Nothing But Snow and Sky

I enjoyed our time in Maine so much! I don't know if it was the surge of love I felt for the hubs and his side of the family as we gathered to see his grandmother, the beautiful scenery, or the thrill of exploring a new place, but they likely all played a role in how fond my memories of Maine are. 

The hubs' uncle flies his own plane (cool!) and was bringing the rest of the family with him, but due to a delay on the ground after a potential mechanical problem, the hubs and I had to pass the time until meeting them at the tiny airport in Waterville. I would have loved to tromp through the snow and get lost in the trees while we waited, but after dawdling over lunch, we didn't have time to have a true snow adventure. I contented myself with gazing out the car window in awe at the beautiful country roads and hopped out at a couple of spots to snap pictures. 

It was a cloudy day, and the sun was nowhere to be seen or felt. The wind was nipping at my fingers, but I could have stayed outside for hours. Not a soul was in sight, and with the sky melting into the snowy hills, it felt like we were enveloped in a white wonderland, just the two of us.

Eventually, we made our way to the airport, and when we saw the lights of their plane appear in the sky, it was time to put the camera and snowy daydreams away. For a short while, anyway. Just until the next cloud of whimsy takes over. :)

Sunday Currently : 10

We are headed back to DC today after a lovely past few days in Maine. Yesterday involved a lot of driving around between Portland and Bangor, visiting the LL Bean flagship store, meandering through tiny cobblestone streets, and proclaiming my love for salty seaports. As I wrote about on Friday, I enjoyed finding quiet moments in the snow, sometimes in unexpected places. It's been a very fun trip, and I can't wait for our next visit here! Be on the lookout for more Maine adventures on the blog later this week. :)

reading : Beautiful Darkness! The DC library system ordered about twenty more copies, so I was able to get mine just before we left for Maine. I'm putting A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to the side for now, and I am having a lot more fun with my new book!

writing : This post, as well as some photo-heavy posts about Maine for later this week. It will be so nice to relive our time here through these photos, and I'm already envisioning how beautiful it will be up here over the summertime if we come up for another visit. New England has my heart. 

listening :  To airport chitchat of others at our gate. The Bangor airport is tiny, and since our plane is also tiny, it's pretty quiet here right now. Our gate in DC was overwhelmingly chaotic and loud, so this is a nice and very welcome change. 

thinking :  That I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. Our Spring Break last week felt great, but I would like just one more day at home to settle back in.

smelling :  My Jo Malone orange blossom perfume. Even when it's chilly outside it reminds me of springtime. 

wishing : For a weather-beaten New England colonial or a toasty little cottage in northern Michigan... snow is not optional. I've been having lots of house fantasies this past week, and I'm crossing my fingers that some of my dream homes can become a reality at some point in our lives. Even if it's just doing Airbnb. :)

hoping :  That the hubs gets over his cold soon! He was hit hard and suddenly on Friday, so hopefully he'll feel better when we get back home. I'm also hoping that I am spared...

wearing :  My black Minnies (seriously, if you don't have a pair, you need to get them!), my new chambray from J. Crew Factory, and a new-to-me gray cable knit cashmere scarf that my brother-in-law gave me this weekend when I said that I liked it on him. Win!

loving : Maine, snow, New England, and family. Life is really good. :)

wanting : To see friends and family in NYC. I've been trying to pick a good weekend to go up, but it's been harder than anticipated! Hopefully this will happen sometime in March before things get too crazy at the end of the school year. New York, you beckon me. 

needing :  To pay attention to our boarding call. Don't leave without me! As much as I love Maine, I have a kooky cat waiting for me at home!

feeling :  Slightly frazzled from rushing through the airport. We board in a few minutes, and since the pace of life up here is much slower than DC, I started to get frustrated with how slow airport security was moving. Argh!! I need to remember to take deep breaths and tell myself that getting annoyed with somebody's languid pace is unfair to them and that I need to chill. Ommm.

clicking :  On lots of blogs. I haven't been keeping up with my internet reading the past few days, and posts are piling up. The Fresh Exchange is activating all sorts of yearning for Michigan, as is Tina's song post from last week, which is actually pretty amusing to me since when the hubs and I first started dating, I had no interest in the mitten-shaped state whatsoever. As often happens over time, when he won me over, I found place in my heart for Michigan, too. Don't you love it when you find a new blog to swoon over?

