My Manhattan // 04.11.16

words to live by

image via. 

"Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself...It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent." | Harper Lee

treat yo self | April 2016

I have had the same baseball cap for the last eighteen years. It is navy blue. I got it on a trip to Boston when I was twelve. It once said Harvard Crimson, but the writing faded about a year ago, and the bill is just beginning to split. It is the hat I was wearing when I was a first year at school and the guy I was in love with walked by, casually flicking it off of my head. You have to stop doing that, one of my classmates called after him. What? he asked, turning around. Knocking girls hats off their heads, she said, laughing. You have to stop.

Oh, I think he's doing a lot more than that, one of his classmates chuckled as he followed behind him. He was both right and wrong. It is the hat that saw me through high school and college and all of the years beyond. And I love it--still now, even as it may finally be time for a new one. 

I believe in investing in worthy things. For years I bought ill-fitting clothes, and then for years I bought poorly made clothes (and for while, I bought both). Crappy, throwaway shoes, and cheap furniture that I only needed to last a few years were the order of the day.

When I was finding my way out of an eating disorder, I did so in large part by searching for a food ethos that was larger than the-pursuit-of -thin. Suddenly food became about a lifetime pursuit of health--for myself, and also, for the planet. It became about small changes adding up to big things. It became about forces and interests larger than my immediate satisfaction. And that value system provided some much needed perspective. 

My parents came to visit back in November and we had a nearly perfect two days, which is a feat not easily achieved by people who are only occasionally keen on New York, and never totally wooed by it. We sat in the brisk fall air and sipped wine outside before consuming a totally lovely meal at Via Carota. We laughed through dinner while seated at a table so small and so cramped that our knees touched our chins, and our stools pressed up against the neighboring table. But the food was rich and my after-dinner-latte was massive and we were happy.

And it was during the day that my mother and I went to Heyday Spa (which is the facial's answer to Dry Bar). In the last ten years I have spent an inordinate amount of time (and money) trying to figure out how properly hydrate my skin. Well, it turns out when you are using products that are predominately composed of parabens and fillers, you're fighting a losing battle. Some women say handbags are their weakness. For others it's shoes. For me, it's skincare. Heyday turned me on to products that are organic, natural, and game-changers. One of the brands (One Love Organics) has a motto of the "luxury of less" and I couldn't agree more (they also hold the Gold Certified Business Seal of Approval by Green America, which recognizes companies that "set the highest standards in environmental sustainability and social justice"). The products Heyday turned me onto (which after five months have totally changed the texture of my skin ) are in the mid-range price point (so, comparable to the cost of Clinique, let's say).

I believe in skin care because it is part of investing in one's health. And because it is self-care, pure and simple. 

I'm writing all this because I want to share with you all what I'm really digging right now (and what I imagine I'll be digging years from now). But I wanted to do it at a time of the year far removed from holiday gift guides because I don't want to push consumerism for the sake of consumerism. I truly believe in investing in less, but investing in better. (And none of this is sponsored. Though, if you do go into Heyday for a facial, tell them I sent you {not my blog, but me--use my name} and we'll both get ten dollars off and I will be wildly grateful). 

1. One Love Organic's Vitamin B Enzyme: this stuff is bananas. It is the most luxurious thing I have ever put on my face. You sort of have to try it to understand. Just trust me on this one. 

2. One Love Organics Skin Savior: Makeup remover, moisturizer or mask. I stand by the fact that this feels like candy for the face. And when I get a hankering for sugar (which by now is pretty well documented that I try to avoid), I reach for this stuff.

3. Image Daily Ultimate Protection: We can all agree that skincare, in many ways, really begins and ends with sun protection, no? Well, this stuff is a moisturizer with an SPF. A moisturizer WITH--it's not simply a sunscreen (which means it feels and smell amazing and is a treat to put on). 

4. JOCO Cups: It is also well documented that I love coffee. And I order it out, often. Well, disposable coffee cups are the second largest contributors to landfills behind plastic bottles (and on a separate and alarming note, it's thought that as the heat moves through the plastic lid we're actually consuming harmful chemicals). So in an effort to be a little bit better to the environment this year I turned to JOCO Cups, an Australian company, that makes reusable glass coffee cups. I have the mid-size and keep it with me at work. So while everyone else goes through several paper cups in a day, I refill my one class mug. And if I venture out for coffee, I stick it in my purse and bring it with me.

5. lucy Activewear: Before the holidays my mother bought a pullover from the activewear store lucy and couldn't stop talking about it. So over Christmas we logged onto their website and each ordered an item. I've never been a huge believer in higher-end activewear (I got a few things from Lululemon a few years ago and was really not impressed), but I am now. The cloth of my pullover feels unlike any item of clothing I've ever before owned. It is soft and doesn't pill. In fact, I've worn it nearly every night for going on three months and it feels just like the day I got it. Also, lucy is one of the brands housed under VFC--a company dedicated to environmental sustainability in production, as well as social responsibility. 

