Month: September 2007

adventure, creativity, GEL, Mark Hurt, technology, travel

Currents

Christa Avampato

The best thing about working for a boss whose title is Consigliere is that he knows other equally brilliant Consiglieres. My boss recently introduced me to Mark Hurst and the GEL conference. (You can find more information about Mark, the conference, and Mark’s company, by clicking http://www.goodexperience.com/. (Coincidentally Mark is a friendly, engaging guy who lives just a few blocks away from me. I love this town!) The GEL conference is a once-a-year event that bring together brilliant thinkers and innovators from many different fields to share their ideas, concerns, experiences, and hopes for the future. The brain power in these conferences at any given moment is nothing short of incredible.

Mark was kind enough to send me a few DVDs with some footage from last year’s event. There were two speakers whose work really struck me as something that I could write about on this blog. One of them is Marie Lorenz. She’s a boat builder, artist, and tidal expert who lives right here in New York. She started a project called the Tide and Current Taxi. She sent an email to everyone she knew in New York, asked them to give her two points that they visited often (around the costs of the islands that comprise New York City) and then invited them into one of her boats to navigate between those two points using only the current of New York City’s rivers. They rarely got exactly where they were trying to go, though she always got a great story. And really, it’s always about the story and we rarely ever end up exactly where we thought we were going. We’re in it for the journey.

In her talk at GEL, Marie explained that on one trip, the current had become particularly rough in the East River, and more and more water lapped up into the boat, causing it to sink, no matter how much she and her friend paddled. They ended up letting go of the boat and everything inside of it and had to swim to the shore of Roosevelt Island. Marie was so upset, so discouraged. She and her friend nearly drowned, and she had lost the project. It was now floating out there in the East River, menacingly, upside down, right near one of the strongest currents in the world. Her heart was broken.

And a moment later, she climbed over the short fence between her and the East River, and she dove in. Like hell that current was getting her boat and her gear! She swam diligently out to the boat, scooped it up, and swam back to shore with all her might. She had worked too hard on this project to let it all go down the current.

It made me think about all the times I’ve worked so hard for something, paddled furiously in the wake of impending disaster, only to end up swimming for the shore. Like Marie, on occasion my heart was broken and so I dove back in, in an effort to salvage was was taken away. The salvaging has never worked quite as well for me as it did for Marie – each time I ended up discarding the very thing I dove back in for once I realized it would have been better to let it remain out at sea and for me to move on. Though I suppose that’s better than having it drift away and never being sure of whether or not you needed or even wanted it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about those currents that surround this island I am making my home on. I don’t think I’ll ever look at them quite the same way as I did before Marie’s talk. Sometimes they carry us to some place new that wasn’t on our itinerary, and sometimes they take away everything we’ve got leaving us able to do nothing else but swim to shore. I guess the trick is to know the difference – when is the vessel that carries you worth paddling like hell for, when is it better to just let it fall away, and what makes some of these vessels so special that they are worth diving back in to rescue?

For more information about Marie, visit http://www.marielorenz.com/.


The above image can be found at http://www.destination360.com/caribbean/bahamas/images/s/bahamas-boat-rental.jpg.

Life

The Need for Speed

Christa Avampato

Speed dating that is. One of my favorite Kerry Bradshaw quotes is that every woman is New York is looking for one of three things: a job, an apartment, or a man. Given that I have been incredibly fortunate with one and two in recent months, I am trying my luck with #3. Third time’s a charm. So my wonderful friend, Monika, agreed to go to one of these events with me. I had no idea what to expect though I am pretty adventurous so I figured at the worst it would be something to write about on this blog.

