Canadian wildfires are having a massive impact on NYC air quality today. Limit time outdoors and limit energy use when possible. The air quality is so poor that people will begin to feel health impacts from it. It is in place at least until midnight tonight.
This will be common throughout the summer as global warming and climate change have triggered an earlier and more intense start to wildfire season. More details, links, and information about this alert here: https://secretnyc.co/air-quality-health-advisory-nyc/
One thing I’m spending time on while I’m out of the city is considering how I’m going to decorate my forever home in Brooklyn. I have never decorated a home before. I’ve moved far too often to make the investment of time and money worthwhile. But that’s changed now with this apartment. I don’t know a lot about interior design because I’ve never spent any time studying it. I’m poring over magazines, websites, and the social media feeds of designers.
One piece of advice that everyone seems to give is “start by imagining how you want your home to feel.” How do I want to feel when I open the front door? How do I want guests to feel? Now I have an answer—I want it to be a little jewel box of peace. I want to open the door and feel like I can take a deep breath. I want my home to feel like an oasis, a respite, and a place of relief. A place where joy can grow.
I can manifest that feeling in the colors, textures, selection and arrangement of the furniture, and art. I gave away nearly all my furniture from my old apartment. I get a chance to start fresh with this apartment, to make it exactly the home I want it to be, and I can’t wait to begin.
I’ve stopped and started this post several times because I wasn’t sure how I could ever put into words what living on the Upper West Side for the better part of 16 years has meant to me. It was my dream as a kid to live in the Sesame Street neighborhood, and then I was fortunate enough to work at Sesame Street while I was here!
This past week I’ve been racing around doing errands, packing, cleaning, taking care of my aging dog, working – of the employment and graduate school varieties. Every time I turned a corner, walked a block, or saw a familiar face, memories flooded into my mind – some were joyful, some were tragic, and many were ordinary moments that felt extraordinary, then and now.
Here, I fell in love, and had my heart broken here, many times over. My novels were written and published. I started telling my stories, and helping others tell theirs. Jobs came and went, some were amazing opportunities and some I would like to forget. I started two businesses. I adopted my dog. I became a journalist. I was burned out of one apartment (and almost got trapped in the building), and kicked out of another when the building went co-op. I started therapy and put so many ghosts to rest that had haunted me for most of my life. I learned how to be fearless, or rather how to run right towards what scares me and not flinch. I faced health challenges, mental and physical. I rode out the pandemic. I was diagnosed with and treated for cancer—and nearly died from that treatment, twice, in this exact apartment I’m writing this post from right now. This apartment that I will leave tomorrow, never return to, and where I lived, where I really lived. Where I found out what I’m made of, why I’m here, and what my purpose is. Here I found the secret of life, and it’s love. To be ridiculously, foolishly, blindly, joyfully in love with every moment and interaction, and every single chance we get to just be.
There are so many things I will miss—my friends and neighbors, Central Park, Riverside Park, the dogs, the shops, the good food, the familiarity. My friend, Jennifer, sent me a quote from Navin Amarasuriya of The Contentment Foundation that says, “Home is not a location, but a place where you are missed when you are gone.” For me, the Upper West Side has been all these things, a real home. I will miss it, and it will miss me. We meant something to each other, and we always will.
This has been a long and winding chapter, and it’s rapidly coming to a close. There are new adventures and new places waiting for me, places that are not yet home but that I hope in time will be. No place will ever be exactly like this place, and for its special place in my heart I’m so grateful. I’m grateful for all it gave me and took from me, for all of it.
End scene, curtain up, take a long, happy, thankful bow, smile, pause, and then on to the next show, tomorrow.
If you’ve ever been to one of my apartments, you know I paint my walls with art. In preparation for my move, I took down all my art today and packed it. Normally, this day is a sad one for me. Suddenly my home isn’t my home anymore without the art on the walls.
But today was not a sad day for me. Though I will miss my neighbors and my neighborhood, letting go of this apartment is part of turning the page and letting go of a lot of painful memories. The pandemic. Cancer treatment. Nearly dying from cancer treatment. Break-ups. Old jobs. The loss of friends. The loss of family members. Phineas getting sick multiple times. As I took down my art, I let go of all those difficulties, all that sadness and disappointment.
There were plenty of wonderful times in these walls, too. Visits with friends. Unpacking a box full of copies of my first Emerson novel. Selling my second and third Emerson novels to a new publisher. Getting into the biomimicry program at ASU. Getting into the sustainability leadership course at Cambridge. Healing – for me and for Phin. Here, finally, I found peace and I will take it with me.
I’ve lived in this apartment for 6 years, longer than I’ve lived anywhere else as an adult. It’s a funny thing to be a renter, to live in a place where so many other lives have played out of people I will never know and never meet. Everything that happened to me here will never be known by the people who will live here less than a month from now. They’ll make their own memories here, and I’ll never know those stories. Only the walls know it all, and they keep every secret.
