http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6FjwUwJup0 When this album came out I took note of the really popular tracks (and quite liked them), but never took the time to listen to the rest. Now I can't get this song off of repeat.
Don’t underestimate just how far flowers will go.
Ask me to dance. On the subway platform, at the bar, in our living room. Not because you can, or I can, but because who cares? Because that’s not the point. Because the last guy didn’t. Because you’d use any excuse to place the palm of your hand on the low of my back.Because we’re a little bit foolish you and I (and thank God for that).
Encourage me to write. I like myself better when I’m full of and on words—or in pursuit of them, at least.
I’m an introvert. I’ll need the occasional time and space to just be alone. Give me that.
Sometimes I eat tortilla chips in the shower. Or under the covers. Or barefoot in the kitchen before I’ve even poured my morning coffee. And I really like my morning coffee.
On hard days, when I’m feeling a little blue, I’ll get a latte just for the warmth between my hands. Let me.
Don’t ever ask me how a writer makes a living.
The sound of someone eating an apple is enough to drive me from the room.
Social graces only go so far; a person is nothing without empathy. We will raise children who know the difference.
Yeah, I want you to cut a fine silhouette in a tux, but I'm far more excited about the mettle of the man beneath.
I have no poker face.
Sometimes when I’m nervous I'll get a little quiet, a little unfriendly, a little prickly. It means I like you. I know it doesn't make any sense. To me either! Please forgive me these moments...it’s just that sometimes looking at you is like looking at the sun. Good and overwhelming and a little blinding.
I’ve been staring at the computer for an hour now, thinking on what else to write, but my mind keeps coming back to your penny-loafers and your sometimes-side-part and hell if I’m not sunk.
*ps: Take me to Paris one day, won't you?*
(It's been a while since one of these, no?
You can find others here.)
For the most part I'm really okay that I didn't end up in Paris this long weekend (that post and explanation coming tomorrow).
But for my eyes.
But for the feast my eyes would've beheld.
And the weight of the camera in my hands as I beheld it.
Does that make sense?
There are so many ways we feed ourselves, I believe that. And just as our bodies are primed (and need) to eat a variety of things...I think the eyes need the same. The architecture, the paintings, the small neighborhoods and cobble stone streets, my eyes were hungry for Paris. My body was craving the experience of the city.
But Paris will wait; it has to.
When it became clear the trip was not happening, or rather, that it would happen without me, I called my very best friends here in the city and asked them to play tourist with me. I wanted to do something in New York that would in some way mimic my derailed Parisian adventure.
The Met came to mind.
It's one of the most visited tourist attraction, and while I--yes--tend to shy away from visiting such places (or even suggesting them), on this front I absolutely concede: the Met is worth the visit.
The building itself is a stunner. The galleries are well curated and the artwork is, of course, tremendous. So go. Really, go.
And after, turn the corner on 86th and grab a delicious meal or snack at Cafe Sabarsky (inspired by turn of the century Viennese cafes) in the Neue Galerie. There is an upstairs and downstairs to this establishment--the upstairs while admittedly more aesthetically appealing has the wait time to go along with it. It's not inexpensive, but it's a fun and interesting New York experience.
There's a place high up north on the island of Manhattan that hardly anyone speaks of. And yet. And yet and yet. It is beautiful and quiet and the air is cooler and cleaner and the view! Fort Tryon Park is, in my not so humble opinion, one of the most beautiful things you might hope to see in Manhattan--in large part because it so very much a departure from what you expect of this city. It is lush and hilly and the bluffs on the other side of the Hudson part to reveal what surely inspired so much art of the American romantic and transcendentalist movement.
It is an always welcome pause.
It is also home to The Cloisters (the branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to Medieval artwork). Yesterday was just my second time visiting this museum and I had forgotten how lovely it. It is too small to be overwhelming and wonderfully mixes indoor and outdoor space.
It is my suggestion that if you're visiting New York it's worth riding the A train to 190th and taking the elevator up (follow the signs to The Cloisters). It will empty you at the entrance of Fort Tryon. Walk through the park to the museum, enjoy your fill of Medieval architecture and relics, and then have lunch or brunch or dinner at New Leaf Cafe--one of my very favorite restaurants in New York because it feels nearly out of place, nestled as it is in so much vegetation. These three things (as well as the time for the commute) will fill a full morning or afternoon.
{As I research what to do + where to go in Paris--with absolutely no prior knowledge of the city, it has got me rethinking how to advise people visiting New York. There is so much information I take for granted and I think when I return from my sojourn I'm going to work to revamp any tips/tricks/ideas for really getting the New York city experience when you've only got a little bit of time}.
Happy Monday, I have a feeling it's going to be a good week!
xo
The thing about life being really, really shitty for a really, really long time is this: it gets better.
Which doesn’t seem like much of a consolation, I know. But I don’t think it’s meant to be. It’s not the consolation, it’s the reward. It’s the everything-after.
It gets better. And that better is a delicious and meaty sort of that thing.
It. Gets. Better.
I say that with a deep exhale of relief and exhaustion and joy.
Like collapsing onto a bed at the end of a very long and very good day.
It gets better.
Shame recedes like the waves at low-tide. And gratitude rushes in. For everything. For the whole of your life. Not a part of it, but the whole messy lot. And for the grace that is that mess. The perfect ordered chaos of it.
It gets better and good becomes a flutter in your chest. A constant hum. And you become aware of the musculature of the heart—how it pulses and expands and grows. And to be privy to the physical experience of that.…Everything begins to feel like a prayer. One of gratitude and wonder and a delicious sort of blooming. Every action an act of faith.
Faith.
I don’t think of myself as a religious person. And yet. And yet and yet…faith, the word that wets my lips and sits on my tongue and fills what once was empty.
Faith.
The thing that rolls out like the proverbial yellow brick road. A path before you. And you don’t know where you’re going, but you know you’re on your way.
Faith.
Which makes fear beside the point.
Which lays waste to timelines.
And makes tributaries of loneliness and sorrow and grief—small streams leading to a larger body of water, important and necessary but not the point.
Which disappears loneliness—transforms it—makes it sweet in its impermanence.
Everything worthy and good I learned through the lens of an eating disorder. Which is something I struggle to explain—it’s not exactly an easy lead in at a cocktail party.
Now standing firmly on the other side of the thing, the question of how I got better is one I’m often asked. And the answer is a simple and complex as this: I had faith I would. And so I did.
And faith is what I move forward with. That nearly overwhelming stretch of time succeeded in distilling everything dark and complex and seemingly impossible into that one thing—that one word. And that one word broke me open—made me sturdy and soft and so very human.
Faith, the invitation to my very own ever-after.
It gets better.
It really, really does.
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{more on the subject}
(for any new readers out there
this post deal with things i've previously
written about in much detail.
more information to be found in the food +health
tab)