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Finding Solitude in Maine

While all the hip college kids are spending their Spring Breaks partying it up in Cancun and the DR, we adults have traveled to a land even colder than where we came from: Maine. The hubs and I are here to visit his grandmother, and while I do love a good sprawl on the beach with an adult beverage by my side, I also love the winter. In Maine there is actual snow! My snow-loving side has been deprived all season in DC, and it is finally getting the satisfying crunch of snow piles beneath my boots. I think I'm in love. It's serious. 

We are staying in a small town called Skowhegan, about an hour from Bangor. There is not much to do, but there are lots of lovely sprawling fields covered in snow, so I have loved just absorbing our surroundings. On the drive here, in between the snow-covered fields and quirky shops, we happened to pass a tiny cemetery, and I pleaded with the hubs to turn around so we could visit it. Is that totally creepy, or do others also get a little thrill when they see those crumbling headstones from over a century ago? I think it's the sense of history and the solemn quiet of cemeteries that I love so much, or maybe the sadness of the weather-beaten headstones whose messages are so faint that they seem no more than a whisper. Either way, I think they can be exceptionally beautiful places. 

I would have loved to spend more time there, but with family members to pick up at the airport, I was only able to indulge for a few quick moments. As I crunched through the snow reading the names on the headstones, I was so moved by how old the cemetery was. Some of the dates I could make out were from the 1870s. Imagining those people's lives at such a different time was bittersweet, and I would have easily lost myself in nostalgia for times I never knew had I been able to walk amongst the stones for longer. As it was, it was an oddly nice way to steal a few moments of solitude on a cold winter afternoon in Maine.

Bursts of Colorful Spring

As I write this, it's snowing outside, but yesterday was one of those beautiful days where spring is rustling around you, and you wear your winter coat with the buttons unbuttoned, and you wish you had  your sunglasses with you. It was one of those days where you think that maybe, just maybe, this is the last day you will wear your winter coat.

We had a fun day yesterday. The hubs and I did some exploring in Northeast DC, an area of the city that I know very little about. The purpose of our journey was to check out Fort Totten, but since that area is mainly residential with not much going on, we ended up hopping up one metro stop to Takoma.

Ah, Takoma.

This neighborhood has some major cuteness. We passed an intriguing antiques store that sadly was not open, an alluring shop with Turkish jewelry and scarves, and a promising bistro. We strolled down the street, excitedly pointing out our new surroundings, saying things like, "Oh, my dad would love that," and "What a pretty library!" It gave us such a good feeling, and even though the hustle and bustle of the city seemed worlds away, I felt okay with that. The colors popped out at me, and they made me believe that spring was here.

Crumbling, Abandoned, and Beautiful

The hubs and I at Michigan Central Station in Detroit

Photo Credit: Von Wormer Photography

Photo Credit: Von Wormer Photography

I'm not exactly sure why, but I love abandoned, rundown buildings. I love the ones with broken windows, sagging doorways, and trees growing inside. I love their eerie stillness, and I love their sadness. I love them.

There's an element of romance to these buildings that makes me imagine what they must have been like during the times they possessed more life than the birds nesting in their beams. It makes me imagine how different they might have looked when somebody was putting love into their upkeep. Would these structures still make me pause, and would they still make me gaze up with wonder if they were not abandoned?

