Stargazers

There are a lot of things about this time under quarantine that will change me forever, many of them beautiful gifts. It reminds of me that last week before my babies were born. They were late, and each day the waiting was interminable, but I spent the time doing things I would never normally have done. Making friendship bracelets, shopping for mysteries at a used bookstore, going to brunch with my husband on a weekday. How to spend time in an innocent, innocuous, easy way when you are bigger than a house, it's hot as hades (July), you don't want to spend money, etc.

These days, when everything is closed (even the parks), money needs to be saved, and we are all together with no place to go, we are finding new activities, new patterns, new ways of being with each other, new hobbies, and new interests.

The girls have opened a bakery in the playroom and it seems whenever we bake one thing we bake two things at a time. So far Confetti cookies have been a big hit, but we've made our classic family Chocolate Chippers, sugar cookies dyed and marbled to resemble the planet earth as seen from the moon, Magnolia Bakery cupcakes (while retelling the story of when I wouldn't let Kris have a bite of mine when we were dating -- he ordered banana pudding instead, if you can believe it), and pound cake. We made a pizza out of potatoes. Kris cooked a turkey for Easter (our first bird).

We started out with family movies nightly, but that was when we had no kitchen or dining room and every meal was eaten huddled around our coffee table in close proximity to the TV. We watched a lot of classics from our childhood (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Back to the Futures 1-3, Ferris Beuhler's Day Off, A Princess Bride) and some contemporaries (Frozen 2, Forward, The Princess Diaries 1-2).

We've planted seedlings. We've weeded like we've never weeded before.

One night we went for a walk after dinner and watched the stars come out. It was dark, and I pulled the girls in a wagon. We looked at the moon, we noticed a bright star in the sky that turned out to be Venus. The longer we walked, the more stars we could count. We saw Orion's belt appear. It was exciting.

My father started coming over once a week to give astronomy lessons. I downloaded the stargazing app. You hold your phone to the sky and it shows you what constellations you can see. Last night we noticed two stars above the moon -- the heads of the twins of Gemini, Castor and Pollux.

To me, there is nothing more magical, an activity I imagine I'd take up in the best version of my life, and one I certainly wouldn't be doing if not for the quarantine.

I've often time found times of great tragedy and disruption to be teachers. It's uncomfortable to admit but sometimes when everyday life is grinding away I wish that something would disrupt it, snuff out all the momentum and hit the pause button. Unfortunately, I have found that only tragedy and waiting for babies can really slow time -- to recenter and refocus life. The hope is that we will carry these new, slower rhythms with us in the future.

Well, I Didn't See That One Coming

Coronavirus (COVID-19) started as a news item from a distant land called Wuhan, China. I was pretty sure it would stay there. I don't know why, except when these types of things have happened before, that's kind of how it's gone. Then it was on cruise ships. I would never go on a cruise ship so, still distant land. Then there were a few cases in Washington state and it got very bad in a nursing home, which again, seemed very far and didn't apply to me.

Then there was a man in New York who had it. Actually, he lived in New Rochelle and the more I heard about it (he went to a gathering at his temple and a lot of people caught it), at some point I realized he lives in the same town one of my best friends from college grew up in. Her parents go to his temple and live in the quarantine zone. They are ok. But still, all of the sudden, it was getting closer. 

And after living and working in New York City for more than a decade, I was clear that any kind of highly contagious virus that also has along life on surfaces was bad news. I started to worry. Not that I would get it, really, though I did stop touching things so much and start washing my hands like crazy. I started worrying about work. 

I work for a restaurant group that runs seven large restaurants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We started upping our clean down protocols as per CDC recommendations. That was one thing. But then something funny happened that I never saw coming -- people in the news starting telling people not to go to bars and restaurants. People on social media started to say how irresponsible it would be to go out. Very quickly, the restaurant industry became a casualty of Coronavirus. It turns out that highly contagious viruses that become public health crises intersect with hospitality in a big way.

The next 10 days felt like running from an avalanche that we weren't sure was an avalanche til about day 5. There was no leadership from our federal government. The state was slow to move also. The cities are restaurants were in started putting restrictions on our hours and operations -- same day restrictions. Which is unprecedented and completely insane. Also necessary, but I think we may never see a chain of events like we did ever again because people will look back and think, wow, we could have done that better. 

This is a confusing time for everyone on the planet. It just so happens that our industry and my company were at the front of the fallout (well, behind the healthcare workers of course). I have been super keyed in to it because unfortunately I had no choice not to. Now that I am home with my family quarantining and I have some time to process and reflect. 

