The city was beautifully decorated for Christmas and it was a welcome relief to emerge from the deep forest and be surrounded by people.
I met my friend Julie from Scotland outside South Station. We usually traveled to and from Boston - St. Andrews together last year as we were both full-year American abroad students. We hadn't seen each other since we both returned and it was wonderful to share the readjustments we've both experienced.
Julie and I in the Highlands in April.
Later, I met up with one of my best friends from Saint Michael's, Katie.
We could not stop laughing. It was joyous.
Katie and I at a ball when she visited St. Andrews last February.
Seeing the ocean...those shades of blue...it was majestic. It was also quite warm with barely any wind. If the snow hadn't been there, it might have been July...or March.
We were hoping to run into Paul Revere in this Quincy Market alley.
This was incredible. After literally stumbling upon Quincy Market and the Faneuil Hall Marketplace, we saw dozens of new Americans emerging from Faneuil Hall with their families, certificates and American flags. There was so much joy and excitement among everyone. We stood for a while and smiled at it all. :)
As we walked towards Charlestown, we found ourselves across from the Vermont Building!
Friday was warm in New Hampshire with quite a bit of snow meltage. I woke up...
to this dangerous peril! These snow-ice clusters were hanging from the roof...
As for the "Books" part of the post, the bookcases were bathed in sunlight on a recent afternoon and I like what I captured below:
Books are so meaningful to me. I think they're physically beautiful on bookshelves too. I haven't yet embraced the kindle, but perhaps someday.
My Mom's Robert Frost collection from college. :)
My poetry anthologies. Each one has such a story behind it which I love. I see one of Joan Didion's in here that I found on a 'free book' table in the School of Business and Management in St. Andrews, another that I received as a gift from my Dad, others that I picked up at a used book store while in San Francisco with my brother, a few that I purchased over the summer at Bookstock, one from Amazon, and others with stories from their past.
Lastly, religion continues to interest me and I've thought often recently about the politics of religion that divide us. I see our religious decisions, ideas and beliefs in politics and persuasion. I wish I could express it all better and had a better explanation and grasp of my own beliefs or ideas, but I'll leave it to the following quote that I read earlier by Kathy Reich from her book Cross Bones. My friend Susanna is to thank for it.
"Despite the rituals, the rhetoric, and even the bombs, every religion is saying mostly the same thing. Buddhism. Taoism. Zoroastrianism. Sikhism. Shamanism. It doesn't matter, take your pick...The Torah, the Bible, the Koran. Each offers a recipe for spiritual contentment, for hope, for love, and for controlling basic human passions, and each claims to have gotten the recipe straight from God, but via a different messenger. They're all just trying to provide a formula for orderly, spiritual living, but declare the boundaries of correct belief, outsiders are labeled heretics, and the faithful are called upon to attack them. I don't think it was meant to be that way."
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