Really proud to be a finalist for the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis with The OpEd Project at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. They had 445 applications this year and though I didn’t get one of the 20 fellowship slots, as a finalist I will have some incredible opportunities this coming year to sharpen and hone my climate change storytelling. Please join me in congratulating this year’s fellows.
You may know I’m a massive fan of James Corden and his edition of The Late Late Show. You may not know that he and the show were part of my care plan when I went through cancer treatment during the pandemic. In my efforts to find joy every day to get myself through one of the toughest times in my life, James, his staff, and his guests were often that source of joy for me.
This has made saying goodbye to him in my own distant fangirl way especially difficult. I cried watching him sing his farewell song, “That’s Our Show.” I’m so grateful to him and his team for all they’ve done for eight years to make me laugh, to make us all laugh, especially during the challenging times. What a gift.
Though his time on late night is done, at least for now, I’m hopeful that we will see him again soon in his next great role. He is a massive talent. His performance in the Amazon show, Mammals, is beautiful and haunting. His comedic work on stage in The History Boys and One Man, Two Guvnors is masterful. I can’t wait to see what he does next because after his incredibly successful late night run, he could do anything. Truly. The world of opportunities is open to him. And I imagine that could be frightening and daunting. What would you do if you could do anything? It’s an enormous, poignant question.
My hope for him is he takes a long vacation, takes some time, takes a breath, takes in all the love and admiration fans like me have for him, and then does exactly what he wants to do. Maybe he’ll decide to do nothing. Maybe he’ll decide to do something. No matter what I will always be glad he chose to spend eight years of his life in the U.S. bringing his light to late night and making us smile every day. Thank you, James and the whole Late Late Show team, for everything. What a run. What a legacy. Congratulations.
The search is on for my new apartment! I’ll be moving on May 31st, or slightly before. To manifest this new space for my new chapter in this city, I wrote out what where I’d love to live:
Dog-friendly
Filled with light
Good public transit
Private outdoor space
Modern kitchen and bathroom
Laundry in-unit or in-building
Elevator
Doorperson
Neighborhood feel with a green space nearby
Let’s see what I can find. All ideas and referrals welcomed!
When I first started at the Roundabout, Todd showed me what was possible when you bet on yourself. Fresh out of college and not sure where my life or career was going, his example gave me hope, and a roadmap.
Todd went to the University of Pennsylvania for undergrad, as did I. He got an MBA, which I would get 7 years later following his example. He knew his career was not on stage (he acted in only one play), but on the administrative side. The same was true for me as well. He often described himself as an orchestrator with a talent for getting the right people around the table and removing any roadblocks so they could create something incredible together. I think of myself that way, too.
Todd was the first person who helped me realize not only could I love business and the arts equally, but that the two benefit one another. It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten in all the years since I worked at the Roundabout and it’s been the basis for my entire career and life—to use rock solid business principles to support creative endeavors.
When I found out Todd got cancer in his 40s, I was devastated. Then I was inspired because he kept going in spite of it — for 20 years! — and his star rose higher than ever. I also got cancer in my 40s during the pandemic, and again Todd’s example showed me what’s possible, even in the face of a difficult diagnosis. (I am thankfully now cancer-free.)
Though Todd physically left this world last week after his long battle with cancer, the energy, enthusiasm, and talent he wielded to completely transform Broadway theatre lives on in our beautiful city of New York, artistic communities all over the world, and the many people whom he inspired. Me included, of course.
Yesterday I attended a fundraiser for California’s next senator, the indomitable, authentic, passionate Congresswoman Katie Porter, hosted by Vicki Eastus and Ted Janger. We covered a lot of ground in our conversation: the economy, climate change, agriculture, fair housing, social justice, childcare, and abortion.
Katie is the real deal. She cares deeply about all of her constituents and this country. She is one of only 11 in Congress who do not take money from PACs or lobbyists. She cannot be bought and that’s one of the thing I admire most about her. Her book, I Swear: Politics is Messier Than My Minivan, came out yesterday and she was also on Colbert last night just before the fundraiser.
What we see on TV is exactly who Katie is. I’m so proud to support her, and I hope you will, too!
One thing you should know about me is that I’m a huge animated movie nerd. I could spend days watching Pixar movies, and have! As I went looking for inspiration about how small creative teams manage change for my latest academic paper on sustainability leadership, I happily re-discovered Ed Catmull’s book Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration.
Catmull is the Co-founder of Pixar and was the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. His 37 principles of how the company operates, including how they navigate change, hold business and life lessons for all of us.
Jonathan Michael from the company Bplans pulled together these Catmull quotes and created a set of graphics with photos from Disney / Pixar that will have your brain buzzing with ideas. I hope you find them as inspirational as I do.
