I walked through Provincetown
Down by the docks
Men slipping out from underneath
Swimming on the sandbar
Boats passing by
Shameless in their pride

The heatwave of the year
Nuzzle up to your beloved
Cool yourself off in the ocean

Coming home
the smell of wood polish
Sand in my sheets
Awaiting your call
Salty air

Songs sung on my porch
Wooden frames
Creaky floorboards
Photos of years gone by
Old stories

She is still there, somewhere between the fish market and the farm stand, sandy and salt-dried, riding in the back of a car that smells like sunscreen and wet dog. She knows when high tide is without checking. She knows which beach has the best waves and which one is better at dusk. She knows to bring a sweater even in August because the wind turns without warning.

I have been measuring every place I have ever lived against that version of me.

My house, Duna, is layered, every summer pressed into the walls, every family that came and went leaving something behind. The same rituals, passed down without ceremony. Someone always knows where my flip flops are. Someone always forgets the sunscreen. Cherry pits thrown out the window on the way to the beach. Watermelon rinds rolled down the hill. Dog fur floating in the August air.

I have brought people here. That is its own kind of ritual, the offering of it, the saying you have to see this. I brought first loves, young loves, great loves. I loved watching Truro do its work on people. 

I have taken salty naps in beds I shared with all of them. Sunburned and heavy-limbed, the sound of the screen door, the smell of the water still on our skin. 

They are all gone now too. Not dead, just gone the way summers go. Seasonal, in the end. The rentals that arrive in July and leave before Labor Day. 

This is what it teaches you, if you let it: things end. The water gets cold. The families grow and shrink around the same tables. The people you love become people you loved, and the place holds all of it anyway, the first time and the last time and every summer in between.

There is a beach I keep returning to even when I am nowhere near it.

I have left pieces of myself on those dunes. First love, great love, loss. The water the same every time.

I still bring people here. I still say you have to see this.

I just finished my first year of my Master of Social Work program at Columbia, and I’m still trying to process everything.

My internship at IN-Tech Academy wrapped up last week, and I recently closed on my very first studio apartment in a pre-war building in Chelsea from 1930. This is something women in my family have not always had the opportunity to claim. The apartment is currently mid-renovation: the floors are being refinished, contractors are coming in and out, and there’s a fuse box that I’m not sure how to handle.

When I look out my new kitchen window, I can see my sister’s apartment and the flower shop directly below it. It feels almost storybook-like. I can see her yellow curtains and her cat sitting by the window. All from my own kitchen. Now that the semester has ended, my nervous system is still trying to adjust.

This was an insane choice, considering I only arrived in New York eight months ago. Let’s hope it pays off.

Lately, I have been keeping a list.

Coconut macaroons
Outdoor showers 
Feeling the sun on my skin 

Running into a friend when I wasn’t expecting to 
Wildflowers growing where nobody planted them 
That first medicinal sip of coffee 

Giving a gift to a friend and watching their face change 
Seeing a pet that is visibly excited to see you 
Sheets that just came out of the dryer

The train pulling up right as you get to the station 
A bird chirping like it has an important message for us all 
When you put on a pair of pants that fit just right 

Clapping at the end of a performance 
Sleeping with your windows open 
Barefoot Contessa birthday cake with chocolate ganache and M&Ms 

Ricotta toast with lemon zest 
A new jazz song that feels like it has been waiting for me 
A ridiculous throw pillow that I don’t need 

Ceramic coasters 
Salt lamps 
The photo of my mother hanging on my wall 

Crocheted gifts for friends 
Laughing at yourself when you slip instead of pretending you didn’t 
Talking with my hands 

A saxophone solo 
A woman playing the electric guitar 
Laughing with a stranger like you knew them before 

Peppermint tea 

Here’s hoping the list keeps growing.

As a child, I read Blueberries for Sal, a story about a small child in a sun hat, plucking berries from the brush. As I move through early adulthood, I have come to recognize that my grandfather, Noble, is a real-life version of that story. He was a tall and disciplined man who picked blueberries in bright blue military bib overalls, carrying a tin pail.

