Last night Aaron and I arrived back to a city in full bloom—the sun shining, the pastel-blossomed branches of the flowering trees in our neighborhood waving back and forth. We’d been gone almost a week, and you know that one of my greatest joys is leaving the refrigerator absolutely dead empty in advance of a trip, so after we dropped our suitcases in the apartment, we walked to a Mediterranean place in our neighborhood to pick up chicken shawarma piled with pickled red onions and marinated chickpeas, with little containers of labneh and hummus and still-warm foil-wrapped pita alongside.
The four of us had the absolute sweetest spring break in Colorado—one night in Denver, one in Boulder, and then three nights in Estes Park. The definite highlight was Rocky Mountain National Park: long gorgeous winding drives, lots of hikes and wildlife spottings. More than anything, though, we just had the loveliest time being together--lots of laughter and inside jokes, lots of walks and snuggles and really special memories made.
Our favorite Denver restaurant was definitely Steuben’s—a spot I’ve been hearing about from my cousins forever and was so happy to try after all these years. In Boulder, the Avanti food hall on the Pearl Street Mall was the perfect spot for lunch with old friends. And in Estes Park, we had great fried chicken at The Post, which is a part of the Stanley Hotel…yes, we 100% went on a guided tour of the Stanley Hotel, to hear all the inside scoop on Stephen King/Stanley Kubrick/ The Shining stuff…but also because Aaron is world’s biggest Dumb and Dumber fan ;)
The boys went on to San Francisco for a youth group retreat, so Aaron and I are sort of staycation-ing in the city—tomorrow night we’ll go to a Broadway show, and Sunday night we’ll have dinner somewhere far-flung and extremely niche that the kids would moan about.
In the meantime, though, the sun is shining, and I’m at my desk, and that’s what I want to tell you about: how I keep finding myself pulled back to this desk, and more than that, to writing, and even more than that, to writing contemplative essays as a way of understanding the world and my place in it.
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