I was running late from work to make it to the event – the omens were less than promising. The GW Bridge was backed up during my commute from NJ, parking was tough to find, and as I approached the bar where the event was being held (sadly near Port Authority), I could not escape the overwhelming smell of urine. That’s because the man about 15 feet in front of me was in fact peeing, on someone’s car. (Thankfully not mine.) It was at this moment that I realized I was so worried about being late to meet Monika that I had not spent a second thinking of some good questions to ask so I didn’t have to rely on the boring, “how are you? what do you do? where are you from?” litany. What if I met an amazing guy and was just completely tongue-tied? What was I even doing here? I should turn around and go home. Or maybe Monika and I should just go have a martini.

“No, no,” I thought. Just go in there, smile, and give it a shot. And I did, right after I made sure to grab a sangria. And I love meeting new people. As it turned out, I would have preferred to just hang around at the bar rather than go through a rash of dates – some of whom didn’t speak English, were incapable of eye contact, and were just, well, dull. All was not lost, though – I met some really good guys (all of whom tended to be on the older end of the age range for the event – no surprise there.) In the end, Mr. Amazing (for me) wasn’t there and that’s okay. Just knowing that there are so many others in this city who are looking, just like me, somehow made the whole dating adventure seem to be just that, an adventure.

Whether I need speed dating to as a vehicle to continue that journey, I’m not quite sure. However, it is sure nice to have options put before you that only cost 6 minutes each.

*The picture above can be found at http://www.edge-inc.net/images/cars/Lamborghini-I-Love-Speed.jpg.

Life

Mien petite appartement

Christa Avampato

Please forgive me if I can’t even string three French words together properly. French is one of those language I long to be able to speak. It drips with elegance and charm in a way that few other language could ever hope to do. As much as I love Spanish and Italian, which have their own incredible beauty, French has always captured my attention.

Me all have daydreams – I imagine myself sitting in some lovely little café, sipping coffee from a delicate little cup, in some incredibly chic French outfit, just out this season of course. Eating a croissant, and laughing with an adorable French man who finds me equally adorable. And then the part in the daydream when I have to say something…I imagine myself speaking French but then what comes out of my mouth is some alien language not comprehensible by any other living being. The French boy runs away, and I am left with my coffee….sad, sad story.

I went to France for a month right before starting at business school and I fell in love with it. The Sunflowers, the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, the people, the FOOD, the wine. I spent a week in Paris, two weeks volunteering with a nonprofit that rebuilds ancient architecture in Saint Victor La Coste (near Avignon), and then a week along the French Riviera. So incredible – every day was out of fairy tale book. Paris is the only other city I have ever been that made me feel the way New York make me feel – alive, free, and bubbling over with joy. Whenever I went to a restaurant or a museum or the post office, etc. I always made an effort to ask for what I wanted in French. The people I was speaking to would look at me with sad eyes and respond to me in English. I would respond in French (if I could) and they’d look at me with even sadder eyes and again respond to me in English. I love France so much that I think I am entitled to be able to learn French without any difficulties.

My friend Heather recently came to New York for a visit and stayed in my apartment. Heather went to Darden with me, and her husband Didier, is originally from France. Their children are completely bi-lingual and I marvel at their conversations. When Heather came into my very small apartment, I immediately said, “oh don’t look at the kitchen – it’s so tiny. (It literally is the size of a closet.) She immediately said, “Are you kidding me? This apartment is great – bigger than places in Paris. All apartments in France are small.”

My heart leapt with joy! Now I can imagine myself coming home to mien petite appartement, knowing that million of people in Paris are doing the exact same thing in an even smaller place than mine. If I can’t share the language with them, at the very least I can appreciate the beauty of living small.

Life

The West Side’s Most Elusive Creature

Christa Avampato

The opera singer Beverly Sills once said, “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” Some people may think she was pontificating about how to achieve a successful life through hard work and determination. I think she was talking about finding a parking space on the Upper West side of Manhattan. Now that school is back in session, all of my favorite parking haunts have been stolen. I am exaggerating – it’s actually not bad at all. The most I have ever spent looking for parking is 20 minutes, and, knock on wood, that will be a rare occurrence and I will go back to my five-minute parking search which has up until now always ended with me finding a primo spot.

