Just around the bend from our apartment, there’s a beautifully decorated piano – in Central Park. Phineas tried his paw at plunking out a few notes. Ultimately he felt he could better serve the cause by doing his best modelesque “look-away” pose in front of it. He’s really more of a vocalist than a piano player anyway – he has the most emotional, heartbreaking howl I’ve ever heard. (Seriously!)
So what’s a piano doing in Central Park? It’s out there in the open for anyone to play, courtesy of SingforHope.org – a nonprofit whose pianos-turned-public-art are eventually donated to under-served local schools, healthcare facilities, and community organizations, where Sing for Hope artists continue to bring the pianos to life year-round through classes, performances, and workshops. There are 88 pianos, all decorated by artists, scattered throughout the 5 boroughs. Check out this map to find one near you.
Phin’s piano was designed by Paolo Pecchi and it explores the dichotomy of our city – sometimes quiet, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, and sometimes strong. That is the amazing thing about art in any form – it can hold opposites, placing them side by side to show us how complex and rich life can be. Art shows us what we’re made of.
About a month ago I started writing for igokids.com, a site with the mission to be the go-to resource for parents, families, and caregivers about everything kid-related in New York City and beyond. I’ll be covering all kinds of activities from museum exhibitions to theater shows to family-friendly restaurants and events for the young and young-at-heart. My first post is now live and highlights the Museum of Mathematics, a one-of-a-kind place where kids and adults alike can play with numbers. Check it out by clicking here. If you have ideas of places and events in NYC that you think I should review, please let me know!
Now that I’ve been in my new apartment for almost two weeks, it’s beginning to feel like home. To this point, it’s felt like I’m in a hotel room that I’ll be leaving soon. I’ve had to learn new patterns around my neighborhood and inside my apartment. I didn’t realize how rooted I was in my old apartment. I wondered if I would ever feel at home in this new space. Would I ever settle in mentally and physically?
On Thursday night, I went to bed late after being out to dinner with friends. When I laid down in my bed, I let out a long sigh. I thought to myself, “It feels good to be home.” And then a huge smile found its way onto my face. Home. It had happened. Since Thursday night, I feel gitty every time I walk through my front door. While I have been busy putting everything in its place, this place has been busy transforming itself into more than just a box. It’s a sanctuary. It’s a place of creativity, peace, and joy.
When things are right in our homes, they are right in other areas of our lives, too. Feeling at home these last few days has helped me to see that everything is going to be okay – in my career and my personal life. Just as I’ve been transforming my home, my home has been transforming me. I’m standing taller. I feel like options for opportunity abound, and many of them begin with me just making a choice to reach for them.
Change is good. And change – real, lasting, good-for-you change – begins at home.
I grew up in the dirt, literally. There was (and still is) a tractor crossing sign across the street from the house where I grew up. My rural hometown fostered a childhood that involved climbing trees and making mud pies. When I was little, I was convinced that there was a dinosaur skeleton hiding under the ground in my backyard. I enlisted my sister, Weez, to help me dig and dig and dig. All we found was a small mouse skeleton, but I thought it was clearly a prehistoric mouse! Other kids wanted to be doctors, firefighters, or teachers. I wanted to be a paleontologist. I still do.
My childhood was far from idyllic, but there were some very positive things about growing up in the sticks. I got my hands dirty in the process of making things. I ate organic food because that’s really all there was, not because it was trendy. Animals were my friends and companions, as much as people. Maybe even more than people. I learned to appreciate the Earth, her majesty and her power. Weather was a way of life, and I still watch it with fascination and wonder.
An article in the New York Times last weekend talked about a movement in this fine and fair city I now call home to bring more nature into the lives of city kids not by taking them out of the city, but by bringing nature to them. Brooklyn Forest, a husband and wife startup, “takes toddlers into Prospect Park to promote learning through creative play like building teepees out of branches.” 7 students were in their first class. Now there are over 200. More people are eager to get into mud these days; I was a pioneer.
There’s something to be said for the slow life, the life we build rather than the life we buy shrink-wrapped and delivered right to our doorstep. Creation builds confidence and bolsters the imagination. It makes us self-sufficient. I’m all for it, for our children and for us. There’s a lot of beauty down there in the mud.
Just another day on the Great Lawn in Central Park
“You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.” The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
The universe always rises up to support someone with a passion to do something of value for others.
I think about this quote a lot when people ask me about Compass Yoga‘s partnership with the New York Public Library. We offer 9 weekly classes at different library branches in Manhattan, all free of charge to anyone who walks through the door. Over the past two years since we began offering the classes, a number of people have asked me how I make sure the people who are in the class really need it. What they’re really asking is how do I feel about them coming to our classes for free while they have the means to pay for classes elsewhere.
We certainly do have students who could afford to pay something for a class – perhaps not the $20 or so it costs for many classes around the city, but certainly something. A few of our students have given donations to Compass Yoga because they are of means and support our work. I wish others who are of means would do the same. Perhaps in time they will. Other people have given their time and expertise to support our work. Other people don’t have the means at all, but they bring their energy and dedication to class every week.
There’s another New York-based charity that operates under the same circumstances as Compass Yoga: NYC Parks. Consider how often New Yorkers take advantage of the beauty of Central Park, or any of the other public parks in the city, on a sunny day? How many of them have donated money to NYC Parks? Certainly not all of them, maybe not even most of them. I wish more people would donate, though the parks don’t discriminate. They don’t have a giant gate around them demanding payment before entry. Compass Yoga has the same philosophy as Central Park: to be free and open to all who enter.
