Under the Palm Trees

“Blue skies, 77 degrees, and palm trees—I’m living the dream. Still, I could go for a nap, or a cup of coffee as large as my bathtub.” -Jarod Kintz.

As I lay in the eighty plus degree weather at the Chapman University dorm pool, it’s not just the sun that I soak up. The smell of cut grass and sunscreen wafts by my nose me while I take slow steady breaths in and out, relaxing for the first time in what seems like months. In the distance, the smell of the cafeteria food creeps its way over to the pool in the wind, reaching my nose, and making me hungry. The gentle breeze blows my hair in different directions, but too relaxed to care, I let it. The coolness of the wind gives my skin some relief from the burning sun in the noon heat. As it beats down on my tanned skin, I squint my eyes to avoid the brightness. Shielding my face by a book, I lay in uninterrupted peace for hours, soaking up the ambiance of my peaceful escape. The only thing to hear is the sway of the palm trees in the wind, and people’s feet pitter-pattering on the cement, followed by cannon-ball like splashes, ones after another.

On my second visit, my thoughts begin to drift as I think about what was here before me and everyone else around me. I see empty land and vineyards for raisins stretching on for miles. I see men watching over the land, creating it and planning its future without knowing the impact they will have on the centuries to come. Over 100 years ago it was their home, and now it is mine. But what came between these two different setting through time? The brisk excited steps on the sidewalk as the first students of the high school at 520 Walnut Street in 1915 arrive to school. A century later, students run to school on the same sidewalk to Orange High School, just down the street from the first High School in Orange. As I sit on a lounge chair by the pool in 2015, I look out past the gate to see Orange High students race out the doors and dispurse every which way. I hear the yells of students from 1915 and 2015 mesh together as they are both released from school in my head. Next, I see Chapman College students, in the 1970’s, stroll past the stadium to head home. To think that they have no knowledge of what will be there in thirty-five years. To think that they will not see the pebbles ground of the pool floor, the palm trees moving with the Santa Ana winds, or the brown broken lounge chairs lined up in rows along the pool sides.

“It is the nature of the strong heart, that like the palm tree it strives ever upwards when it is most burdened.” -Phillip Sydney

My Places

These photos represent my core. The mixture of travel, home and my favorite city sums up basically all I need in life to be happy. I cherish photography to captured memories I cannot store in my head forever. These pictures are ones that I want to keep with me as long as possible, since they exemplify my internal self.

The first image is of the Siene River in France. In the countless times I have been to France, I always end up at the Siene, sitting on the side of it, drinking some wine and eating a baguette (So cliche I know but so necessary). I breathing in the ambiance of one of my favorite places in the world. I people watch for as long as I can. I miss sitting at a small round table on the corner of the busiest street I could find and people watching. I always think to myself, “these people are my kind people.” Paris calls to me when I am not there, so pictures like this help me miss it a little less until the next time I can go back. “Paris is always a good idea” -Audry Hepburn

The second image is my haven. It is my safe place. It is my backyard. Whether its raining or sunny I can look out the windows of my house and see beauty. The rain makes the colors of the earth turn over and colors pop out of nowhere as they cannot peak through during the dry seasons. The air is so fresh it is therapeutic. Being stuck in the smog of Southern California has only made me more thankful that I can return to such pure, clean air. My backyard keeps me at peace. It is nearly impossible not to be when you are surrounded by nature. For me at least.

The third image is of the Golden Gate Bridge. In the last four years, I have past over that bridge approximately 2,080 times. In those 2,080 times, though, I have never once driven over it and not gotten goosebumps at the beauty of my suspended car hundreds of feet in the air, held up by a monstrous red structure. I make it sounds ugly, but if you have ever crossed it on a clear morning around 7:42 am when the sun is just peaking out enough to blind you for looking its way, then you know what I’m talking about. That is my favorite time to be there. When there are no clouds in the sky, the sun is peaking up over the city sky line, and the Bay is shimmering from the sun rays. My second favorite time to be on the bridge is when it is packed in fog. I know pretty opposite right? But when its packed in fog, and once you get over how terrifying it is to not see ahead or behind you, a weird sensation comes upon you as you are completely invisible to every single human in the world for two minutes. You and your car are a little bubble in a far off universe in the middle of nowhere. Its a very interesting time to get reflective.

 

 

Where I Go

At 2222 Broadway Street in privileged Pacific Heights, San Francisco, California, there lies a legacy of loud girls, short uniform skirts and goofy teachers. It wasn’t always like that, though. In 1875, James Clair Flood’s silver mine in Virginia City, Nevada discovered the greatest silver bonanza in history. James became a very wealthy man and handed down his wealth to his son, James Leary Flood. James II used that wealth to build some of the most prized buildings in San Franciscan history, including his home, where he and his wife lived. Little did he know, however, that when he built his mansion on a hill at 2222 Broadway St., that it would be home to generation after generation of bright young women.