My grandfather was the Head of School at South Kent School, responsible for the moral and academic upbringing of an all-boys institution. Yet, my understanding of him was shaped less by his professional authority and more by the “kerplink, kerplank, kerplump” of his summer ritual of collecting blueberries and wildflowers for my grandmother. He gathered heaping buckets of blueberries for her to turn into pancakes and jam, and picked flowers so that she always had a fresh bouquet on the table.

Before becoming Head of School, he was a math teacher after returning from the Air Force, a background that emphasized precision and patience. These small harvests reflected that same discipline: a calculated and rhythmic labor of love. When he emerged from the brush in Truro, his hands were stained a deep, stubborn purple that lingered long after the berries were picked.

He placed those berries on the dining table beside a bouquet of what he called “roadside weeds.” To others, Queen Anne's lace is an ordinary field flower, but for my grandmother, an English teacher who spent her life reading and responding to students’ essays, it became a wordless letter. In his hands, the flowers reflected symmetry and order; in hers, they carried meaning. Together, they represented a quiet, enduring exchange that spanned over sixty years.

This relationship has become my model of love: not something grand or performative, but something sustained through small, consistent acts of care. That commitment persisted even as her memory began to fade. As names and stories slipped away from her, he remained constant. He was a daily presence who crossed the road on his recumbent bike to sit beside her, read to her, and remain part of her world, even as it changed.

To this day, Noble serves as an internal voice of reassurance. He reminds me that even in moments of isolation or uncertainty, the most meaningful response is to show up for others in small, tangible ways. Through him, I have come to understand that the most significant forms of care are often quiet and unrecognized. They require a willingness to endure discomfort for the sake of someone else’s joy.

I continue to be shaped by the image of his purple-stained hands and the quiet beauty of Queen Anne’s lace, always gathered with her in mind. He taught me that belonging to a community is not passive; to have a village, you must also choose to be a villager.

Most importantly, it has been 32 days since my last drink. January 31, a new month, a new trial, a testament to my desire to rid myself of old patterns and open back up to myself. I’ve gained time back, my skin is more awake, my workouts feel easier, and my sleep is deeper. When I first started that dreaded month of February, I knew I needed a change. January 31 was a turning point for me. I realized I wanted to show up for the important relationships in my life, but also shock my system into the change I desperately needed.

I didn’t write any journals about that month; no declaration that it was a permanent change, but it was a quiet, solitary experiment. If I removed alcohol from the rhythm of my life for a while, what would happen? Looking back on all my journal entries from the past six months, the obvious decision had been brewing long before I switched my red wine for decaf coffee.

Last fall was chaotic. With a brand-new move, a new school, and a new solitary life, my journals read like someone just trying to make sense of everything at once. I wrote about belonging, tears, and imposter syndrome. At the same time, I was living a version of life that I had dreamed about. I live in New York City and attend a dream university. I had to build a new life. The contradictions were so apparent, gratitude and sadness, sitting with one another.

Alcohol was the glue of social interactions, and every extroverted part of me became wine nights, grabbing drinks, margaritas, and laughing over late-night restaurant tables. I drank red wine while it snowed outside for the first time this winter. The blur of a couple of drinks softened the stress of graduate school and a whole lot of change.

But I went home for a weekend, and decided it was time. I sat on the Metro North, downloaded the sobriety app, and shed a few tears on the way back to the city.

But I started getting more social as the alcohol left my system. I felt exposed for the first few days, but not one person ever cared that my glass was filled with ice water instead of Jack and Cokes. I realized I could go out to clubs, bars, and dinners without anyone caring. I have quietly let the days unfold, searching for the changes and benefits I was awaiting.

32 days isn’t dramatic, but it’s significant to me. My skin is clearer, my energy more even, and I am sleeping longer and deeper. My workouts are more consistent.

My pilates and triathlon training are more regular, except during midterm week, when I’m tied to my laptop. I am developing new rituals.

I am more present in ordinary moments now, with more clarity in the small moments, more reflection, and a stronger desire to better myself. I order craft supplies and invite friends over to my apartment. My morning coffee isn’t battling a hangover; it just boosts me enough to tolerate the long days in the classroom and at work.

