There’s Nothing Like Brooklyn In The Springtime

In a twist that’s probably to be expected, when the Sunday that I planned to go arrived, I woke up to a gray, rainy gloom-fest outside my window. Pair that with the burned-out state of myself and my would-be festival companions, and it became clear pretty quickly that there would be no blossom gazing in the gardens that day. I found out a few days later that droves of New Yorkers still braved the rain to turn out for the festival. Naturally, I felt a brief but intense twinge of regret and FOMO for not getting myself out to the garden. But! While I may not have had several hours to devote to standing outside in the frigid elements at the festival that Sunday, I did have 20 minutes to spend enjoying the great outdoors between the heavier bursts of rain on my way home from the grocery store.

After picking up my groceries (precisely enough to get me through the rest of my Sunday afternoon, to be exact), I took a detour at The Pratt Institute, which doubles as a pseudo-backyard for much of the neighborhood. On the cozy campus, I took a small army of grainy, haphazard phone photos before scurrying home to wriggle out of my soggy rain coat and wrap myself in blankets. (I did it all with a massive rain-soaked shopping bag full of crusty bread and off-brand cereal slung over my arm—how normcore chic of me). The photos are hazy from the fog on my camera lens, and the sky is a particularly ominous shade in every shot, but every time I see them, I smile.