Somehow, enough time has crept up on me that I’ve been able to establish two fall traditions as a resident of Virginia. They include, for one, a pre-Halloween trip with Ted’s family to a haunted forest, one that’s about an hour outside of Richmond and squarely in the middle of nowhere. After sunset, we take back roads to a huge cornfield framed by dark forest and, probably, serial killers. We board a hayride bound for the middle of that cornfield, where we’re dropped off and left to fend for ourselves. Stumbling our way through a corn maze, we pass a roaring bonfire that marks the entrance to the haunted forest.

It’s a setup that poises you to react like a high-strung Thoroughbred before a big race, ready to shy away at the drop of a feather. So we trot and high-step our way through barely-lit abadoned houses, accompanied by soft but pulse-quickening horror-movie music, accosted and pursued by entirely too many deranged-looking men with chainsaws. Both years, Ted’s family has laughed at me for screaming so loudly. And that’s all I have to say about that.

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A few weeks ago, I flew home for a fleeting 28 hours. It was all I could spare without using a vacation day, and believe me when I say: it was not enough Chicago.

No, it wasn’t enough Chicago at all. But it was just enough time to make me remember why I missed the place.

28 hours was enough time to make a post-flight stopover in Park Ridge for diner grub at the Pickwick Restaurant. It was enough time to hug Lily and Archie, who I’d picked out as kittens so many years ago. It was enough time to traipse through Chicago’s neighborhoods with my dad, and enough time to visualize myself living in the Wicker Park apartment building surrounded by wildflowers. I had enough time to harass my little brother as we tooled around in the car together, and enough time to vent to my mother about life as an adult. 28 hours was enough to allow me one peaceful visit to the lakefront and bask in the almost Caribbean blue of the water. And it was enough time to sit on the porch under an eerie, post-storm sky, eating Paul Prudhomme’s grilled chicken and drinking in my last few hours there.

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No matter how many candles accumulate atop my birthday cake, I still find that nothing captures my imagination better than a really well-written, well-illustrated children’s book. A properly-told story captures the freedom and whimsy that came naturally to us as finger-painting, play-acting toddlers.

There were seasonal favorites in our little-one library; I still get the urge to read Happy Winter (as a 23-year-old!) every time Christmas rolls around. But for summer, there was Blueberries for Sal, in which a little girl spends most of her time among the berry bushes plunking fruit into her mouth, not her pail. Despite never having picked blueberries myself, I could almost feel the warm sun on my back whenever I opened that book.

Recently, I got to recreate Sal’s plotline when Ted and I headed to his hometown blueberry patch outside of Richmond. Now, overshooting on hand-picked berries seems like it’d be hard to do, right? It’s not like picking apples or peaches; bead-sized objects are slower to fill a bucket than fist-sized ones. The concentration it takes to find and reach the ripest fruit is intense, and by the time the early-morning clouds parted to reveal a hot midday sun, sweat was pouring down our faces.

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Nowadays, home is a word with an increasingly flexible definition. It means Wilmette, whose geography is etched into my nervous system, and Chicago, where I’ve always loved getting lost. It means Los Angeles, where a gaggle of family (and might-as-well-be-family) members have settled. And home now means Virginia, whether we’re talking about my current town (Falls Church, where I’ve learned the best place to get pho), or Richmond, where Ted hails from. When he and his sisters are lucky enough to return, Richmond is where they all settle in comfortably for family dinners and board games. And when I’m lucky enough to visit, it’s lovely to settle into their routine for a few days too.

Last weekend found me in Richmond, breathing in some particularly humid summer air. To start our trip on the right foot, we visited a pick-your-own blueberry patch, spent an hour under the face-melting Southern sun plunking berries into our pails, and left with twelve pounds of them. Somewhere in process, another few pounds made their way into our bellies.

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For my sixteenth birthday, when most other newly-licensed kids would be begging their parents for their first (beat-up) car, I was begging mine to go to New York. The Met was about to put on an exhibit of Richard Avedon’s portraiture, you see, and I was just precocious enough to understand how cool that was. Probably relieved that I wasn’t bugging him for my own set of wheels, my dad relented, and that’s how I got my first taste of New York City.

Since then, I haven’t stopped returning. Not a year goes by that I don’t hop up to the city—for an Eric Clapton concert in Madison Square Garden, maybe, or to stand in Grand Central Station on Halloween and gawk at the costumes, or just to visit the Strand and look at their awe-inspiring selection of used books. (Once I snagged an Avedon coffee-table book filled with his photos for Versace; it’s still my favorite find!) But every year, I’d always wander Manhattan and ignore the boroughs. This past weekend, I broke that streak when Ted and I watched some wonderful old friends run the Brooklyn Half-Marathon.

