october is the month for painted leaves

my parents came out to boston to visit at the beginning of october (i know this is quite late in coming). it was my momma's birthday, so we celebrated in my apartment, complete with chocolate mousse for dessert and a delicious dinner:





having family come visit is great because it gives me an excuse and reason to do things in massachusetts that i otherwise wouldn't do. we were extremely lucky with the weather - clear skies and fairly warm the whole week they were here - and managed to get to salem and to walden pond, neither of which i'd been to since coming to college.

since it was just before halloween, we did a ghost tour of salem, that was actually quite fun. lots of good stories, at the very least. the tour guide also encouraged us to take pictures of most of the locations, to see if we could see any "ghost auras" - i took a fair number of pictures ... let me know if you see anything in the house below, one of the top five most haunted houses in the united states:





my parents also got their one and only chance to see me in band at the boston college vs. virginia tech game the thursday they were here. it was a fabulous game - great energy, we won. i was so happy that they got the chance to see me in band at least once while i'm in college. it has been such a huge part of my college career (well, and high school too) that it meant a lot that they came all the way out here to see a game. plus, a great great game.

and we also managed to get out to concord on a sort of literary tour - walden pond/thoreau, the emerson house, and the alcott house. i had no idea that the three were so connected and had interacted so much. walden pond is absolutely beautiful, especially in the fall, with all the colors. there's a path that winds around the pond, so we walked along that and past the site where thoreau's cabin stood.



[silhouette portrait]


[momma]


[daddy]


[walden pond reflection]


at the site where thoreau's cabin stood is a huge pile of rocks, with a quote from walden on a sign next to it. people from all around the world bring a rock from their hometown and leave it there.





i read walden when i was in new zealand, and although i do not completely agree with everything he said, i think the idea of "going out into the woods", even though he was only a few miles from his home in concord (i.e. the joke that he took his laundry home to his mother), is rather remarkable. it is a gift to try to connect with nature even while being so close to the city/real world. it is definitely something which i have struggled with this year - a search to find nature, peace, and calm, while being in the city. being there at walden was touching and calming.

and there were no pictures allowed in the emerson or alcott home, but that fact that this little town of concord had so many literary and innovative thinkers in it was amazing. plus, seeing the alcott home felt so familiar from reading little women. it was great.

as per usual, we also stopped off at a cemetary - this is a strange practice in my family, we always seem to visit cemetaries everywhere we go.

new england cemetaries are beautiful though, tucked into the city on a hill behind homes:





once again, i am so lucky to have parents who travel hundreds of miles to come visit me. i'm so glad they came out to visit before i graduate in may (scccaaarrrryyyy).

love you parents.