Banana Bread

 

Thursday afternoon, my mom sent me the following message: "Where's your banana bread recipe? I can't find it on your blog." 

This tickled me in two ways - 1) my mom - who did not grow up baking - wanted to bake in the middle of a busy work season, and 2) my mom considers this sporadically maintained blog a recipe box! 

Autumn Portraits: Meet the Robinsons

Meet the Robinsons: No need to travel to the future to experience love so other-worldly. The hallways of your heart may be dark and full of cracks, but they're on a mission to fill every crevice, nook, and cranny, one spoonful of love and cake at a time.

Olive Oil Cake with Figs

Inspired by a recent trip to Barcelona Wine Bar with my mom - it's been a good year or so since my imagination was tickled after eating food away from home!

Webster Woods

 

July 4, 2020

The woods are where the living, the breathing, and the wild tower over my head. As I wander, the day’s soft light spills across sturdy bark spines made resilient with age. The branches whisper “peace, be still;” they are rooted to the tree on restoration’s path. In this sacred space, I reconnect with the quiet spirits of curiosity and wonder. I feel them, in my bones, reawakened and renewed with energy. These trees, so full of life, impart much life to me

Sunday Dialogues: August

Augusts are highly anticipated, full of changes to come and memories to be made. 

Five Augusts ago, with a plane ticket to Atlanta in hand, I hugged my brother with tears streaming down both our faces. We'd always been two peas in a pod, so close that when traveling, we'd take advantage of our anonymity and pretend we were twins, so mischievous that relatives would mistake us for one another over the phone. We had never lived apart from one another, and 2015 marked the first of many transition-filled Augusts to come. 

Year after year, August wrapped up summer jobs and internships, bookmarked church friendships, opened the door to a new address and a new community. August brought on the friction caused by the desire to be on your best behavior rubbing against the struggle to muster up grace when you're sweating and hauling heavy crates of books up another disappointing set of creaky stairs. It often ended with more emotional pivots, the bittersweet exchange of "be good, okay?", and afterwards, the first lonely night, unpacking with music to fill the silence, wondering if this academic year, things would be different. 

100 Days: Princeton

Why, suddenly, even the familiar is capable of masking itself as unfamiliar.

100 Days: Quarantined with the Cais

Snippets from the moments in between. March - June, 2020. 

100 Days: Evening Walks

Most nights after dinner, no matter how wonderful or heated our mealtime discussions were, Mom and I found ourselves wandering around our neighborhood, gathering landscaping inspiration, admiring dogs, waving to neighbors we didn't know. We'd try to alternate routes or discover new ones, but our feet typically traced the footsteps of nights before. 

100 Days: Institute Woods

Few places provide me the same peace, comfort, and quiet as the woods. There, the only sounds are leaves rustling, birds calling to one another, and the soft thump of my sneakers sinking into early spring dirt. I look up and around at the canopy that towers high above my head. Stooping down, there's a microcosm of insects that catch my eye, scurrying busily, perhaps unaware I'm watching. 

When I began to live and work in other places, I realized I craved the rich greenery I grew up with. Looking out the windows on my train rides home after a long day in the city, I'd feel my mind slow its pace as I watched the scenery shift from a grey, concrete jungle to forests, alive and breathing. 

Hello from Hungary: An Evening on the Danube

When the heat of the day has shifted to a cool breeze, it's time to trade your adventurer's sneakers for a glass of champagne and a seat on a river cruise.  

Hello from Hungary: Day Trip to Szentendre

Tin-Lok and Zsuzsanna, our expert (and beloved) guides, made the trek from their home into Budapest to take us to Szentendre by train - after a breakfast of raspberry pie from McDonald's. We're so grateful for our friends' generous time and gracious hospitality. Through them, we were able to taste, literally and figuratively, more of Hungary than we would have on our own.