These parking posts are quite elusive, I find them and they always manage to be a little too small, or a little close to a fire hydrant, or just a smidge into the cross-walk. Given how diligently the police patrol my neighborhood (when in my opinion they really need to be spending their time in parts of the city that really need heavy patrols rather than having their cushy jobs giving people like me tickets for making turns where I am supposed to magically know that turns are illegal despite the fact that there is no posting), I am weary of any parking that doesn’t seem absolutely 100% perfect.

The other real kickers are these crazies looking for parking spaces on the UWS. Yesterday I actually encountered a woman who was STANDING in a parking spot waiting for her friend to come by and park there. Unbelievable. I considered forcing her to leave and give me the spot but she looked like the spiteful type who may key my car the second I walked away. (Not really, but that was the only way I could console myself for letting her take a spot that really should have been mine.

Then there are the people who continually make a right on red, despite the fact that you can’t do that in NYC, all to steal a spot from someone respectfully waiting at the light. At moments like these I say to myself, “that person’s karma has just hit an iceberg.”

I’ve been trying the theory of positive thinking a la the Oprah-recommended book, The Secret. I imagine in my mind a perfectly sized, legal spot right outside my building. I’m not imagining hard enough. I will have to work on that in the coming weeks.

I’ve got a fabulous weekend lined up – I am going to devise a parking space strategy. There are all kinds of different parking hours on the UWS. Some spaces you can’t be in between 7 and 4 on school days. Some don’t allow you to park there between 8am and 6pm. And the list goes on and on. I haven’t found a website that gives details of these parking rules yet – heaven forbid the city government give you that info – it would inhibit the police from giving you tickets that I imagine rack up quite a bit of funds. So I am going to make a list, and come up with a search strategy based upon what time I arrive back in the city.

Sounds like I’m a crazy person right? Though if I consider that it will probably take me about an hour’s walk on a beautiful Saturday afternoon to get all the information on parking in my neighborhood, compared to the 20 minutes per night it may be taking me to find parking everyday, it doesn’t seem so crazy after all. I’m sure that perfect spot is out there waiting for me…

Life

Imperfection Becomes Us

Christa Avampato

I have a friend who has me laughing so hard without even trying that if there was a contest for the Funniest Person in America she’d win hands-down. I can ALWAYS count on her to have a funny anecdote or personal incident to cheer me up on even the darkest days. Friday was no exception – not that I was having a dark day, just that she had one of the funniest and most poignant stories I’ve heard to date.

Like me, she has started a new job fairly recently and was wearing a beautiful outfit for a big meeting she had early in the morning. Mid-afternoon, she went into the ladies room only to discover that her colorful and striped underwear was showing clearly through her skirt. This had not been the case when she checked herself out in the mirror at home that morning. She even asked a stranger in the bathroom to check, hoping it was just her own self-conscious perception. the stranger replied, “I can definitely see it.” Even out in the hallway, where the light was a little less harsh, the underwear was completely visible. After being in the cafeteria with hundreds of people, meeting a whole new project team, her attempt at perfection provided a perfectly beautiful and entertaining lesson – perfection is highly over-rated.

In starting a new job, a new relationship, a new hobby, we are always putting our best foot forward early on, seeking to be perfection to our potential new mate, our new bosses, to our new co-workers, even to our fellow commuters. Despite my best attempts at perfection, I never quite get there, and I’m thankful for that. It’s just when I think I’ve thought of every last deal that there’s a total wrench thrown into the works. And the wrenches are what make the journey enjoyable, memorable, and bond us to people around us. There is no quality more flattering than being able to have a sense of humor about ourselves, and then have the humility to share that humor with others.

So while my dear friend may feel she fell short of her best attempt at perfection, I think that imperfection was what makes her uniquely and wonderfully her. We’d have a much easier time being perfectly happy if we could just take our imperfections in stride.