Tales | Island & Hills

September 9, 2015 / 1 Comment

Fall Favorites: NYC

As a habitual planner and goal setter, one season ending and another beginning sends me into a spiral of reflection and thought. I’m the sort of person who wholeheartedly embraces January 1st and the ritual of making new years resolutions, often documenting them visually.

So of course, with all the “so long summer” Instagrams and back-to-school promos, the thoughts started flooding my mind: What do I want to make of my fall? What sort of goals should I set? What have I been wanting to do but putting off?

I am always performing a balancing act between present and planning. While I love making plans, I also have to constantly remind myself to enjoy what I have in the present moment. So I’ve reframed my questions; rather than focusing on the big picture life changes the moment the days start getting shorter, I thought about the beautiful, simple things I love about the fall season. Here is what I came up with:

August 31, 2015 / 0 Comments

Untitled, Undefined

“Where are you from?”

A common question we get asked that I often have a hard time answering. My response is always pretty long winded: I grew up in Texas, my family resides in Las Vegas now, I went to school in DC, and now I live in New York City. Sometimes this will lead to a follow up question of “so where is home for you?” And to be honest, I still haven’t figured it out. New York feels like the obvious choice, but I usually resort to an open-ended “Well home for me isn’t linked so much to places, but more to feelings, emotions and memories. Home is my mom’s cooking. It’s my herb garden. It’s my best friends from college. It’s breakfast tacos.” It can’t be defined in a clear cut, obvious way.

In a similar sense, another hard-to-answer question we often face: “So what’s the deal with you and [insert fling/hook up buddy/romantic interests name here]?”

August 27, 2015 / 2 Comments

Making Pies

Since writing my last post, I’ve been thinking a lot about making pies. But before I delve any further into an explanation, a song for the theme (one of my all time favorites, an homage to my mother and my Texas roots):

August 25, 2015 / 0 Comments

Distance

Despite not being in school anymore, this time of year surprisingly still feels like a new beginning. Though there are no major changes going on in my life right now (#blessed), some very close people in my life are going through changes and it’s been affecting me too. Some are starting college or graduate school, some are starting a new job, and some are taking on new roles (like fiancé and mother). Thanks to social media, I never miss anything. Although I’m eternally grateful that we have these technological capabilities because it makes my world feel smaller, there are also moments when I’m watching my brother’s graduation on FaceTime or taking a tour of my best friend’s new apartment on Skype that I can’t help but start to miss them more than I did before I called. It’s amazing, but frustrating because you’re so close but you’re not actually there. For me, it’s these important moments that I miss out on when I feel the distance the most.

August 18, 2015 / 1 Comment

Timelines

Sunday afternoon, I sat in my bed trying to finish several blog posts I’d started earlier in the week. As excited as I had been initially to write these posts, not a drop of inspiration was helping me to finish them. Part of the reason I love writing for Island & Hills is because everything that gets published are ideas that inspire me, feel timely and relevant. So sitting around with a bad case of writer’s block, I was forced to do some soul searching; if planned parenthood, career advice, or dating trends weren’t getting me in the mood, what would?

Over the past several months, I have observed a pattern that I’ve been wanting to write about. I, along with some of my close friends, have gone through different life-altering events: falling out of love with a romantic partner, losing a friend or family member, etc. As a way of dealing with these significant, difficult milestones, we often rely on timelines. In the days and weeks following, these sorts of statements become all too common:

“In a month, I’d like to be able to start dating again.”

“In two months, I won’t let myself cry about it anymore.”

“In three weeks, I want to be able to see them and be fine.”

July 29, 2015 / 5 Comments

Just Have Fun

I have a pretty active imagination. Working in a creative field, this often works to my advantage. I love being a storyteller, someone who can dream up the crazy ideas and then make them happen. Unfortunately, this active imagination, paired with the Type-A side of my personality that loves to list and plan, does not do me any favors when it comes to dating.

Whether going out with someone I met IRL or online, if the first date goes well (e.g. an attraction, an initial curiosity, a “spark”), it’s at this point that my imagination/Type A combo starts to run amok. The rational part of me tries to keep my cool, keep my distance, keep my shit together; the insidious irrational part of me creeps in, making pro/con lists, trying to answer the “What ifs?”, making up stories when my mind least expects it. One minute I’m on the subway, figuring out what I’m going to make for dinner; the next, I’ve caught myself thinking about when/if I’m gonna see Justin Long again, and where we could go if we do see each other, and whether we should go to that new whiskey bar because he said he liked whiskey, but maybe it’ll be too loud and crowded…. You see where I’m going with this.

June 29, 2015 / 3 Comments

To Build a Home

Home: it’s a word that means something a little different to everyone. Sometimes it can be linked to a smell or a taste. Maybe it’s where your family resides. Maybe you have multiple places you call home. There are dozens of songs written about it. Even if our own definitions are slightly different, we can probably agree: home is familiar, home is comfort, home is something we are all searching for if we don’t already have it.

June 29, 2015 / 3 Comments

Deciding to Try

Regardless of what stage of life you may be in, anyone trying to achieve something is going through some sort of process, and self-improvement is the end goal for this process. A monk meditates to become enlightened, just as a football player goes to practice to get better. If you’re lucky, you are born into circumstances where your overall general process has been to go to school, get good grades to get into college, graduate and get a job in a field of your major, and if you’re really lucky, you enjoy your job.

Category: Tales (page 2 of 2)