e-mail from one lovely girl]

sun tea made in large mason jars
blake gardens
botanical gardens (uc and tilden)
find a lake, because
read a book aloud to each other
go up early to the hills to watch the sunrise
watch the sunset from the back of the whale (all will be explained)
eat lots of homemade seaweed soup
the ocean, naturally there is the ocean
forever picnics
vintage spelunking
cooking, lots of this
excellent films
the book shops
babette cafe on tuesday afternoons
the bell tower, such a view
the drunken boat, french cafe, live music nights
cheeseboard pizzas
free day at the sf moma
golden gate park
bare feet
MARY OLIVER IS A SAINT
tale of the yak
definitely breakfast trays in bed while watching movies at 10am on the weekend
walks to the bakery to get bread
going to work together at the museum
backpacking
rilke.yeats.eliot.dickinson.others
bubble tea

I have an inkling that this will be a good summer.
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peace and rivers

Someday I will live by the sea and wake to a mingling of fog and blue every morning.

And Em and I are currently at the Festival of Faith and Writing. Completely overwhelmed by creative inspiration and books and poems and people and wonderfulness. And we met Luci Shaw tonight. I had her sign a book for me, and she wrote, "Peace and rivers, Luci." Isn't that lovely? Maybe I will start signing my name that way. Or maybe "Peace and sea." That doesn't quite have the same ring to it though.

Peace and rivers to all tonight.

[picture from maine last summer - just want to be back there . . . ]
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that is why our music is so sweet

These days and weeks of late have been full of more goodness than I could have possibly imagined. Warm and sunshine-y and slow, full of bike rides, picnics, cappuccinos, and bookstores. Do you ever just stop for a moment and feel so blessed and wish that your capacity to accept the blessings could increase?

My very very very favorite poem. (I think.)

An African Elegy
[by Ben Okri]

"We are the miracles that God made
To taste the bitter fruit of Time.
We are precious.
And one day our suffering
Will turn into the wonders of the earth.

There are things that burn me now
Which turn golden when I am happy.
Do you see the mystery of our pain?
That we bear the poverty
And are able to sing and dream sweet things.

And that we never curse the air when it is warm
Or the fruit when it tastes so good
Or the lights that bounce gently on the waters?
We bless the things even in our pain.
We bless them in silence.

That is why our music is so sweet.
It makes the air remember.
There are secret miracles at work
That only Time will bring forth.
I too have heard the dead singing.

And they tell me that
This life is good
They tell me to live it gently
With fire, and always with hope.
There is wonder here

And there is surprise
In everything the unseen moves.
The ocean is full of songs.
The sky is not an enemy.
Destiny is our friend."

[all lovely film pictures by heather]
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