April Dispatch
Oh hi, it's me. Just sending a virtually distanced greeting your way.
Simple Civility
Two weeks ago, I checked a major item off my life bucket list: running the New York City Marathon. Words can’t quite capture the experience of running through the streets of New York City with 50,000+ other runners. What I can say is that running through the five boroughs — from the mass exodus in Staten Island…
2016: Presence > Presents
My favorite marketing campaign over the holidays was Sweetgreen’s clever play on presents. Beyond the benefit to Sweetgreen’s bottom line, there’s immense value in the social capital this taps into: an age-old desire to break bread with others. This got me thinking, now that the ‘season of giving’ is over, what if we continue to give simply…
In 2013
For all its messiness, 2013 was a strangely awe-inspiring year. It was the year I found 3 professions, separately, in 3 very different industries. It was the year I failed, took a leap of faith into full-time writing, and discovered that it wasn’t for me. It was the year I lived in 3 apartments (6, if you count…
Hello Again, New York
On Thanksgiving Eve, while most New Yorkers eagerly shuttled out of the city, I befittingly found myself glued to my couch in Alphabet City, alone, milking a bottle of wine. Solitary gulps couldn’t replace my family’s embrace but somewhere between the self-pity and nostalgia, I found a silver lining. This week marks my 2nd year…
24
Celebratory boozing aside, what’s great about birthdays? Cake, free hugs, and…angst. Birthdays mark the passage of time, which leads to circuitous thinking about the past and future. Typically, I’ve hated this existential element. Something about imagining your life in a crystal ball like a time warp, then looking back at years past to see what…
Orthogonal Bliss
In the short time I’ve been in New York, I’ve lived multiple lives. At times, it’s been anxious naval-gazing: “I have work and then a dinner thing, and then I’m busy trying to do this whole becoming who I am thing!“, circa Hannah Horvath. Less often, it’s cosmopolitan ”I will never be the woman with…
Experimenting with Isolation
It started with a simple suggestion. When I was teaching in Italy two summers ago, one of my host Dads suggested that I check into a nunnery. Something told me this wasn’t a compliment. I didn’t think spending all day with 8-year old Italian children had made me that wild, but who knows. Then he clarified, “I recommend…
Monday Mission
I live right above a Brooklyn Industries store. The company motto, “live work create”, is emblazoned on the brick wall next to my building’s gate, so it stares at me each time I go in & out. I usually don’t return the glance but on occasion, I stare back. Or glare. Depending on my mood.…
Fear
Eleanor Roosevelt once advised: “Do one thing every day that scares you.” My natural instinct, like any scaredy-cat, is to back off and make excuses. But something tells me that Eleanor is not telling us to jump off a cliff. Those daredevil feats are nothing compared to the fears we’re most afraid to tackle, those…
The Social Files 