I returned from Oaxaca to my home base in Vermont, summer turned to fall, and it was time to head West to start my internship in California. When you live in the Southwest, the East Coast feels like a playground of neighbors, even though it would mean starting my long drive across the country by heading in the opposite direction, there was one last stop I wanted to make.
When I was in college, my best friend Ilira's mother was going on a trip to visit her best friend from college, who she hadn't seen in ten years. Ilira and I were in shock, how was it possible to not see your best friend from college for ten years? That would never happen to us, we were sure of it. My one last stop, heading in the opposite direction, was inspired by the discovery that years pass by faster than we ever thought they could.
Ilira lives near Providence, where we went to Rhode Island School of Design together, and owns Rag and Bone Bindery with her husband, Jason. My road trip of gathering the gems of my longings would conclude with a direct line across the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from sea to shining sea.
When I went to RISD I longed to live on Benefit Street. I loved its Colonial houses with wooden shutters and window boxes, brick buildings and iron gates, and the way light dappled through leaves on cobblestone sidewalks. Whenever I walked from school to home, I stayed on Benefit Street for as long as I could before I had to turn to head North.
On this trip of longings fulfilled, I stayed at the Old Court Bed and Breakfast on Benefit Street, where the blue glass lantern over the front door welcomed me home.
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