good old J.K.

Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first September was crisp and golden as an apple . . .

J U L Y — Between Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye we stayed a night at Fort William, which is mostly just the last outpost before the endless west but also home of The Jacobite — West Coast Railway's gorgeous old steam train and the Harry Potter films' Hogwarts Express. Never mind that the day's trip out to Mallaig and back is consistently rated the Top Rail Journey in the World. Yes?! Yes. Getting tickets was a whole mess of ridiculous (We bought the actual literal last ticket online. Ticket. Singular. There are two of us.) but John is a superhero (Got up early. Waited in the rain to be the very first in line for day-of sales. Let me sleep.) even despite most every other human at the station falling under the terrible, horrible, not very good at all spectrum (You know, the kind who call a mile an inch and black a clean white just to get what they want). We came away with two tickets in the end . . . in different carriages. At opposite ends of the train.

But because my husband is also impossibly personable and actual poster child for the Beatitudes' pure and righteous, we pulled away with the two of us comfy-cozy together on the only truly Harry Potter carriage of the whole train (Ha! Take that, you darkly Death Eaters in your karmic cattle cars!), sharing a fancy-pretty sliding-door compartment with a family John had met in the morning rain, brothers with their daughters on holiday — Scottish to every hair of a Highland thistle —and the two youngest tiny enough to count for one so as to make room for seven people across six seats. We shared seats, we shared sandwiches, the men argued football, us girls raced up and down the corridors sticking our heads out windows and coughing up steam ash and pointing at particular beauty and crying for magical joy, etc. Remembering it now is akin to all the light and softness I feel for childhood, a luminescent space outside of time.

Sure, the Harry Potter part was neato. We saw the famous viaduct from CoS and Dumbledore's island from HBP. The day was darkish and wet, which made the mingling steam and mist a thing of Tolkien-envy. But the very best bit was having our rather bad beginning (those mean people really lit up our Inner Despair for Humankind) met with such immediate and abiding antidote. Those gracious Glaswegians with their hearts and souls and nobleness. We made friends. We swapped life stories. We shared a small day of wonder. Which, come to think of it, was the most Harry Potter part of all. Good does triumph; love conquers all.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

OTHER THINGS: if The Jacobite's on your itinerary, brave the early morning and the horrid people! All tickets sold online fill up the basic carriages in the way back, whereas the very first from the 50 day-of sales put you in the Harry Was Here seats up front. 

Returning to Compartment D after our lunch hour in Mallaig, the littlest Scot presented John with a love-heart rock from the beach. Which was after all the wide-eyed admiration from across the table but before the parting postcard promising penpalship. Have I mentioned I may have married the Pied Piper? We were already essentially at the ends of the earth, but these girls would have followed him still.

Also does the other cousin not have a wee touch of the young Amy Pond about her? Or was it just the accent?

l'automne.

city of superlatives.

If you know me in real life, you know I'm an easy read. My face is all-access emotion; I live near the surface, if I feel anything beyond the earliest morning's apathy, you'll see it. So it's a really good thing that I only ever had to lie over the phone last week, that when John said see you in ten I replied yes thank goodness can't wait and he couldn't tell I was counting hours, not days. Because there's nothing quite like catching a red-eye and showing up in New York that very next morning. 

He was speechless, as in words no sentence putting together cannot. It was the best thing I've ever done, at least until the rest of the weekend happened—and as for that, I'm still searching for synonyms that go beyond magic. The only thing better than those four days? He's coming home today. As we speak, on a plane, coming. home.

Oh yeah. World: meet the boy I love. Boy I love: world. Good. Okay. Here we go.

1. red-eye sunrise from 17F. 2. the text I sent at 7:15 that morning.

3. bagels for breakfast at a bench on broadway. 4. recreating childhood photos.

5. this storm got the better of us. and by better, I mean best.

6/7. columbia campus tour with my fave alum. 8. taking one for the team at magnolia bakery.

9. learned all about automats at the NYPL's current lunch hour exhibit, which besides being so superbly well done made me a) want to be Doris Day in That Touch of Mink, b) consider a future kitchen with a wall of automat options, and c) hum this all day long.

10/11. library lions, NY state motto. stole it for my own. 12/13. favorites from the met.

14. secretly I only walk through the greek and roman rooms to steal ideas for my jewelry box. I am a gold girl and nobody does signet rings like the ancients.

15/16/17. top of the met. 18/19. sunday in the park with john. 20/21/22. subway shots

23. from the airtrain, which makes me feel probably irrationally futuristic but I'll save that spiel for the ode I will someday write to public transportation, my true city love.

24/25. final portraits from the same time zone; on the streets and JFK.

PS: this blog's been the slow boat to china of late; 

find me on instagram for the everyday-up-to-date.

xoxo E.

iosepa.

hroom, hm, come, my friends. the ents are going to war.

So I attend a university that doesn't believe in Spring Break, which is mostly okay until everyone else and their dog is packing a swimsuit and off for the week, at which point you get in your car and head west anyway. Pack some string cheese and soy nuts, bring a book or two, climb a Lone Rock. Or at least that's what we did. Strange, the things you find just over the Oquirrhs.

when you go:

1. Write a novel on a napkin at The Elephant House. Keep a lookout for Bertie on Scotland Street. Feel your familial bones break for the beauty of crag and moor.

2. Run a morning mile along Hadrian's Wall. Return at sunset. Believe in time travel.

3. Play 1, 2, 3, He's Yours in Oxford. If bored of natty boys on bicycles, reevaluate your sanity--and if still not convinced of the power in a particularly dapper suspenders/bowtie combo (who are you?!), take in an afternoon of the Ashmolean before finishing off a book at the Bodleian.

4. Make a scavenger hunt of the blue history plates in London. Spend an afternoon with Sir John Soane. Ask the doorman if it's possible to live at the NPG.

5. Head home to Cardiff. Read Under Milk Wood on the walk to Castell Coch. Take the family out for some Monday night music at Y Mochyn Du. Visit the Doctor.

6. Order sticky toffee pudding at Seend's Barge Inn. Fall a little bit in love with the waiter. (If it's meant to be, it will be.)

7. Wade out to St. Michael's Mount. Follow the Grail trail to Tintagel. Send a letter from Land's End.

new york, new york.

columbia

olivia magnified + a view from the highline

st johns

 

central park

american girl flagship on fifth. talk about joy.

met up with meg. who is even (if you can believe it) more wise + wonderful in real life.

a few favorites: graphics at the nypl + this boy's conversation overheard on the Q line.

what I wish you could see in this picture is the guy doing tai chi.

indonesian dinner at a malaysian place in chinatown.

Sisters in The City.

Formatting's all off, inexplicably. Will drive me crazy. But I give up.

If the picture's pretty, Olivia probably took it.