The Flood Mansion, or Convent of the Sacred Heart, was not only my high school. It was, and continues to be, the safest place I know. For the last four years of my life, I have spent five days a week taking classes in Mr. And Mrs. Floods bedroom, going to mass in a 1920’s ballroom, and sitting in my favorite window seat in the library, looking out at a view of The Golden Gate Bridge and beyond. To say it was a not-so-typical high school, would be an understatement.

The general public has in my past shunned me for going to an all-girls schools. Peers from other “regular” or co-ed high schools made faces of pity when I told them, as if it was some incurable disease. But the inside of an all-girls school is very different than one might picture. Mine, for example, was full of bright, stylish, and fun students of all backgrounds and origins like any typical high school, except, there were only girls. The myth that schools like mine shelter growing women from gaining important social skills with boys, is a load of you know what.

With that being said, though, I am only one girl, and only one opinion. But my opinion is backed up by four years of very life changing events, many occurring because of Convent of the Sacred Heart. As an incredibly frightened freshman transfer student around Christmas time, I was astounded at the not only open arms of my new classmates, but their genuine excitement to meet and get to know me. As days, which turned into years, passed, and my friend niche formed, I would find myself getting butterflies as I sat there in the echoing, marble main hall with friends I knew I could come to for absolutely everything. That’s something so special and if I were at a co-ed school, it may have been less possible. The absence of boys only forced our miniscule class of thirty-five to become closer and closer, and by senior year, there was not one person in my class that I couldn’t genuinely call my friend. Now, sure, that could happen at co-ed schools as well, but when a voice comes out of nowhere in the middle of history class yelling, “does anybody have a tampon?!” you know it’s a bond no co-ed classes are capable of obtaining.

Being an older school, the traditions within it were extremely cherished. For example, each year, an elective group threw a very “flashy” and “fancy” fashion show for charity in the beautiful main hall (It is also a wedding venue, to give some perspective). Students prance confidently down the runway in clothing donated from boutiques nearby, as other convent girls cheer them on. But one year in particular, my sophomore year, the fashion show turned out to be a very good example of what Convent really is to me. At the end of the student portion of the show, the teachers had a turn to walk. They lined up, dressed in the goofiest outfit they could think of, and danced down the runway to blasting music, carefree of judgment or ridicule. While the whole place was exploding with laughter and cheers, I remember sitting there in awe at how they could stand up in front of an audience of two hundred students, faculty, and even parents, and be so goofy. That moment was a pivotal one for me, because they taught me to be less focused on how I appear to others. I felt safer being who I truly was inside after that, as I knew they were being exactly who they were inside as well. I do believe very strongly that I wouldn’t have learned that lesson in any other way, if I were to go to a “regular” school. The interconnectedness and acceptance of each human learning or working at Convent, enabled us as a community to freely express ourselves however we wanted.

I’m sure there are other schools out there like mine. Maybe not in a marble mansion on a hill in San Francisco, but the building was just a plus to the community I became apart of while entering those door every week for four years. The marble building, in a way, is a metaphor for the specialness of Convents community: rock solid and unbreakable. On my last day as a student, I sat on the library windowsill that looked out onto the Golden Gate Bridge, the city, and the Bay, and felt an immense pain in my chest. It was almost like I was breaking up with a long-term boyfriend, or the pain of losing a pet. I was shocked at myself, being that until that moment, I could not wait to graduate. But this new sense of panic is when all the emotions I wrote about above came flooding into my head. I had instantly received some clarity as to how much I was thankful for the eternal family I was apart of. From break ups, to deaths of beloved students in neighboring schools, to everything in between, I was scared to go out into a world where Convent wasn’t right behind me to catch my fall. But feeling that panic is exactly what helped me realize what my school meant to me.

I return to Convent every chance I can, but the feeling has changed. A space I used to view as a school has transformed back into what it was originally built as: a home. I go there for help, I go there for advice, and I go there most importantly for overall support of a family. Returning to my window seat over looking the Bay for the first time since graduation was nostalgic. Each time I return to the window seat, I think of the last time I sat there as a Convent girl when I obtained the clarity I needed to appreciate the last four years of my life. My window seat is literal, but also symbolic of the bigger community that Convent of the Sacred Heart is: a rock solid, but always changing, community.

 

I See…

Today, I saw the sunrise. Not really by choice, I was studying for a test all night and just ended up not going to sleep. I watched the sky change colors before my eyes (it always happens faster then I expect it to). The outside of Henley Hall lit up from my fourth floor study room window in the blink of an eye and all of a sudden it was morning. I saw students with backpacks and sweatpants drag their feet down the stairs to their last final. And as the clock hit 8:40, I packed up my stuff and saw the back of students heads as I walked to class. Thank God that is over. Now all I am going to see are the back of my eyelids.