My start to sobriety hasn’t solved everything, obviously. The harder days aren’t subdued by a reward at the end of the night, and I am forced to reconcile with thoughts of the past and anxiety about the future.

Last fall, all of my journal entries felt like a collapse of my old life, begging for an answer to “what does it all mean?”

I still have no idea.

But I haven’t had a drink in 32 days, and that brings me hope.

April 6, 2024 Uncommon Grounds | 8:30 PM

“I don’t think I’ll be a good teacher. What if I just want to have my coffee cart and fold napkins?”

I am suspended in that specific, senior-year liminality. I am looking at the coffee grounds scattered on the floor from a comfy chair while Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic plays in the dim light. I am grieving a version of myself that hasn’t even left yet. I find myself retreating into the somatic memory of my summer jobs, back when the world felt as small and manageable as my little coffee cart overlooking Wellfleet Bay.

There was a profound clarity in that routine: brewing two pots of regular and a half pot of decaf. I remember the tactile satisfaction of refilling straws, finding the cash bag, arranging cushions. I spent my days wiping away the damp rings left by golfers, listening to them complain about their wives while upselling crumbly muffins.

I existed in an ecosystem of simple social contracts. I chatted with Sophia, the Greek cook, for hours. I endured the sharp yet predictable outbursts of Paul, the owner. I wore the same polo and skirt every day. It was a uniform for a life where I didn’t have to think.

I was comfortable. I was happy.

And importantly, I was allowed to make mistakes. Back then, a mistake was just a spilled latte or a forgotten napkin.

Tonight, my mind wanders to the drive-in theater in Wellfleet. I can almost feel the mosquitoes and the grit of sand in my flip-flops. I see my dad remembering how he watched Grease at that very spot when it first came out. Now, his twenty-one-year-old daughter sits in a college town, missing a home only a few hours away.

I want the visceral, physical rituals of a Cape Cod summer. I want to braid Audrey’s damp hair after we swim to shore and put Finley’s life jacket on until he is salty and tired. I want to spend too much money on lettuce that will wilt by morning and ice cream that will be gone by ten.

Most of all, I want to fill my water bottle with wine and walk to the beach with Mom, Audrey, and Dad. We would sit on the dune and navigate the tough questions people usually avoid. My dad will talk about his dreams while I hypothesize mine. When we return, the house will be quiet. I’ll climb into bed next to Audrey, who will be wearing Dad’s Ballston Beach sweatshirt, the one with holes that seem as old as that first screening of Grease.

I’ll doze off with an alarm set for a morning where I can pretend my only responsibility is brewing two pots of regular and a half pot of decaf.

New York City, 2026

Now it is 2026. I am in New York City, in graduate school, immersed in the study of broken systems and power. My calendar is a color-coded grid of responsibilities, with penciled-in breaks for workouts and laundry.

I sit across from high school seniors in the Bronx, many of them first-generation college students navigating systems that were never built with them in mind. The roles have reversed. I ask them what they want from their lives, and I feel a flicker of countertransference. They look at me with the same hollow uncertainty I once felt while staring at those coffee grounds on the floor. They are half-dreaming of something simpler, and I recognize that dream instantly.

I still crave the routine. There is a seductive quality to work that ends when the shift ends. It is work that does not follow you home or ask you to hold the weight of another person’s trauma.

But I am not folding napkins anymore. I am holding something much heavier: my students’ fears and ambitions. The mistakes I make now are not just spills; they feel visible and permanent.

And yet, I am easing into this new uniform, too.

The drive-in, the boat, and the coffee cart were never just escapes. They were evidence of my capacity for tending. I have always known how to prepare a space. To anticipate what someone might need before they ask. To notice when something feels off and quietly adjust it. Whether it is brewing coffee, braiding hair, or sitting with a teenager while they navigate the terror of their own potential, the core act is the same.

Maybe that is the throughline.

Two pots of regular.
A half pot of decaf.

September 2024. My first month of teaching.

