Summer Dreamin’

The fluffy tops of the white clouds outside my window are gently dusted in pale, yellow light. Soon, the light will fade and the sky will transform into a dusty blue, underneath a strip of hazy orange — the sunset — and dots of human lights will begin to emerge underneath us. Crammed into an airplane seat, next to a guy who continuously asks to have his plastic cup — with straw — refilled and flinches every time I move, I’m suffering from a raging sunburn, pouring through summer magazines packed with riffs on tacos with mango-avocado salsa, and struggling to hold back to tears watching Channing Tatum recover his marriage with a girl who’s permanently lost her memory. The Newark airport was swimming with activity and aggressively impatient people today, likely due to the 100-person long lines at every point of the check-in-security-boarding process. Luckily I have a Priority Access card to flash around the minute a line forms, and have made great use of UPS’ shipping abilities for all my extra clothes (please don’t inquire after the number of boxes). Then, once we were finally boarded, we sat for two hours because our pilot was missing in action.

We spent my last day at Princeton on the Jersey Shore, at Pleasant Point. We didn’t make much use of the roller coasters, but we played an aggressive game of beach soccer and got rough-hosed by the chilly waves, which suck you under the surface for a couple of terrifying, brain-freezing seconds. As the day got windy, we sat in the sand playing cards and eating a pizza the size of a large beach ball. Fleeing the wind, we piled back into the cars and joined Jersey traffic on the way home.

The next day, I woke up on the other coast, to my brother getting ready for school, to the birds chirping in the backyard, to the sun shining through the skylights in the kitchen. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, with fresh tomatoes and guacamole on a tortilla, true California breakfast. With a side of milky black tea and my mom’s snickerdoodle cookies.

Strawberry fingers

The sun is finally shining consistently, and, despite being in the midst of finals and the frantic packing of my dorm room into boxes for the summer, all I can think about is swimming pools and carnivals. Which is great, because there’s a carnival with a slip n’ slide, dunk tank and ice cream sundae bar planned today on the lawn outside my dorm. I can’t wait.

We’ve been loading up on summer activities, despite the onslaught of schoolwork. The other day we went strawberry picking at the local orchard, gathered about 10 cartons of strawberries, many of which went into a delicious strawberry pie later that week (that, when the microwave disappeared the day we wanted to make chocolate covered strawberries). We played on the (stationary) tractor and pet the goats and delighted in a little childhood fun.

The trip had the feeling of bookending this year, which started with a trip to the orchards for apple picking in September. Some new faces, some old. This year has been somewhat of a roller coaster, but I’m grateful that these last couple of months have been mostly smooth sailing. Now all that’s left is a couple of days in the sun, a trip to UPS, one last exam, and a flight home. And hopefully, hopefully, a day at the Shore this weekend (fingers crossed).



The still-warm pie becomes a puddle of strawberry juice.

Full-brimmed hats and honey bees

This past week has been filled with party dresses, backwards walking (and stumbling), and chocolate chip cookies. It culminated yesterday with champagne, sun hats and an epic brunch in the backyard by the beach volleyball court — fajitas, almond croissants, blackberries, and mimosas. Some pushing and shoving in the crowds for Timeflies and Childish Gambino. Some cooling off in the fountain, and then a lazy night with lasagna and Game of Thrones.

And then, as if on cue, the sun is gone and I’m in the atrium library paging through Blood Meridian, looking for quotes demonstrating the relationship between horrific violence and humanity. I’m now settling into a routine of run, yoga — rediscovering weird twists that I thought were totally normal when I was 10-years-old —, lunch, library. It’s not so bad, but every time I sit down to write the 50 pages of required writing due next week, I start thinking about things I would rather be writing about. The lovely chocolate chip nuggets pictured below that may give my mom’s cookies a run for their money. The growing list of things I would love to be baking right now: coconut muffins, strawberry shortcake, peach pie. And then, on a rougher note, this weekend, I started thinking about how different things at school will be next year — and that’s going to take awhile to process.