Today I watched an interview with the Copenings, a family of five who are all essential workers in New York City who have gone to work every day since March: mother works for the US Postal Service, father and one son are bus drivers for the MTA, one son works in a nursing home, and daughter works for the Department of Education in a capacity where she had to go to her office every day.
We will never be able to say thank you enough to the Copenings and all of the people like them who have taken care of all of us during this time. It’s wonderful to see them receive a gift of gratitude and thanks from Drew Barrymore on The Drew Barrymore Show.
I went for my first routine mammogram last week. Yes, the exam is a little bit uncomfortable but it saves lives. My mom’s stage 1 breast cancer was found via a routine mammogram. She got treatment and has had clear scans ever since.
Today I found out I need to go for more testing. This is because my tissue is dense so I also need to have an ultrasound and is exactly what happened 9 years ago when I had a baseline mammogram.
1 in 5 breast cancers are not found among people who have dense breasts because they stop at a mammogram without further testing.
I’m grateful that NYU Langone Health recommended further testing so that we get an accurate result. This is one of the many reasons why everyone needs access to good care. Affordable high-quality healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. Friends, take care of yourselves. Get your routine medical exams and tests.
Today is my Alive Day — the 11th anniversary of my apartment building fire when I almost got trapped inside. Every day since September 5, 2009, I’ve thought about my own death. The fire started in the first floor apartment directly in my line, and it grew so big that eventually it burned through the ceiling, out into the first floor hallway, and up the stairs I ran down just moments before. The fire fighter who later spoke to me as the EMT checked my lungs told me that if I’d hesitated even a few seconds longer, I would have run right into the flames. “You’re very lucky,” he said to me. Those words have never left my mind.
For years PTSD and massive depression tortured me. I was watching myself fall into madness. So much so that one night I climbed out onto the roof of my new apartment building because I wanted nothing more than to stop thinking about the worst day of my life. A handful of things kept me from jumping — the enormous full moon, the water towers in my neighborhood that looked like guards standing watch, and a little girl name Emerson Page who started to form in my mind. A scrappy triumvirate, the three of them — the moon, the water tower, and Emerson — protected me from me. And I started to write it all down.
Shortly after that night I was on a plane that was hit by lightning (right on the wing near my seat) and we made an emergency landing just before the wing fell off the plane and onto the tarmac. I was deep into therapy at that point, working hard to shine a very bright light into all the dark places of my mind. My therapist, Brian, saved me many times over the years that followed until finally something changed, something shifted. Not in the world or in my circumstances, but in me. In my bones I internalized that the fire didn’t destroy me; it set me free. Every day after that fire has been a gift, and not one that was promised to me but one that I was so fortunate to be given. These days are extra, in the truest sense of the word.
I’ve certainly had bad days since that fire. Just look at this year we’re living through. I’ve had broken hearts and dreams that fell apart even when I tried so hard to hang onto them. I’ve lost a lot of people I love. I’ve lost, and lost, and lost. And I’m grateful for all those days and losses, too.
At one point about a year after I started therapy, I told Brian how much I hated going to therapy. He looked at me very simply and said, “Well now we’re getting somewhere.” We were getting somewhere. Freedom isn’t free — it takes work, time, and patience. You have to crawl through all the muck if you want to leave that muck behind. And I did. So I crawled, inch by painful inch until I was free of it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said that many people die with their music still in them. If I hadn’t survived that fire, my plane hit by lightning, and that night out on the roof of my new building with the moon, my music would have died in me. People would have said things like, “How sad. She was so young. She had so much left to do.” They would be right. But I didn’t die on those days or any days after. Today I get to be here with all of you, in our socially distant, masked up weird ways of 2020 but still here. Still breathing. Still living. It’s some kind of miracle, and every day I work to make the miracle matter.
It’s a strange feeling to look your own death in the eyes and live to tell about it. I had lived through the death of family members and friends, but living through my own was different. It’s given me an unimaginable strength, an unending sense of joy, wonder, and curiosity. There’s a deep peace that lives in me now that I never had before. Building back my mind, body, and spirit from that level of devastation made me fearless, grateful, and happy to just be. We really can build back better, even and especially when all the odds are stacked against us.
At the end of every day, I say thank you to that drive to survive that was there in me that day 11 years ago today. I opened my door to pitch black smoke so thick I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I had a split second to decide: should I chance it and run blind down flights of stairs not knowing what I was running toward or close the door and hope someone would come rescue me? I took the chance and ran. I rescued myself, and all these days since I’ve been trying to make that rescue mean something. Making meaning of my survival is exactly what I intend to keep doing every day that I’m given.
I read this opinion piece by comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, and I’m 100% with him. I understand that a lot of people have left NYC for a lot of reasons, and that many will not be back. That’s okay. I support them in their endeavors elsewhere.
As for me, I’ll be here rebuilding, remaking, and regenerating the place that I will always call home. I love New York and I always will. I’m not going anywhere.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the people most impacted by #HurricaneLaura are Black and Latinx; it should outrage you. It’s not right, and so we have to say something and do something. And not just when the storm is front page news, but for a lifetime. This is a wrong that has to be righted, and I’m going to work hard to right it.
