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Ninth Street

I have too many floral skirts to count, so I’m always more than prepared for spring. Then again, the lines between California’s seasons have blurred, with each season proving to be unusually warm and dry. Most experts agree this isn’t a good thing. Nevertheless, spring in Berkeley means squinting in the sun on the walk to Philz via Ninth Street and drinking a large iced coffee before dinner. The coffee was accompanied by a couple chapters of Persuasion, and I must say, I may have unknowingly saved the best for last. It is heartfelt, sophisticated, and Anne Elliot is by far my favorite Austen heroine. I love that Anne and Captain Wentworth are the couple to watch, yet they hardly interact with each other, and it is the peripheral conversations and events that push the story of their relationship forward. This makes even the most distant, civil remark between them feel electric and full of meaning.
 
I enjoyed an abbreviated spring break of three days in San Diego, where relaxing and indulging is easy if not natural to do. The weekend included wine tasting, Indian food, strolling through Coronado, gin and tonic at the bars in North Park, fish tacos, and playing with a chihuahua. March was a fast one, though I suppose they all are. I’m aiming for April to be a productive one, which includes figuring out what exactly that means to me. Away we go.
 

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Slow Coast


One year ago, I shared thoughts on saying goodbye to 25, and now I bid farewell to 26. The time in-between happened very quickly. My request for the occasion was a drive down the coast, so James navigated a trip from Berkeley to Santa Cruz, which took us down the Slow Coast, the 50-mile stretch between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. The temperature reached well over 80, but the ocean breeze cooled us down just enough to make forgoing the AC and rolling down the windows the most sensible thing to do.
 
Our first stop was Verve in the Seabright neighborhood. Though I’ve recently cut back on coffee, choosing to regard such caffeine as a treat for the weekends, I’m quickly developing an appreciation for espresso, and whether that will spill into the week is yet to be seen. I indeed had a shot of espresso at Verve, followed by the perfect cappuccino. For lunch we grabbed sandwiches (plus jalapeño potato chips and speared pickles) from an Italian deli and headed to the beach. Summer has arrived far too early in California. The sun was bright, the sand was hot, and the crowd was quiet, drained and subdued by the heat. I was ill-prepared, without a speck of sunscreen, and it wasn’t until my skin began to tingle that it dawned on me that this was a problem. It felt like pure summer, and though I am sure my vision of winter has become overly romantic due to its absence, there is much to be said of the seasons. However, the summer uniform – a sleeveless top, skirt and Birkenstocks – offers an undeniable lightness and ease. A few more hours and adventures later, including a meander through Porter Meadow on the university campus, we headed out just as the sun was setting and arrived home at 9.
 
Thank you for the beautiful start, 27. I feel a change on the horizon, or perhaps it is a hope for change, and either one of those sounds promising to me. Here’s to the excitement of the unknown; to the new music I will discover, to the classics I will finally read, to the cities I will visit, to learning a tad bit more, to fine-tuning the dream, and to making things happen. 27, I hope to make you proud.

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2/14

Valentine’s Day started with a cup of Japanese green tea called green ecstasy at Samovar. It was my second visit, this time at its location in the Mission. The first time I was at the one in the Castro and had ryokucha, also a Japanese green tea but one that includes toasted brown rice. On that first visit I had sat down with a pot of tea and was still reading Sense and Sensibility. I remember reaching the part when Willoughby abruptly leaves Barton for London, thus abandoning Marianne for good. Elinor’s reaction upon learning that Willoughby is leaving, and her rational analysis of it afterwards, is one of my favorite parts of the book, and a big win for having sense over sensibility.
 
Samovar in the Mission goes out of its way to make the simple ritual of tea as complicated and tech-chic as possible. The tea leaves are pre-measured in artfully displayed test tubes, and after tapping your order into a tablet, some contraption called a steampunk automatically brews the tea, which is then served in a paper cup. This was all far too much of a spectacle for my taste. There is an effortlessness to tea that I love, and I felt all of the beautiful simplicity was lost. Nevertheless, my cup of green ecstasy was delicious. I picked up a huge coffee habit in the fall, and though I still drink it a couple times a week, I’m returning to tea as the default, which feels like a good thing.