Look, I'm not saying any one of these companies is perfect (spoiler alert, perfection doesn't exist), but I do love their products, and I love their ethos, and I do believe small changes add up. 

So if you treat yo self this month--and shouldn't you every month?--and are looking to invest in better products, I humbly offer you these. 

*Again, worth noting, the above is sponsored in no way.*

My Manhattan // 04.04.16

More Hope

This year has been magic. And not. All somersaults forward and utter stillness. Early in January I visited with a girlfriend I hadn’t seen in years. In the time between our visits she moved to London and back again, graduated with her Masters, and met the man she’s now married to. We sipped coffee and tea in Central Park and walked south along the Mall. And with our chins tucked into our coats, our bodies bracing against the cold, we caught up on as much as we could in the short window before work. We spoke of the past yes, but also of a present uncertainty, of feeling totally unsure as to what the future might hold. Hovering, she called it.  And just before we parted ways, sitting at a table in the basement of the Plaza Hotel, having ducked in to escape the cold, she mentioned a prayer she’d seen at an exhibit years before. She said after seeing it, she wrote the words down, and then proceeded to repeat only them for nearly a month.

“Oh, opener of all doors, open for me the best door.”  

I am a sucker for words. I am especially a sucker for words that when strung together feel like a door opening, casting a sliver of light into a dark hallway. And those eleven words, that prayer, felt like exactly that--like the door itself--a hinge on which possibility might swing.

Hope by another name.

It is actually quite helpful when approaching things in life--big things, little things--to wonder if it feels like the best door. It is a gut check in the best possible way--where faith meets instinct.

In the first two months of this year I spent six weeks suspended in the terror of not knowing. Standing in many a doorway and looking in. Which meant a very many emails and interviews and tenuous treks on narrow limbs.

Hope, as it turns out, takes quite a lot of work.

So much good has happened this year. And so much of that good has been leaving behind what was really not. Bad situations have a way of shrinking one’s world to that thing alone, and shrinking is almost never good. And much as I wanted (and knew I needed) to leave, it was important, in all ways, to be clear on what I was moving towards, not just what I was leaving behind.

I wanted to walk through the very best door.

I’d already made the mistake of walking through the closest available door, as opposed to the best one, and it ended disastrously. Two years ago I made two decisions, both in service of leaving things behind, and it has taken me all the time since to undo the mess. I moved in with the wrong person and accepted the wrong job. And while I was able to leave the apartment after six months, the job took longer. For a year and half I’d walk west at the end of the day, pour myself a glass of wine, bring it into the shower, and attempt to scrub and slough off the day.

Out, out damn’d spot. Without the blood.

And so when the right door opened this year, I calmly and confidently closed the one behind me and didn’t look back.

But change is funny, and so is grief, and I spent ten days between the two jobs staring at the mountains, feeling like I barely saw them.

I still dream about the girl I lived with when all this happened. I don’t know how to write about her cruelty and make it okay. I don’t know how to say that under some of the very worst circumstances, when all we had was our humanity, she couldn’t meet me there. I am embarrassed by how deeply she wounded me--ashamed of how much I hate her. But I can feel my body shifting and sorting and connecting the dots. It is one of those uncomfortable truths that fear and anger seem to intensify as they leave the body. I dream about her less than I used to and I can feel my utter frustration warming, like a sheet of ice cracking, breaking off to return to sea.

Two nights ago I dreamt about the man I dated when I was twenty-four. The dream was so clear and I woke up so furious. I’ve thought of him so little of him in the last six years, but two days ago I woke up seething--that he’d treated me as he had, and that I’d allowed it. The anger was about his deep manipulation and incredible selfishness. And it’s not lost on me that those feelings are surfacing as I try to reconcile that same behavior in others.

It has taken me a very long time to understand that there are people who are not good. For a long while I thought that as everyone aged they’d shed the noise of immaturity to reveal an innate goodness below. But that takes quite a lot of work and the intelligence to know when it is needed. And some people are so deeply unhappy with themselves that it is easier to cast that unhappiness outwards and catch others in the net. I think it has to do with false power.

It turns out that when one leaves those situations and people behind it doesn’t erase the past, it simply creates the space to confront it.

Which is why, it is only now, all this time later, that I am loosening my grip. But it is an uncomfortable process. Something very human in me wants to hang onto the safety blanket of my rage. Something very human in me is afraid to let go.

But life inches forward.

I have been listening to Noah and the Whale this week, thinking of the large room I lived in on 181st street, and remembering the girl I was at twenty-five. There was sort of a reckless hope then. I miss that. I wouldn’t go back of course, because things are better now--a better job, a little more money, more movement, more knowledge. I like getting older, I like who I am. Sure, my skin isn’t as bright as it used to be and there are new stresses and fears, but all in all, life is good. But if there is a thing I wish I could reclaim from that time, it is the wide berth for failure. Which I think means more possibility, more opportunity, more dreams of a doors I’d not previously considered. More forgiveness and generosity for the process of becoming. More hope, really.

Oh, opener of all doors, open for me the best door.