It is challenging to support the company I had to lay myself off from while also homeschooling by two daughters who are 4 and 8. Their teachers threw together a remote learning program in 72 hours. They go to a Montessori school which is very much about a prepared environment and tangible learning materials. So it's possible that being stuck in my house which is also under construction is not exactly the best place to try and learn. We do what we can while also learning how to all share our days and our space in a constructive way. We practice simple Spanish over crudite platters.  

Half of our downstairs is cordoned off because after 5 years of living in this house we finally pulled the trigger on renovating our kitchen. So our refrigerator, amongst other things, is currently in our living room. And we are trying to stockpile food that will last us days. We are doing dishes in our bathroom. All things considered I think we are handling it much better than we thought it would. 

I know people who have gotten sick from it. It is scary. I don't want anyone to have to go to a hospital right now for anything. 

I have a similar feeling to how I felt on 9/11/01, when I was a student at NYU living in a dorm on Union Square, or when Trump was elected in 2016. I grew up in the 80s and 90s when it seemed like nothing mattered, nothing was ever going to happen, and history was over (there was even a guy who wrote a famous book called "The End of History"). And these events make you realize that you are very much living through history. Personally, I feel like this is 9/11 times 1000. 

We don't know how long we are going to be quarantined at home. We don't know how long our businesses are going to be closed. We don't know what the fallout will be from this virus -- the sick, the ones we will lose. The economic casualties. Will I be one of them?

I keep thinking of my grandmother who grew up on a farm in the Depression. There is a part of me that just thinks, if this is it, if all the boom-times are over, I can deal with that. It might be harder, but it might be simpler. I might have a clearer idea of where I stand. I might be able to focus on other parts of my life that have taken the back seat. 

There is another part of me that feels the calling to work in government. It has come up for me a few times in my life. One of them was at the Women's March. When I was leading people off the boardwalk into Bradley Park, I saw my brother and stopped. He remarked at how amazing it was. As thousands of people walked by me, chanting, empowered, I turned to him and said Jim, "I think I could be president." And he said, "I think you're right." 

Maybe that's ridiculous. But I believe government is important, really important at times like these. I believe I have a calling to serve. I believe I'm smart enough to figure out almost anything. I believe I can broker compromise like it's my superpower. I know how to communicate, and I can give a damn good speech. I don't know if I have the stomach to run for elected office, but I have such a yearning in me to be a part of that world, I think it will be the next chapter of my life. 

. . .

We started a coloring club at work to support the workforce that we had to lay of on Wednesday March 18 because of the government mandated response to COVID-19.

As a business, all our intention is on reopening when this is over. That will be a feat for many restaurants, many won’t survive. However if I ever had to bet on a team, I’d bet on ours at Smith. Pulling off the impossible is our specialty.

So many need support at this time. This problem is bigger than any one person, group, company, or industry. We are dealing with a human problem and all our lives are at stake. With this stunning cascade of events, in this international emergency, our 7 restaurants at Smith had to close their doors last Monday for the health of the public and our employees. Our biggest imperative is that we open up as soon as is feasible when this is all over. When? When. Until then, we are taking it one day a time. 

The thing I have grown to cherish most about the hospitality industry is that a healthy, thriving restaurant requires all different kinds of people in order to function like a well-oiled machine. The breadth of backgrounds, ages, races, professional and education experience, the hard-knock tales. The tales of incredible triumph and transformation. When given an opportunity, a restaurant is a place where a person can rise above wherever they came from to create a new future for themselves and their family. It's usually the person you never see coming who ends up being your champion.

The reality in this country is that most Americans have little-to-no savings for the kind of a head-spinning, lightning fast crisis like the one we find ourselves in with COVID-19. Not for medical bills, not for sudden unemployment. Which is why we wanted to put something out there in the world that might highlight the incredible love and generosity spreading around the world, and create a cushion for our staff in this time of emergency. 

I don't know how you choose where to give right now. I don't like having to ask for handouts. But I do like to color.

https://smithrelief.fund 

P.S.

If you made it this far, don't you agree now's a great time to pass Medicare for All? Call Congress now. 202-224-3121

I Am A Grownup

I found this draft from April 2017 and I am delighted by it.
Maybe I'm back.


I drink black coffee.
I have two children.
I make my bed more often than I don't.
I am on the fundraising committee of my child's private school.
I clean my dishes after I use them.
I pick up all the trash that rolls up on my property on a weekly basis instead of being too resentful of slobs that litter to pick it up.
People (multiple people) have asked me to run for elected office.
I have a LinkedIn profile, that I put effort into.
I make lunches.
I am in charge of flossing other people's teeth.

