Reconnecting With America

Hello from Princeton, which is where I last left you. In the month of August, I went Up North with my family to a cabin in Michigan, and then out West to visit my bestie Lauren in Denver, and then further west to Bozeman Montana for Adam’s cousin’s wedding, which was lovely. After, I made the what some might call crazy decision to tour Glacier National Park with my in-laws (without Adam who had to get back to class) and I was the lone “youngster” in a crew of 60 and 70-year-olds. It was an adventure! Mostly pretty great though, and I can attest that while Glacier no longer has many Glaciers (and the few little ones they do have are expected to melt by 2030), it’s a gem of a National Park (aren’t they all?) replete with sparkling lakes and rivers, mountains, and tinged with the hidden danger of lurking bears, both black and grizzly.

Below are my favorite snaps from that three-week cobbled together “home leave.”

Tawas, Michigan

Denver, Colorado

Bozeman and Glacier National Park, Montana

I started typing this blog to be a Princeton Patio Reveal, but as is often the case, the preamble rambled and let’s just now call this post lots of photos and a bit of an update.

So, as I said, back in Princeton, where school has officially started, and grappling with all the usual just-moved-to-a-new-place stuff, like my workout routine. Princeton has a decent enough gym and I have access to that, but during a recent workout, it proved difficult to find an iota of floor space where I could do my HIIT workout and I realized that I don’t love a crowded gym. I do, however, love walking and jogging on a nearby canal, so I’ve been doing that a bit, and still doing regular Aaptive workouts, which got me through COVID in Algeria. I have a new design client and am still making strides toward officially launching my design consulting business, Next Dinner Party Designs. Oh, we had our first dinner party in our new place, which is always a sign of settling in! I finally finished Henry James’ The Golden Bowl, a beast of a novel whose actually juicy plot is overshadowed by interior dialogue so verbose it almost seems like a joke. But the thing that made me the happiest about living on a college campus is the recent author talk I attended. I love a literary lecture something fierce and I once attended a panel talk of mystery writers that was entirely in Hebrew and it boosted my mood immeasurably. This Princeton lecture was a famous poet interviewing experimental tap dance artist Michael J. Love and author Jennifer Egan. Just walking through the grassy campus past old brick buildings on a cool late summer night en route to a hearing creative people share was the serotonin boost of the week. Hearing the artists discuss similarities in their respective creative processes was thrilling and I especially loved when Egan quoted her friend, a sculptor who told her “The work makes the work.” So many times recently I’ve done something that has turned into something else, for instance, in writing this very blog post. I thought it was about my yard, but it turns out I wanted to say something else. You often don’t know what you’re creating until you start creating it.

More soon (yes, the yard reveal!)

Emily