I’ve been thinking on something lately, and that is that I do not read blogs for information, but for narrative. And due to how little time I’ve been dedicating to this blog the last 3 or 4 years, it’s become far too many travel details, and far too little story. Trying to remedy that here now. (Attention: only Alie iPhone photos ahead!)

So, here’s where we are in this whole big world: travel is our escape from a city we love and hate fifty times each day, and so to write about it is also a bit of an escape from the things that truly make up life: pushing the elevator button three times so no one shares the elevator and I can check my outfit in the elevator mirror, the walk to the train, deciding when to cross the street to avoid pigeons (me) or pass closer to the fluffy golden retriever puppy that is a new resident on our block (Walker), and on it goes. We sigh when the ice cream truck finds a spot on the curb below us on a weekend day, resigned to motor vibrations for the afternoon, the slight shake of the windows. 

We’ve officially lived on the same block in Brooklyn for 7 full years now, and I can hardly remember who we were when we moved here, other than incredibly hot, unused to NYC summer heat. 

There have been mounds of highlights each year in the city: small promotions, new piers opening in the park, incredible meals at incredible restaurants, getting a blackout shade (still dreaming of the type that zips directly to the wall though!). There have been lowlights too: crying neighbor babies waking us hours too early, months of migraines piled up (recently: so, so many), missed trains, delayed trains, hot trains, sweaty trains.  Not sure how to wash sneakers as the washing machine will be too loud in the small apartment.

I’ll try to keep sharing these small things, and not just the trips that demarcate time. We try to walk each evening the weather is amenable, which lately hasn’t been often in the evening heat, and we talk about work and the world and where we wish we were (Scotland, always). If we ever leave, this is what I will surely miss the most; our route through the park that has grown with our time here.  Some highlights from the past weeks: 

Ribbons of CSA carrots, my constant joy and puzzle, figuring out how to use all the veggies and fruits each week. Mainly, I’ve been making peach crumble, adapting the linked recipe for peaches. 

Team building for work on Governor’s Island, a place that without fail gives me a headache for lack of shade, but which I return to for the slides. I can’t help myself. 

A incredibly rejuvenating weekend in Minnesota, thanks to Walker’s family. The biggest thrill? Riding the alpine slide. East coast peeps, we have been missing out. It's like a warm-weather luge track with plastic sleds, and you ride up a ski lift over wildflowers to get there. But also, sitting by the lake, hearing the water lap, was the best.

Making it through each day despite pain in my head, my companion that leaves occasionally and stays long these summer months. Thankful you all come back to read our updates, some over a year delayed! Stay tuned for some photos from our recent trips to Maine and Minnesota (real photos, not phone photos!)

With love, from Brooklyn.