the beauty of morningside heights

Laura has followed and chronicled our summer adventures of living and traveling on the road so poignantly and with such a humorous, realistic voice. I can only hope to write half as beautifully when I guest write on her blog.

I honestly miss reliving my past life every few days through those blog posts. Besides our roadtrip being the opportunity of a lifetime to spend some time together with my best friend, one of the main things Laura and I learned on our trip is the wonderfully beautiful idea that (and im stealing this from Laura’s blog post) the beauty of the States, and our world is not just found in a national park , tropical beach, or historic city, but is lived out everyday ---whether it is a 500 mile drive away or right around the corner.

I am a nature girl at heart. I feel most at home when I am barefoot in a field with the mountains as my guardian. This same sentiment is one of the most fundamental things that bond laura and I so closely, as wild girl soul mates if you will. Now I don’t know if you are a loyal reader of camping across America, but if you are then I’m sure you know that I am currently living in Manhattan.

YES MANHATTAN- A CONCRETE JUNGLE !!! Who would have ever though? But I had the great opportunity to get my masters in Climate and Society at Columbia (still staying true to my nature girl instincts). I am learning all about the climate, greenhouse gases, clouds, earth resources, etc. Hey, a girl’s got to learn about it to protect it, right? Anyways. When I first arrived in Manhattan I was unsure of how I would possibly manage to survive in the craziest city on Earth coming from Stonehill’s 375 acre wooded campus. If anyone knows anything about me it’s that I like my trees, my grass, my big sky, my flowers, my trails and my animals. That and that I love to paint landscapes. In fact, the second week of laura and my friendship (dating way back to the year 2006) we crept away into the night to paint a masterpiece (ok, maybe not) using our bare feet, sticks and leaves. Yes, I kid you not. (Laura, btw where is our painting—its gonna go over our fire place whenever we get the chance to live together).

BUT how can I complain about Manhattan? My block is beautiful; on one corner I have the famous Seinfeld restaurant TOM’S and at the other end is the biggest catholic cathedral in the word (unfinished, but still). Riverside Park is a mere three blocks away. The subway station, my 24 hour grocery store, my 24 hour Duane Reade, a post office, Columbia’s campus, a plethora of shops, restaurants, and bars are literally a skip away (a skip being 4 blocks max---my post office is 10 feet to the left of my door).

I am taking the lesson that laura and I so humbly learned on the road—that beauty and adventure is everywhere. And I am lucky with my busy grad student schedule that beauty and adventure are right around the corner.