Hello from Hungary: The Pest Side

I didn't have a car to drive in college, and with an infrequent public transportation system, I got used to walking. The repetitive motion of walking through my usual paths gave me time to clear my head and calm down in the middle of an agenda-filled day without worrying I'd miss my destination. 

Walking also helped me see my campus differently. I noticed when my favorite trees started changing color. I paid attention to the sunrise reflected in a puddle. Not only was the repetitiveness of walking calming, it made me a more observant photographer, sensitizing me to unique compositions that I would've easily overlooked had I zoomed by in a car. 

Hello from Hungary: Budapest's Jewish Quarter || Remembering for Reconciliation

Ghetto Memorial Wall, Budapest, Hungary
June 2019

There are so many feelings but so few words to express them.

We were standing on the bank of the Danube this time last year. And one year later, we are living a new, surreal reality - a new "normal." The pain, grief, and burdens that our brothers and sisters carry in their bones, passed down like genes, ought not to be normal. You can feel it, can't you? Deep within your core, the invisible but deadly things that are destroying our world -  be it germs, capitalistic greed, or the sin of racism - are not right. We're divinely anointed with an innate sense of "what ought to be." We know this isn't it.

Hello from Hungary: The Buda Side

Postcards from: Vienna

Palaces, operas, sachertorte - there are plenty of reasons to visit Austria's glimmering capital. It's steeped in a rich musical heritage, from Mozart and Beethoven to today's Vienna Boys' Choir. And if you're a facade lover, you don't have to step much farther from its baroque streets. Vienna's imperial architecture and sophisticated charm will straighten your spine to walk like the royals do. But as regal as Wien looks, you'll find that the locals don linen shirts and breezy trousers during a summer heat wave. Come with an international palate, too, because like New Yorkers, 40% of Viennese report a foreign origin. 

Sunday Dialogues: There's Light We Cannot See

Mud soaked sneakers squish over tufts of straw. The late afternoon rays of gold cast a yellow tint over the green fields. I lift my eyes to receive the warmth and a gentle wind carries me over the dried, dirt footprints left by a tractor. 

Vibrant, red lungs expand and contract. There's ease. The soft hum of Spanish verses travel sweetly from my ears to my heart. The voices don't bother me anymore. He's running besides me; I feel it. From the expansive pastures of Bull Run, my feet become acquainted with the gnarled tree trunks snaking across Monkey Run. The branches whisper silently, welcoming me as I search hungrily for the sleek, grey cliffs. 

Postcards from: Salzburg

An ode of camera and iPhone photos to remember the sunshine city that made us skip and whistle to the Sound of Music.

Sailing the Salzkammergut

Sometimes, all you can manage to say is "wow." 

Postcards from: Bavaria (Munich, Oberammergau, Regensburg)

There's too many good things to say about Germany. You'll find high-speed, efficient technology everywhere you look, wind turbines that line the autobahns, people who are kind and meticulously organized, and plenty of excuses for kuchen und kaffee. The dark times underlying Germany's history aren't forgotten, either. In fact, reminders are ubiquitous - inscribed on cobblestones, raised in conversations with the gravity of regret and a grassroots determination for change. 

Bavaria marked my third time stepping foot on German soil, but this was my first visit to the south. Here, the pace of life felt more relaxed. German pride manifested in bold oompah music, artisan goods at the market, lederhosen, really good ice cream, and bier, of course. Of all the "German things" we previously tried, there was, and still is, more to discover.

Faith for the Vision

Far above Cayuga's waters, my alma mater stands proud and tall, sprawling across countless... hills.

Of all the memories I've left campus with, many of them include the relentless treks up to class. Can you imagine walking hiking 480 ft. up Libe Slope when the snow wasn't shoveled yet? Back in March of 2017, when we had the worst snowstorm the region's seen for some time, students celebrated the first snow day in over a decade by skiing down the slope. It's the scapegoat for why we're late to class, the curse we mutter under our breath when we get to class all hot and sweaty in February, and the vantage point to see the best sunsets over the city.