Strangely enough, during the pandemic I got to speak and give more presentations than ever before. Zoom made it possible for me to get involved in activism, the indie publishing scene, entrepreneurship, and more.
Prior to Covid, I had only given a few talks. I had given an art talk at an exhibit opening and a few academic conferences. But with Covid, I found myself pursuing more and more things I never had the chance to given my schedule and work commitments.
I don’t necessarily dislike public speaking, or have a great fear of it, like my husband does. When I had the opportunity to share about my small publishing business at a local organization, I jumped at the chance. It ended up being a wonderful evening where I met so many great women. A lot of women shared their stories and it was inspiring to listen to how everyone has their own passion and it’s up to us to pursue it, and support one another.
It doesn’t matter where I am, I absolutely love bookstores.
It all started when I was little. My mom would let me have my pick of anything at Border’s. As I got older, I loved going to Half Price Books in Austin. I knew that the downtown location had gems in different languages, and the one by my house always had a good sale in the CD section. I spent hours in high school at a comic bookstore a little more south than where I grew up, and felt adult buying graphic novels and hanging out with people outside of my Northwest Austin suburb.
I got acquainted with my city more after I got to know other bookstores in college. The beautiful Chicano art book store on the East side, and the weirdo basement bookstore on the drag with the conspiracy books, and the bookstore where all the cool people went on first dates downtown called Book People.
Since I’ve moved to New England, I’ve also discovered the local bookstore scene as well. The dusty ones with stacks of yellowed pages are my favorite. I’ve been to book festivals and I’ve taken part in local book fairs. I’ll always have a home in local bookstores.
Moving to a new state and getting guests for the first time means gifts, celebrations, and most importantly, cards. I collect every card I receive in this scrapbook.
My favorite thing about my family is that they are just as sentimental as I am. We prefer to write and our feelings certainly come out in our cards that we write to each other.
The best thing about making friends abroad is being able to send each other care packages and write letters.
It started when I was seven and moved away from Tucson. I kept in touch with my cousins and my best friend through letters. Even though we had email and could text soon after, writing letters never lost it’s charm.
I typically do not enjoy my birthday because of built-up anxiety and wanting to make the day perfect but a fun fact is that my 28th birthday was the very first day of lockdown.
It was the beginning of some of the best years. I finally had time to breathe and sit and create and sleep. I got engaged on my birthday and married a year later. For many, many, many people quarantine was a struggle but for me, it was a special bittersweet time where I felt happy and weightless like never before.
I received two cards from two very dear friends on this day. They’re still some of my favorite letters I have ever received.
Looking at this brings me back to when quarantine started, where everything was uncertain but all I knew was what I had in my life and my house was good.
My sister got married in Phoenix, which made it the third time I have gone in three years. I’ve always had Tucson loyalty but Phoenix is slowly winning me over with the food and bars. Yeah, it’s that easy for me to love a city.
This winter, I learned to ski. And not only that – I grabbed skiing by the horns. Or the poles.
I took three lessons at Bolton Valley, a mountain about 40 minutes from my house. I heard about it from just about everyone living here that was the preferred mountain for locals. I got to know the trails very well and went over ten times this winter season.
I only had to take a few small breaks, when I injured my toe and had to learn a thing or two about ski boots. They are very painful and my barefoot-leaning feet do not do well in them. I had to bring them to the alpine shop many times to get them fixed up. Not only that, with huge calves, they cut up my circulation regardless of the temperature and conditions outside. So they are still far from perfect. I’ve had to learn a lot more about the culture of skiing than I had to learn about techniques and strategies, in my opinion.
Still. I had a great winter. Reminiscing on how wonderful it was to learn and feel comfortable on the mountain is a real treat!
Near the end of the season I got a hold of a few free passes and jumped at the chance to visit a mountain I had never been on. I really wanted to try Smuggler’s Notch. It is the mountain that’s closest to home, that many locals go. I got to go to during a weekday off season, when it wasn’t snowing anymore. However, it was still a great time.
Smuggler’s Notch was different from my “home” mountain for many reasons.
First of all, Bolton is 40 minutes South whereas Smuggler’s Notch is 40 minutes north. So the alpine and climate is a bit different. It’s more conifers, spruces, and firs up there, so it feels more winter-y, even on a sunny day. There are definitely more log-cabins along the road as you drive up.
Secondly, Smuggler’s Notch is more family friendly. There’s more of a walking area in the parking lot and lodge to hang out inside and outside. There’s more signage and there’s a lot of decorations reminiscent of a kid’s theme park in the 80’s – like elves, fairies, and random trippy animals painted on the side of lifts and walls. At any given time, there are more group lessons going on. There’s childcare for skiiers. And there’s a Magic Carpet lift. And lastly, there’s playful little nooks and playscapes for really young children to try. At Bolton, there is almost no kids stuff, like at all.
Third of all, the paths at Smuggler’s Notch are much much more wide. So as a beginner, I’m less afraid of falling off the side. Even the manmade snow was slushy, and not as icy as it is at Bolton.
After my fantastic afternoon at Smuggler’s Notch – there’s a few things I walk away with. First, that I really enjoy my time alone in the mountains. I might never have this period of uncertainty during the winter again, so I cherish being about to ski as much as I did in the time that I did. I also am considering a season pass here next year, as the trails were much more at my level. They were less steep and more wide. I’d have to try it out a few more times with Casey and see what he thinks.
For Casey and my one year marriage anniversary, it was also pretty much the one year anniversary of us deciding to move to Vermont. We decided about this time last March to move here.
To celebrate this amazing time as an end to the most wonderful year, we decided to do a few things we love best about the Green Mountain state.
First of all, we went skiing at Jay Peak. For those who don’t know, Jay Peak is like the ultimate ski mountain in Vermont. It’s powdery unlike the rest of the Ice Coast. It’s pretty far away from the rest of the state and the rest of humanity here, so it’s a trip that you have to take intentionally.
Prior to skiing at Jay, Casey and I had only skiied together one time this season. We are still getting used to each other on the slopes. On the other hand, I had been skiing a lot this winter.
Even on a Saturday morning, the slopes were packed. There were so many excited skiiers and snowboarders on the lift. We definitely felt the festive winter energy. Nothing is better than a sunny day on the mountain.
The next day, we went home and decided to book a night at the Hilton in downtown Burlington to spend our anniversary night. Since we live outside of Burlington, it’s not like we don’t get to go there about once a week. However, making a special trip out of it made it even better.
Next door to the hotel was an amazing restaurant we had heard about from all our friends – Hen of the Woods.
It was a perfect treat – grassfed meat and the most amazing vegetable dishes by candlelight. We loved everything we ordered and felt like we were on cloud nine. Even Casey loves to be pampered.
I did not expect to like this small town very much but I’m glad I was wrong. Harvard’s campus is wonderfully picturesque, but I loved their university museum most of all. I even became a member. I’ve never supported a museum before this so this is my amazing venture into being an adult with cash I can use to support *~philanthropic causes~*
Every witchy girl has a bucket list destination, and it’s Salem, Massachusetts. Myself included, I had to visit during a Halloween. For the weeks leading up to the trip, I read posts on Reddit about how much locals hate the tourists and what is a tourist-trap and more. Despite all of that, I still went to all the so-called tourist hot spots and loved every minute of it. Graveyard tours, cramming into apothecaries with everyone else in the world, buying tarot cards from psychics – I loved every minute of this gloomy trip.
I’d love to return outside of Halloween because of how quaint the colonial-era buildings are. I wish American town squares were more walkable, as they are in Europe, but New England has some beautiful remnants of pedestrian-centered city planning. Salem brings me back to that.