The steam swirls above my coffee pot this morning. I left the windows open last night and needed an extra blanket when I woke up. The gems on my pajamas catch the light and the room looks like a disco ball.

It is my last morning before all of the kids come back and I have to become Ms. Richards instead of Hannah. So I am enjoying staying in my pajamas and sleeping in until eight instead of six.

Someone keeps ringing a bike bell in the mornings here. A dog barks next door every day. If I close my eyes, the sound of cars driving by could be waves crashing on the beach in Truro. My whole house rattles as people go in and out of the first floor, slamming doors and rearranging furniture even though nobody lives here this year. A bird perches on the roof next door for a few seconds before the sound of golf carts sends it flying.

My house is full of character and down to the bare bones of design. Gianna and I need to make it look like our own. We ordered string lights for nights watching Gilmore Girls. We talk about throw pillows like we are staging a revolution.

This is Hannah’s hour. Coffee. Quiet. No one asking for anything.

By 8:30, I step out of my house and onto campus as Ms. Richards.

I am wearing an orange plaid blazer, blue dress pants, a white tank top, and chunky white platform sneakers. I refuse to dress older than I am. I need the kids to think I am cool. I put on oversized sunglasses and pretend my wild hair is intentional.

The dining hall is already buzzing. Navy blazers. White button-downs. Mistied ties. Khaki skirts and pants. Teenagers scrambling for breakfast like it is a competitive sport.

I turn the corner to put my bag down and hear someone shout, “Richards!”

One of my rowers is grinning from across the room. “Do you like our table?” The entire rowing team is crammed around a circular table before I have even realized I am fully awake.

“I LOVE it,” I say, with the confidence of someone who absolutely belongs here.

This is the strange choreography of becoming “Ms.” at twenty-two. You walk like you know what you are doing and hope no one can see the learning curve in your eyes.

At lunch I sit with faculty who started last year. We try the Dulce de Leche cupcakes. I check my phone to see the time and instead see an email titled “Covid Protocols - Dobbins.”

That is weird, I think. Nobody lives in Dobbins with Gianna and me.

I open the email.

Our house has been designated the infirmary.

Great.

I lock eyes with Gianna across the room. We laugh the way women laugh when something is either deeply inconvenient or politically inevitable. We joke that we are officially mothers now. We go find someone from residential life and ask too many questions. We pick up masks from the Health Center and carry them back like we have been drafted into something.

Somewhere between coffee and Covid protocols, I become responsible.

This is the part no one explains about stepping into authority young. It is less about power and more about absorption. You absorb liability. You absorb teenage heartbreak. You absorb institutional decisions that you did not make but are now expected to implement with composure.

When a male colleague raises his voice, it is decisive. When I raise mine, it is emotional. When he is blunt, he is efficient. When I am blunt, I am sensitive. If I cry after a difficult interaction, it confirms suspicion that I am too young. If he slams a door, he is having a long day.

So you learn the performance.

Speak clearly.
Do not apologize too much.
Be warm, but not too warm.
Be firm, but not harsh.
Be confident, but not threatening.

You learn that authority in a young woman is always being evaluated.

Back at Dobbins, I sit at the kitchen table and write my plan for the week. I crack open another Poland Springs lemon seltzer, my third of the day. I remake my bed even though I will not see it again until 10 p.m. I glance at the clock.

2:07.

My Social Psychology class starts at 2:25.

The shift happens quickly. Pajamas to blazer. Hannah to Ms. Richards.

Here is the political truth I am still learning.

Authority does not arrive when you feel ready. It arrives when someone hands you a key and says, “This is your house now.” It arrives when your living room becomes an infirmary. It arrives when a student whispers that someone stomped on a Pride flag and you realize your steadiness matters.

I am twenty-two. I still sometimes cry in the dining hall. I still Google things I pretend to know. I still feel my voice get smaller in certain rooms.

But I show up.

And maybe that is the quiet rebellion.

To be visibly becoming in a system that prefers certainty.
To stay soft in a culture that rewards hardness.
To wear platform sneakers you might have worn to a fraternity house and deposit into your Roth IRA between classes.
To teach social psychology while still figuring out your own.