There's just something about Michigan Central Station that is so beautiful and tragic to me, which I suppose could be said about much of Detroit in general. This place in particular used to be the city's train hub, but it eventually shut its doors in the late 80s after years of dwindling passenger service and the departure of Amtrak. This massive building, once a space of hustle and bustle, is now just so quiet. I've never been inside since that's a tad illegal, and I would be too scared of falling through a rotting floor, but I swoon over photos taken by urban explorers, each frame exposing me to the beauty that has found a way to survive amidst neglect. 

The city is supposedly working to renovate the building by removing asbestos and starting on the massive repairs needed after years of abandonment. Who knows if MCS will ever open its doors again? I just hope that a building this beautiful finds a way to stick around and stay strong.

Sunday Currently : 9

What a weekend! Today is the hubs' 28th birthday, and we went out last night to the Bier Baron, formally known as the Brickskeller, for a casual evening of beers and burgers with our friends. After everyone settled in, that quickly devolved into more beers than burgers, playing pool, and the hubs befriending a duo of Norwegian dudes who broke his heart by not believing that his family is part Norwegian. It was a ridiculous night and very fun, so we're all moving a bit slow this morning. Note to self: Drink more water!

This morning is another meeting of Brunch Club with my girlfriends, so I will be bouncing off to Oyamel for delicious Mexican fare, hopefully working in a quick run later this afternoon, and then taking the hubs out to birthday dinner at El Centro DF. I love birthdays, and I'm really enjoying celebrating with the hubs today. Hurrah!

reading : A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Still. I'm about halfway through now, and it's getting easier, but I think it's safe to say that this book just doesn't thrill me. I'm next in the queue to get Beautiful Darkness from the library, and I hope that it comes in the next couple of days!

writing : Not much besides this post. I'm not sure what I want to do for posts this week, though since I have off from my clinical placement this week, I'm hoping to work through my Project DC list a little bit. 

listening : To The Wire playing in the background. We're on the third season now after taking a very long hiatus, and I'm glad that we're back to it. What a great show! The hubs and I somehow never watch shows like this when they're on the air and end up getting into it a few years after they've ended. Better late than never. :)

thinking : Of what I'm in the mood for at brunch. I remember loving whatever I had last time we went there for brunch, but the details of what we ordered are hazy. Looks like I'll just have to experiment all over again! 

smelling : Fried eggs and coffee. Mmmm.

wishing :  For a well-timed metro train. With weekend track work, it's very unpredictable when the next train will be, and I hope I'm not waiting on the platform for a long time. This girl needs her brunch!

hoping :  That I get to play around with our camera during our short jaunt up to Maine later this week. I've never been before, so I'm looking forward to exploring a new area. I think that they're also getting some snow up there, so I'm excited for some beautiful, white powder!! My love affair with snow was sorely lacking this winter in DC. Maine, don't disappoint me. 

wearing :  My trusty black Minnies, a new navy gingham shirt, and a pair of gold earrings from Turkey that I thought I had lost but found in a cardboard box yesterday while cleaning. Oh, the joys of hidden treasures!

loving :  The hubs! :) 

wanting :  Juice of some kind. This is kind of random, I know, but as I write this, I'm really thirsty and keep thinking about fresh-squeezed orange juice. Mmmm. 

needing :  To get moving so I'm not dreadfully late for brunch. I am multitasking like whoa this morning! 

feeling :  Sleepy and dehydrated, but very happy. The hubs and I have such a nice group of friends, and on weekends like this when I get to see them a lot, it feels good to be reminded of how wonderful they are. Laughter is good for the soul. :)

clicking :  On news about the current state of Detroit (here, here, and here). This is the hubs' hometown, and though I don't love it as much as he does, it makes both of us really sad to see what's happening. There are so many promising changes happening in the city, but the reality is that it is also in serious trouble. Le sigh. Detroit, hang in there!

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My Body Manifesto

What would you put in your body manifesto? What do you declare for yourself? What are your rights, and what do you deserve?