Learning To Walk Again

Maggie took her first, tentative steps last week, slowly, deliberately and clumsily wobbling across the bedroom from her startled mother to her amazed father. She waved like a homecoming queen to steady herself, then collapsed on her bottom. Abbi and I were flabbergasted. Maggie was nonplussed. Still, it was a colossal milestone for all of…

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When A Moment Changes Everything

For weeks now, I’ve been listening to David Gray’s “When A Moment Changes Everything” on near-repeat fully expecting to get hit by a bus, pushed in front of a subway, or catch a stray bullet at any instant. It’s a simple, hooky, perfectly David Gray kinda’ song with a propellant beat, ascending melody, and the…

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How To Change The World

If, as my former bandmate, once sang “World’s change in the belly of an insect,” then universes transform in a matter of years. Little wonder, then, that I should comment to Abbi this weekend that I can’t remember a period of transformation as radical as the last five years. Five years ago, I was an…

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Thirty Thousand Sunrises

If a guy’s really lucky, he sees some thirty thousand sunrises. This fact dawned on me as I turned eastward on 86th Street the other morning. The sun burst bright-ornage through the pale-green leaves as I jogged across East End Drive and I thought, “These are finite. Enjoy ’em.” The average life expectancy for a…

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Into The East

Abbi and I moved from West 56th Street and Tenth Avenue to East 71st and First this weekend. To most, this would seem a simple, two mile, two zip code, cross-town move. Which would be true. But man, what a difference two zip codes can make. New York neighborhoods are rife with generalities, none more…

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Something To Say

It wasn’t until somewhere around Christopher Street that I realized that Thursday night’s Rockwood Music Hall set was littered with references to breaking silence, speaking up and being heard. From “Giving Up The Ghost” (“It’s impossible to argue / It’s impossible to scream”) to “Live Forever” (“There’s nothing left here to say”), “St. Anne (Of…

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It’s All Right

Saturday morning’s slate-gray, wind-whipped bluster was an angry, Joycean tempest fit solely for hours indoors with tea and sympathy. Abbi and I braved the elements nonetheless, striking out through the icey, soggy streets to yoga at Exhale on Central Park South. Arriving waterlogged was rich irony, as our instructor, Kirtan, and I had conspired to…

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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,…

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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,…

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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…

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