The steam swirls above the coffee pot again tomorrow morning.

For one hour, I will just be Hannah.

And then I will step outside.

And become Ms. Richards.

Today I saw Hamnet in theaters with Caroline and Audrey. It was chilling and devastating, and it reignited parts of my mind I hadn’t visited in a while.

It got me thinking about daydreams, what I dream of, and why.

The story moves with urgency: an impromptu pregnancy, lives uprooted, devotion accelerated by circumstance. It is beautiful at the beginning, then slowly bends into madness and imperfection.

When Agnes grabbed his hand to tell him what she saw in him, she spoke of “undiscovered countries.” It is a hauntingly prescient line, as it is the same phrase Shakespeare later uses in his contemplation of suicide. That overlap pulled my thoughts toward my rowing coach and mentor, and the countries he might have been navigating in his final moments.

In Hamnet, the phrase is an invitation to a beginning. In Hamlet, it is an admission of an end. Standing between those two meanings, I wonder how the path turns from hope to finality.

After the movie, Caroline, Audrey, and I sat around a small table in a nearby coffee shop, talking about Hamlet, its origins, and the themes in Shakespeare’s plays that feel clearer after seeing his origin story, like his recurring use of twins.

On my walk home from the Columbia station, a song briefly pulled me out of my head, “Good Will Hunting” by Black Country, New Road.

It is a track that unfailingly evokes the proleptic futures, moments expansive enough to house an entire lifetime.

But I am in my apartment now, and classes start again this week. I’m excited. I’m ready. It is time to return to routine, to read again, to test myself.

For now, that feels like enough.

My parents texted me this afternoon: they’re donating my car on Wednesday.

It sits in the parking lot now, unused and surrendering to rust, but for seven years it was my little escape. From the shaky hands of my first drive at sixteen to the final, heavy-packed trip before I left for New York City, that car was the constant. It bore witness to 150,000 miles of life: the screaming highway anthems, the missed exits, the speeding tickets, the heart-in-your-throat almost wrecks.

It held the debris of old relationships, echoing belly laughs, and solitary cries. I learned who I was through that odd rumble when I turned the ignition. Though it’s now just metal and aging parts, I’m profoundly grateful for that simple little car that got me from point A to point B.

To my first true taste of independence, seven years later.

Tonight felt like the beginning of a small, private epoch. I went to Lez Lit Night with my coworker, Eliza, and left feeling quietly, almost reverently, full.

There was a familiar, reflexive anxiety on the subway ride over. In a previous iteration of myself, I would have mediated this edge with a drink, softening the world’s sharpness, blurring the self until I was “loose” enough to belong. But tonight was a study in sobriety. I arrived exactly as I am: hyper-attuned, slightly exposed, and entirely present. It was a vulnerable architecture, but it held.

The evening’s focus was Fun Home, tracing a path from the devastation of Bechdel’s family history into her visceral early queer awakening with Joan. We spent a long time on the somatic weight of discovery, an almost devotional exegesis of first love; how in the heat of something all-consuming, even “the dictionary became erotic.”

New York is a city of grand, anonymous scale, yet tonight it felt remarkably domestic, a village of overlapping lineages. The coincidences felt less like accidents and more like a gentle revelation of hidden threads: two mutuals from college, a coworker, and my salesperson from J.Crew at Hudson Yards. In this empty, bare-walled room with folding chairs, the degrees of separation collapsed.

There was no need for performance; I was already legible, fluent in the room’s quiet shibboleths.

How wild…

From the quiet ache of the first snow in Manhattan to muddy August walks in the rain, from teaching high schoolers to sitting in emergency rooms alone, from Provincetown gallery strolls to grieving my grandmother’s decline, I’m learning what it means to build a life out of fragments. Furniture piled after deaths and moves, unfinished crochet projects, routines lost and rewritten.

This is my meditation on girlhood, queerness, ambition, loss, mental health, and the courage it takes to keep going when nothing feels steady. It’s my story of learning how to choose myself, one season, one small act of survival at a time.