We arrived far too late on Friday night, and groggily clambered into a subway car far too early on Saturday morning, passing Russian billboard advertisements on our way to Coney Island. There, we were greeted by the rickety wooden Cyclone roller coaster, a Ferris wheel decked out in primary colors, vendors hawking funnel cake and hot dogs—and the finish line of the half-marathon! Not a minute after we sauntered up to the sidelines, my friend Anna sprinted by, hardly more than a flash of color in her track club jersey—and two of my college classmates followed soon after. It was completely thrilling. This was my first time as a race spectator rather than a participant, and to cheer people on as they pushed through the 13.1 miles, pain and determination plastered on their faces? I can’t think of anything more inspiring. Everyone there was an otherwise regular person, but they all accomplished something so extraordinary.

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My friends, it’s Friday, and I’m headed up to New York City. Three of my friends (Monica, Kim, and Anna, blogstresses all of them!) are conveniently running the same half-marathon in Brooklyn, which makes it pretty easy to see them all in one weekend. And with round-trip bus fare priced at $24, I had no reason to stay in Washington. In just a few hours, I’ll be snuggled up in my bus seat, concerned mostly with staring out the window and flipping through a stack of glossy magazines.

I’ll be sleeping on the futon of my dear friend Anna, who visited Washington last fall and stayed with me then. I’d just moved into my current apartment, which was, er, sparsely furnished, and cardboard boxes still adorned the living room. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to mind, and we had a great time sitting cross-legged on the floor with plates of lasagna after a full day of vineyard-hopping. And she brought dessert that lasted the whole weekend: monstrous slices of red velvet cake from her favorite Brooklyn bakery, Cake Man Raven (that’s the nickname of charismatic owner Raven Dennis). Word on the street is that Cake Man Raven counts Oprah, Robert De Niro, Patti LaBelle and P. Diddy as fans, and it was easy to understand why after taking my first bite of cake.

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I’ve become very familiar with the round-trip flight from Washington to Chicago. I can tell you how to get to the Reagan National, Dulles, or BWI airports using public transportation, and once there, I barely have to look at the overhead signs to steer myself toward the correct ticket counter. The flight itself? Similarly predictable, with the patchwork of dull green and brown cropland stretching out flatly as far as the eye can see. On such a trip, getting a window seat isn’t the trophy it used to be, back when I was a wide-eyed kid.

But this weekend, I was reminded that not all airplane rides are simply ways to get from Point A to Point B. Soon after my connection flight left Milwaukee, the pilot began to narrate our journey excitedly: “Folks, off to your right is Denver, and we’re nearing Aspen and Telluride! You’ll see the land get hillier as we head into the Rocky Mountains.” Sure enough, the peaks soon appeared in stark relief, snowcapped and majestic. “There’s Monument Valley,” he narrated. “And we’re coming up on the Grand Canyon—you’ll see the Colorado River’s pretty muddy this time of year.” He couldn’t even help himself from pointing out Las Vegas as we pulled closer to southern California.

As a pilot, I’m sure he’d passed over the same scenery too many times to count. But since a cross-country flight is such an unsubtle reminder of America’s varied beauty, I can’t imagine these views would ever get old, either.

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After a few weather-bound weekends at home, there was nothing that sounded better than throwing a duffel in the car and winding along the highway to someplace entirely new. Even better, the trip would mark a delayed celebration of Ted’s and my anniversary, making the adventure meaningful. But we only had 24 hours, so the destination had to fit a few criteria: be about an hour away, small enough to explore in a day, and sweet enough to wander together hand in hand.

Enter Annapolis, little harbor city of cobblestone streets, fantastic seafood, and about ten square blocks — all just a stone’s throw from Washington. The description “quaint coastal town” doesn’t conjure the hippest imagery, but with St. John’s College and the U.S. Naval Academy within city limits, the numerous Irish pubs there aren’t exactly empty on a Saturday night. I’d never been to Annapolis before, but its eclectic mix of adorable and rowdy ended up making it the perfect weekend escape.

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Over the years, more and more of my relatives have resettled in California. It used to be that the majority of us resided in Illinois; now, we’re evenly divided between Chicago and Los Angeles camps. (Most of them have experienced more than a few Midwestern winters, and I can’t say I blame anyone for choosing sunshine over snow flurries.)

The California contingent is a pretty awesome group of people. There’s my little brother, a film student; my oldest cousin, working towards becoming a screenwriter in Hollywood; and the coolest, most fun aunt, uncle, and younger cousin you could imagine. I’ve really missed them in the years since they migrated to the West Coast, especially since I’ve become a full-time East Coaster.

Given all this, you can’t blame me for spending more than a few lunch hours surfing Orbitz for airfare. And it looks like I’ll be a paying customer of theirs soon, making my way westward to visit L.A. this April. But until I actually step on the plane, I’ll be spending my time daydreaming about what I’ll wear when I step off that plane into the sun. (Humor me, people, it’s January…and raining!)

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