I started Compass to bring more yoga to more people in more places, no strings attached. I also started it so that yoga teachers who are just starting out could get experience teaching. I wanted to build a bridge between the people who need what yoga has to offer and the people who have the training to teach. I know if we stay true to that goal and work hard at creative fundraising strategies, eventually the funding will flow. The trickle has already begun; now its our job to do our best to carve it into the Mississippi for the sake of all our students.
“I said, to be a New Yorker you have to live here for six months, and if at the end of the six months you find you walk faster, talk faster, think faster, you’re a New Yorker.” ~ Ed Koch (Thanks to my pal, Sara Alvarez, for posting quote.)
Yesterday, New York City lost one of her greatest residents and best advocates. Former Mayor Ed Koch left us at the age of 88. It’s hard to think of New York City without him. He is as iconic as the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, and the Statue of Liberty.
His love of New York was infectious and he helped us all keep our egos in check by constantly asking his trademark question, “How’m I doin’?” New Yorkers by nature like to one up each other with how long they’ve lived here, how well they know the city, and how much of a New Yorker they are. Ed believed that this city belonged to anyone who had the courage to move here. In his eyes, New York was for everyone.
And so it’s with a couple of tears in our eyes and heavy hearts that we bid you a fond farewell as you take up the next leg of your journey. We can only hope that you love the place you now call home as much as you loved this city. Thanks for believing that together we could make this a better place, even when the future seemed so bleak.
To read a beautiful retrospective of his life in the New York Times, please click here. Ironically, a documentary about him appropriately named Koch opened nationwide on the same day that he passed away. Ed always knew how to go out with a splash.
I had dinner with my friend, Amanda, on Wednesday night. Though we are people who love and crave time in the natural world, we both made the decision to live in New York City for its cultural diversity and creative opportunities. Still, in these bleak months of winter with its heavy gray skies and meager hours of sunlight, my thoughts often turn to a different kind of life in a different kind of place that involves more trees and less concrete. You can take the girl off the farm, but that doesn’t mean you can make her forget its wonders.
Amanda and I talked about how much we miss the stars. While in New York City, you’ll gaze up at the sky to catch a glimpse of a handful of sparkly specks. Get out of the reach of the city lights and we are reminded that there is a galaxy with an infinite number of stars nestled into the darkness. I miss those stars; I miss the awe that they inspire and the perspective they provide. How can I have all the richness of the New York experience and still gaze at the stars? Is it possible to have both?
I thought a lot about this conversation as I wound my way from New York’s Little India to Times Square to catch the subway home. In a city like New York that has so few stars in the sky by which to navigate, we have to look for the stars among the people around us like my friend, Amanda.
While I miss those twinkling lights that I’ll never reach way up high, there’s something really precious and beautiful about being able to know and love the stars who light our way at ground level. We have to be one another’s True North.
“Sometimes the little opportunities that fly at us each day can have the biggest impact.” ~ Danny Wallace
In a time when emotions are running high, I’ve found myself compelled to be more patient. When I’m on the subway with people who are pushing and losing their temper because of the intense crowding and delays, I am driven to be more tolerant, to smile more, to give others the right of way even when it’s my turn.
So often we think we must do something big to really make a difference. We have to start a company or organization, make a huge donation, or broadcast our message through a megaphone of some form. During this odd time in New York City as we are reminded of the power of nature and the incredible gift of neighbors helping neighbors, I am learning about the immense value of small, everyday kindnesses that we can all give and receive.
They give us a sense of belonging. They cause us to pay it forward, igniting a chain reaction of compassion and courtesy. It’s in these small moments that we recognize just how connected we all are. And it’s a really beautiful thing to understand.
Parts of Downtown Manhattan saw the light tonight for the first time in almost a week. From NYTimes webcam
“Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.” ~ Ray Bradbury, American writer
I have been glued to my television this week. With transportation being a tangled knot, if it exists at all, I wanted to let those who really need public transit access it without people like me adding noise to the system. In the past day or so, I’ve found myself incredibly anxious and antsy even though I was completely unaffected by the ravages of Hurricane Sandy. I donated money to the Red Cross but that one action wasn’t sufficient for me when my city is in such dire need. I needed to stop watching and start doing.
This weekend, local efforts to mass mobilize volunteers are getting underway. After signing up for countless lists, my inbox is flooded with requests for help and I couldn’t be happier. I’m rolling up my sleeves, heading outside, and pitching in. It will take all of our creativity, patience, and compassion to get us moving again. We can’t just try to make a difference; we must actually make a difference. The health of our city depends upon it.
If you’re in New York City, or plan to be, and you want to lend a hand, New Yorkers can use your support. Visit nyc.gov/service to learn about volunteer opportunities with the City and community-based organizations working on the recovery. Please check the website periodically in the coming days as they update the opportunities.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – your act of goodness is not an isolated incident. It will change you. It will open your heart, and not just in that moment in which you’re giving, but always. It will open the hearts of others. As you give what you have to others who need help, you will inspire others to do the same. And that act will affect them, not just in that moment in which they’re giving, but always.
The pictures and videos emerging from Hurricane Sandy, the stories of heroism, generosity, and sheer kindness are nothing short of flat-out inspiring and tear jerking. Lives have been shattered in the greater metro area and people all over this country are rising up to help people put the pieces back together. In the midst of all of this sadness, all of this loss, I couldn’t be prouder or more honored to call myself a New Yorker.
Earlier this year, I contemplated making a move to a new city, citing the cost and insane pace of this city. No way. Not now. I am doubling down on my city. This is my home, these are my people, and we’re going to get through today and all the tough days ahead of us together. We can and will do this.
Christa Avampato 