One of those nights of the incredibly full moon we all walked from the river’s edge inland to the no-lane road that lopes along the border of Canada to light giant sparklers and dance in our own circles to their woozy comet trails. 
When the last one burnt out, we lay in the middle of the road spooling out in either direction knowing, somehow, no one would be coming along and looked up at the stars, made almost dim by that huge moon. It was night magic.
Category: Wanderlust
Go West and Greet The Future
O! The Spontaneous! The Joyous! The Raucous Beauty! Go West and greet a future of wildflowers, rainbow waters, and adventure. Infinite thanks for Mama for being the kind of lady who knows it’s right to spontaneously throw your arms wide when you crest a hill and see that, and for making sure I became that kind of lady too. Here, some selected beauty from our trip:
I bet you wished you…
Early this week, the starry pull of New York and the stronger gravity of possibility and serendipity allowed for the four of us— two far flung wanderers and two of us still tethered to the C train— to be all together in the same place at the same time. We ate well and stayed up late after making music, drinking wine, laughing and talking and filling in the gaps around the bullet point plans of our futures until we had to force ourselves to go to sleep (and—in the wisdom of our years— decided against our 24 year old selves’ standard midnight whiskeys). The next day, the plan was for the wanderers to continue wandering, to leave in the morning for adventure unknown. Their departure happened to coincide with alternate side parking, so as they left my block, scarves flying, horns tooting farewell, I went to do the mundane city things: drop off my laundry and move my car from one side of the street to the other. When I came back to the block to see, if in the intervening minutes, a parking spot had appeared, they were back, something forgotten, something lost in the shuffle, a phone in the wrong pocket. So, instead of trying to find parking, I just ran in, kissed sweetheart goodbye, and followed them into the wilderness. On our way out of town, we passed this billboard on the BQE, crookedy typeface graffiti: I bet you wished you… Open ended, something there wistful, maybe unfulfilled… but not for me, not right then.
So, we’re off, drafting on the winds of the power of yes.
picture from first mate, navigator, red-shoe wearer, and ultimate wing woman Ann Marie, via Instagram.
Gone South
Back this week to the sweet, slow, fertile lands of my youth. Pimento cheese, morning swims, and lots of wine here we come, y’all.
Bless my Heyerdahl: Easter Island Heads have Bodies!
Maybe it was Daddy’s worn copy of Kon Tiki that got me, the one that he loved when he was a boy, with its slick blue and adventure tan illustrations, its grainy black and white photographs of bearded, devastatingly handsome Thor Heyerdahl catching a shark with his bare hands on his way in his reed boat to prove possible trans-continental contact by ancient Polynesian navigators. Sigh. Ever since I was little I’ve loved that thought of far flung adventure, the possibility of discovery, of ancient people, of quipus and carved paddles, of petroglyphs and monoliths, and of the sea: of celestial navigation and of lodestones, the way ships grow from the horizon as the earth curves, the green flash, the dog star, and the southern cross. These mysteries somehow greater than humanity, and maybe almost older than it too. Here is Thor perched atop one of his principal pieces of evidence as to the seaworthiness of balsa rafts, the mysterious and giant Moai Easter Island Heads.
Ahhh the mystery! Who built them? How did they get there? Why were they put there? Why did they have stonework dopplegangers in the Peruvian rainforest? Some questions have only suppositions as answers and some answers lead only to more questions. The most recent answer: OH MY GOODNESS THEY HAVE BODIES NOT JUST HEADS! Leads to the next question: Why??
It’s all there: the ancient wonder, the human spark, the surprise and delight of revelation, and the Catch 22 bittersweetness that with each discovery there is one less thing to be discovered.
Last days of summer….
I came to simultaneous epiphanies the other day:
Summer is almost over! I haven’t had a lobster roll yet! AGHHHH!
No, this just won’t do. I’m a grown ass woman, master of my own destiny. So:
Thankfully, sweetheart and I had already planned to head up to Connecticut to see Bruce and Bela so we decided to make a day of it, take the slow road, and have what may be one of our last adventures of the summer. Le sigh. Lobster rolls from crookedy old Lobster Landing- Connecticut style of course (meaning hot in a griddled bun and doused in butter- after all, this was the Friday before Hurricane Mothra/Irene was coming to destroy New York, so we had better have our last hurrah and make it count). Then on to a curvy route north and inland that had us cruising by scenic (and perhaps magical/gypsy headquarters) Lake Zoar for hand dipped chocolate ice cream (for sweetheart) and (for moi) all-time-summer-favorite-and-somewhat-hard-to-find, a peach milkshake. Ahhhh, summer.
Here are some Lobster Roll Rules for those of you who, like me, enjoy rules exclusively governing sandwiches.
Wildflowers Don’t Care Where They Grow
Saw these amazing succulents growing wild on the sheer walls over the jagged caves of the Oregon coast. They’re like: See? You can make beauty in a hard place, but you’ve just got to go easy on it. Why, thank you, little cactustrees, how did you know I was feeling so introspective? See Also: Dolly Parton.
Road Jewels
Coco Chanel tells us that we must remove one bauble before leaving the house in danger of perhaps becoming tacky, or worse, vulgar. Mlle. Coco, we beseech: what if we aren’t leaving the house, per se, but rather have left home for adventure and are now streaming up from the hot spring, leaving the safety of the outcrop for the plunge of the cliff, emerging from the tent, slouching towards sunset, or craning up towards the heavens? On the road, I think, you’re free to bedeck yourself in old Moroccan corals, jet black beads of lost traders, turquoises from Santa Fe, feathers of all shapes and sizes, gilded ropes, chains, abalone strands, and shining winking bangles that ring like bells when you walk into your destiny. I think Coco would be down.
Napamazing
Next on our travels we were blown by a gilded wind into St. Helena at the gracious invitation of the divine Miss Julia Esser. Julia is a kindred spirit with a love for party games, leisure sports, floaty dresses, and making things be as lovely as they possibly can be. Please refer to her utterly stellar blog How To Hostess . We were put into teams. Us, the Road (s)Trippers (image above courtesy of the marvelous Mia Baxter, co-captain and choreographer), the Movie Stars- a group of LA beauties streaming Rickie Lee Jones and smelling of orange blossoms, and the Skidmore Skiddies- a hirsute crew of farmers and bon vivants. We made team dinners, foisted fierce competitions, and generally lolled about amidst grace and beauty. There was lavender and raw sugar to rim our drinks, there was a box full of straw hats, there were homemade elixirs of peach and berries and thyme, there were games and music playing all day and night, and there was the supreme loveliness of the place and its doyenne.
Thank you Miss Esser.
And we bought a delicious case of wine for the road. Perfect!
Tomales Bay Oyster Company
We had been in California for less than 12 hours when we debarked for the Pacific Coast Highway and our dear friends took us to Tomales Bay Oyster Company. We got two spidery mesh bags of 50 oysters each (yes, 100 oysters), buttery and fat and still fresh wet from their briny homes, shucked and raw with fresh lemon and tabasco or smoked and yawning open on the grill. Add a cast iron skillet full of sweet butter, caramelized onions and squash from the Bolinas Farmstand, crusty sourdough bread, haloumi cheese, and plenty of cold beer and, well, we are doing quite well for ourselves.
Feather By Feather 