Environmental injustice, made worse by climate change, is one of the many hideous dimensions of racism in this country, and it’s getting worse by the day. That’s why I’m making it a main focus of my research and work. These inequities are systemic, and we have to change them deep within our laws, institutions, and investments. And not just as a storm hits, but long before. We cannot wait for disaster to mitigate it. Then, it’s too late.
If one community suffers, we all suffer. That’s what it means to be a nation— to be in communion with others. The suffering from this storm will be brutal, intense, and extraordinarily unequal. The predictions are dire. Those of us who can give have the responsibility to help others.
My thoughts are with everyone impacted by these storms, and so is my heart, my wallet, my education, my skillset, and my time. And I am especially focused on those who are most vulnerable and will not have the means to recover on their own.
I was planning a little vacation this year, but I’ve decided against it. With the global health and economic situation so dire (and very likely to get much worse in the coming months), it doesn’t feel like the best idea to go on vacation now. And that’s okay. I love my life in NYC, even in these strange times. I’m grateful that I built a life and career that I don’t feel I need a vacation from. There will be years for vacations and travel, and I absolutely do think we have better and brighter days ahead. In 2020, I’m just grateful to be well in every way and I’m dedicated to making every day the best it can be for myself and for others from right where I am in New York.
I also want to note that the New York Department of Health is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases in New York because of travel. If you are traveling to, from, or within New York, whether you’re a resident or a visitor, please, please, please respect our quarantine laws and get tested. I would go a step beyond these laws and say if you have gone anywhere away from your home city in New York, please get tested and quarantine until you have results when you come back to New York. Tests are free and available throughout the state. I don’t want to relive spring 2020 in New York City. Once was enough, thank you. We can protect each other from this virus but we all need to do our part. More information here: https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-travel-advisory?fbclid=IwAR0x2N828eg_gd3onwxrx8EkhQ1YryxSHiVnoRJSQOWdYK1V8wLp44hf2fI
Last week the National Park Service turned 104 years old. To celebrate, I went to one of NYC’s least-visited natural wonders— Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge
I was so happy to let the salty air fill my lungs and give my eyes a rest from screens by focusing on the vistas of salt marshes with the skyline of Manhattan in the distance. The open water, green space, and animals did my mind, body, and soul a world of good. After just a few hours, I felt as energized as I feel after a week of vacation. . I love thinking about how wild and full of biodiversity all of New York City once was, and how so many efforts are being made to keep parts of it wild. My hope is that these terrible pandemics of health, racism, and an unstable economy will be the massive push we need to make our cities greener for all who live in them. . The area around the Refuge reminded me of beachy towns like you’d find in Cape Cod but it’s accessible by public transit for $5.50 round trip and free to enterq! Just take a Far Rockaway-bound A train to Broad Channel. From there it’s a 15-minute walk or short bus ride.
The Wildlife Refuge was created in the 1950s by NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. It became part of the National Park Service in 1972 when Gateway National Recreation Area was established.
It includes over 12,600 acres of water, salt marshes, freshwater and brackish water ponds, upland fields and woods, and open bay and islands. It is one of the largest bird habitats in the northeastern United States and is a great place to observe the seasonal bird migration as well as resident species. 332 different bird species have been recorded there!
I highly recommend a trip to see this beautiful, peaceful, and truly wild place. May we create many more of them in our city.
This week, 100 years after the 19th Amendment granted the right to vote to women, this gorgeous statue of Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was unveiled. It’s the first of real women from history in Central Park, and it’s long overdue. The fight continues, and we will not rest until all adults in this country can exercise their right to vote with ease.
This statue was created by artist, Meredith Bergmann. It’s so moving to see in-person that I teared up. These heroines are still very much with us. Another statue of Sojourner Truth was unveiled last week in my hometown of Highland, New York, in the Hudson Valley. I haven’t seen in yet but I look forward to seeing it soon.
On today’s anniversary of the March on Washington, I’m thinking of Congressman John Lewis and the millions of people who fought and continue to fight for justice. We have come a long way in 57 years since that day and we still have such a long way to go. I’m dedicated to being on that path for equality with all of you for as long as it takes to ensure all people everywhere are free.
Congressman Lewis’s books have been such a light for me, especially in the difficult days of 2020. If you’re looking for someone to raise you up, to talk to you about courage, bravery, the power of love to change hearts and minds, freedom, and being a light in so much darkness, these books will do that. When I read them, I can hear his voice and I feel like he’s in conversation with me. He’s still in conversation with all of us, still supporting, encouraging, and inspiring us to be better, to do better, and to make Good Trouble.
Sometimes the monsters surprise you. Earlier this week I had nightmares about doors—ones I couldn’t close, couldn’t open, that kept me contained, and forced me onto paths I didn’t want to take. All week I’ve been thinking about how life is just door after door and we have to keep going. It’s not easy. It’s not comfortable. And it’s absolutely necessary.
Christa Avampato 