The Magic of Your Own Back Yard

After moving into my first apartment, I am beginning to experience the inevitable, perpetual tasks that come with it.  Our apartment has a brick patio in the back yard, and let's just say that there isn't much that doesn't thrive in our climate.  I spent a few hours weeding today, which isn't how I intended to spend my first day of school, but fortunately I actually find weeding to be quite relaxing.  It definitely makes you look more closely into the thriving ecosystem of your own back yard.  When I was out in the morning this one plant was absolutely covered with blue blooms, but by lunch time there wasn't a trace of blue on them.  It was truly amazing.  And I found a beautiful insect wing, and we picked some wonderful smelling flowers for our kitchen.  It continually amazes me how much you miss in the world if you just don't take the time to stop and look.

Perfection in a Chinese Take-Away Box

If you've never been to New Orleans and had a real snowball, you really don't have a clue.  No, snowballs are not like snowcones.  They are in a league of their own - the most divine combination of shaved ice drenched in homemade sugary syrups.  In the 6 days I've been in town I've already had 4 snowballs.  I think I can safely say that they are my favorite dessert (or dinner as the case may be) and the fact that you can only get them in season makes them just that much more delicious.  It's a little embarrassing, but my friend and I are such frequent customers that we even get discounts.  My personal favorite is Plum Street Snowballs because I'm such a fan of the Orchid Cream Vanilla (world's best flavor) but it's hard to come by a bad snowball in the wonderful, beautiful, exotic Crescent City.

The next best thing about being back in New Orleans is the gorgeous clouds.  They were especially spectacular from the Walmart parking lot this afternoon.  It's amazing to me how beauty truly is all around you, if only you take the time to look.  

The Perfect Ending

This week has been the perfect ending to a perfect summer.  Monday and Tuesday I went with my best friend to her beach house where we laughed until our cheeks hurt, made worms and dirt, drank margaritas and fell asleep under the stars on the porch.  Yesterday, the rest of my friends who were still in town came over and we spent the afternoon in the pool floating, relaxing, and discussing our plans of how to fend off the real world when it comes knocking on our doors next May.  I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my last week at home.  

Some of my favorite images from the summer:

The journey of trash: from Asia to the USA.

Edvard Munch's "The Scream"?

Corn lilies on the PCT.

Best Friends

The ibises.

A favorite climbing tree.

The past week has been a fun, lazy week.  I saw many of my high school friends, and it was so much fun.  We even had a sleepover, only this time it included some rum punch and margaritas in addition to the blow up mattress and bagels the next morning.  I think it was my favorite night of the whole summer.   I also went to see Inception with my parents which is by far the best movie I've seen in a very long time, and it was the subject of our whole dinner conversation.  In the evening today I went on the dock with my Mamma.  I don't think I'll ever stop being amazed by my own back yard.  A fiddler crab on the hammock managed to scuttle to the tip of the hammock, then all the way up the long chain to the piling to get away from us and we saw some ibises eating in our neighbor's yard (it was one of those unusually high tides tonight) and I picked up some bottles floating around in the marsh.  I also finished reading The Art of Travel and have a passage I would like to share with y'all that embodies the living for love philosophy.  This is what the artist John Ruskin told his pupils upon completing a course in drawing:

"Now, remember gentlemen, that I have not been trying to teach you to draw, only to see.  Two men are walking through Clare Market.  One of them comes out at the other end not a bit wiser than when he went in; the other notices a bit of parsley hanging over the edge of  a butter-woman's basket, and carries away with him images of beauty which in the course of his daily work he incorporates with it for many a day.  I want you to see things like these."

The Sights and Sounds of a Lazy Day

Today's love: the cold wind that gusts before a storm.  The tenacious, black clouds looming ever-closer.  The low hum of the wind whistling over an open beer bottle.  The last, lone sailboat slipping into the harbor.  The shrill whistling of the wind through the screens on the back porch.  The cicadas bursting into their cacophonous riot just before the storm clouds pass.



Today I started Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel and the first 50 pages promise a wonderful read.  I would recommend this book to anyone in love with the mysteries of travel.  He certainly has a way of putting into words what I have inevitably felt, at one point or another, on almost every journey I've taken.

To Begin at the Beginning

When I went on a long vacation (the epic journey that my best friend and I had been planning for the entirety of our lives) this summer all my friends wanted to keep up with me and know what I was doing and a few of them said, “Start a travel blog!”  I immediately dismissed this idea, thinking that I could never have a blog.  But then as the summer wore on I realized that for the first time I really wouldn’t be seeing some of my friends over the summer, meaning that by the time I see them again it will have been almost a year.  And I’m honestly pretty bad about keeping in touch while I’m away.  So I started to think about it.  A blog really could be a great way to keep everyone up to date on your life.  


So now I’ve created this blog, Living for Love, to keep up with friends and family, but also to incorporate a little personal side project along the way.  A few years ago I was having a hard time with everything and I noticed that however horrible a day I could be having, sitting in the windowsill in my turret window watching the full moon rising over the sea with my face pressed up against the cold glass was so soothing.  Those little moments in life could really bring me back and put everything in perspective.  For the last few months I’ve been trying to find one such moment in every day to remind me that life is beautiful.  The title comes from the Avett Brothers song Living of Love, which I find so wonderful (“and when they ask you what you’re living of/say love, say for me love”).  My goal is to fall head over heels in love with life, to live for love – love of people, love of food, love of the mundane – to find beauty in everything, and to always keep my sense of wonder.  I hope that in doing so I will also inspire others to live for love too.