Heart Shining Forward
These days, it doesn't take much to make me cry.
I'm not talking full-bore, crocodile tears, or the hyperventilated, cheek-puffing sobs of childhood. I'm talking about those moments when the beauty of life becomes so temporarily overwhelming, so impossibly moving, that you have to pause, recognize, and absorb. It's a good thing, a warm feeling, a sense of connectedness, gratitude and wonder.
The latest and most-profound of these moments began (as is increasingly the case) Saturday morning during yoga. The class was packed with ...
The Miracle Of Showing Up, Part II
Yesterday afternoon, I raced uptown to a doctor's appointment on West 96th Street, tripping out of the cab some fifteen minutes late. It took me at least thirty seconds to realize the appointment was on 86th Street.
Just seventy-two hours shy of leaving Nantucket, then, I was plunged back into my nuance-free life: rush rush, blur blur, wake, sleep, wake. It's like being at sea for a month; terra firma is disorienting.
Worse, this waking life scarcely affords time for reflection or appreciation.
My office is a south-facing, Midtown ...
A Life Less Ordinary
I'm not sure whether my life is more moving, or that I'm more open to being moved. Either way, I choke up pretty easily these days.
A few weeks ago, for example, Abbi and I bought Ethan a grab bag of magic tricks for his sixth birthday. He and Edward sat transfixed, wide-eyed and amazed as I showed them each of the simple slights-of-hand. It was difficult enough to hold back tears of joy as I watched them each pull the new, black-felt top hat over their big, bright eyes, and more so as I walked home with Abbi.
"What could be more ...
The Hurt Locker
A few months after September 11th, the Department of Homeland Security launched a website called ready.gov.
The site's initial incarnation was ostensibly a series of updated '50s brochures: what to do in the event of nuclear blast (duck and run), what to do in the event of building collapse (duck), etc. (It's since been significantly neutered.)
I found the site (and the entire Department of Homeland Security, for that matter) comical, but also frightening close to home; just two days after watching the towers fall with my own eyes, I ...
The Hagley Fireworks (Or, In Consideration Of Teflon, Kevlar & The Apollo Space Program)
All I knew was that Abbi signed us up for "The Fireworks" back home in Wilmington, Delaware, and that the tailgating started early so I had to catch an early train out of the city and wear nice pants.
"The Fireworks," it ends up, are an annual tradition at The Hagley Museum in Greenville, Delaware, birthplace of the now-behemoth chemical corporation, DuPont.
Growing up in nearby Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (just thirty miles north on Route 202), the Brandywine was a placid, almost mythic place reserved for revolutionary history ...
Surrender
By the time I finally powered up my PC precisely 267 hours after logging off for vacation, I'd accrued 1887 emails, 19 voice mails, and 12 Facebook requests.
Four hours later, I'd whittled down those various missives to a crucial total of thirty-two.
Yesterday morning, less than twelve hours after my eight hour GCM-MIA-LGA commute, I strapped on my Asics to shake off the stiffness (and post-vaca blues) with a quick pre-brunch 10k. From Riverside Park to The Ramble, everywhere I ran, everyone was looking at their hands. Blackberries, ...
Run, Part II (Or, Know Your Enemy)
Who needs the self help section at Barnes & Noble? I have an iPod.
I don't need to tell you that last week was a motherf*cker. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Ask John Edwards, Manny Ramirez, or Allison Iraheta. They all had tough weeks. Heck, ask anyone on Earth these days: economic meltdown, unemployment, foreclosure, global warming, war, famine -- I could go on.
For me, it was the constant (not for attribution, repetition or attribution) barrage of workplace b.s.: knuckleheaded oversight, missed opportunities, fiscal ...
Broken Glass
Sunday afternoon, long after the hangover recovery run, the ham, egg and cheese sandwich, the last cup of coffee and final page of The Sunday New York Times, Abbi and I sat on the couch channel surfing.
In my experience, asking my wife if she wants to watch a documentary tends towards a gentle "No thanks." When I happened upon
The Death Of The Hero
The first time I played a proper rock 'n roll venue was in the fall of 1991. Before the audience, the amps, the lights -- before anything, really -- the first thing I noticed stepping onto that dismal, sticky, black-box Lost Horizon stage (don't look for it; it's not there) was a hand-made sign reading "No Smells Like Teen Spirit!"
Nirvana's "Nevermind" was in the process of wrestling the airwaves from Michael Jackson and Guns 'n Roses that fall, a battle first-evident on rock venue stages across the country. Where "Stairway To Heaven" ...
The Proust Questionnaire
The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust (1871–1922), the French essayist and novelist who believed that in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.
Since July 1993, Vanity Fair has devoted the back page of its magazine to the Proust Questionnaire, in which noteworthy persons such as Katie Couric, Ron Howard and Margaret Atwood answer a series of personal questions. Here, a non-noteworthy person (your truly) takes a pass.
What is your ...