I stopped resisting life, in my better moments.

Dispatches From Cape Cod, Part 1

We are up in Cape Cod with my in-laws for the week. It's my first time and so far it's just perfect. Our little cottage is 2 houses in from the beach. The water is warm and very calm so Lil Pip and I are swimming around like mermaids. When we arrived on Saturday night we took a walk down to the beach at sunset and she waded in so deep her dress got wet. Five minutes later she was duck diving waves. It was like witnessing a communion with the sea. Baptism? Whatever. You get the idea.

My grandmother had a tree growing in her front yard covered in trumpet vine. Every day she'd sweep the fallen flowers off the walk.

Driveways paved with shells.

Hydrangeas! Check.

Privet hedge! My favorite summer smell.

Every house has cedar shingles. Why doesn't every town do this? There are no ugly houses.

Wildflowers by the side of the road.

Three And A Quarter

She tells me about her dreams. A lot of time she dreams about swimming with her cousins in a big pool. She'll tell me in the morning when I wake up. The other day we were on our way to the grocery store and she started telling me about a scary dream involving the boys at school, and kicking and yelling. I had to suss out the fact that it was just a dream (she forgot to mention that part in the telling).

She makes up her own songs "We are friends! We are friends! We are friends!" and makes up funny lyrics to the songs we know "Old McDonald had a farm and a microphone here and a rainbow there" etc. 

A week ago when I dropped her off at nursery school she said hello to all the kids she saw in the cubby room -- "Hi Audrey," "Hi Charlie." All of the sudden. She has really taken to nursery school. I'm glad we sent her five days. The first week was rough but as soon as I learned to leave as soon as possible, it didn't take long for her to adjust. I stopped by her school the other morning around 9:15 to drop off something that she had forgotten, and both parents of a little girl who only goes on Thursdays and Fridays were in the doorway doing to goodbye dance with their daughter. I think it's hard for the little ones when they are not in their routines.

She always wants a say in her outfits and almost always picks out her clothes. She almost always prefers dresses, preferably super fancy girl tutu dresses. 

We recently got her some gold boots that she is really pumped about, I think because they remind her of my boots. 

She has been talking about wanting to get her ears pierced but I'm not sure she's ready for the reality of it -- the piercing and the upkeep. I think I'll try and hold her off til next year at least.

We stopped napping her around 2 or 3 weeks after school started. She would nap unpredictably -- maybe every other day -- and when she did, she'd go to bed around 10. It was brutal! Now that she's not napping she turns into a crazy person around 6:30 every day, then gets her second wind and is off to the races. We've slowly been dialing back her bedtime from 8:30, with a target of around 7:30.

She loves chicken nuggets, carrots, pasta, bagels and lox, waffles, and fruit. And of course candy. 

After really, really rough visits with her doctor and dentist for her 2 year well visits (she just screamed and cried and resisted, it was really so terrible), she was a perfect angel for both her doctor (same) and dentist (new). I was so proud of her for being brave and so relieved.

I negotiated a new schedule and now work only 4 days a week, which is a real blessing. Having a whole day with her is quality mom time. I get to plan what we are going to do, make her lunch, and think of special outings that we can do together. The first week, after her dentist appointment, we got our nails done (her first manicure!). Last week we went to the mall and got her an outfit for her school picture. It really feels like stolen time. Not to mention that I get to do whatever I want while she's at school in the morning! What a luxury.

This is a lot of tedious information for probably anyone but myself and Pip's grandmothers, but I want to write it down so I can look back and remember what she was doing right now. Time goes by so quick.

On Spirea

I fell in love with spirea as a young kid. My neighbor had a bush on the side of her house that faced ours and I spent a lot of time alone running around the yard, looking at stuff, concocting teleplays in my head and taking special notice of anything remotely exceptional. I loved its unassuming profile, just a run-of-the-mill green bush most of the year, but for a month in the spring, it took on the most magical, lacy, bright pink blooms. Mrs. Havisham in magenta. 

At some point that bush either died off or was removed, along with a lilac and a bridal wreath on the border of our properties. The old woman who lived in the house passed away. 

I always held a candle for that ethereal pink plant. It was imprinted on my memory like a lost stuffed animal, the smell of my Grammy's back pantry, a favorite cartoon long off the air. It was decades before I ever saw one again, fleeting at first, then they started popping up. When I dropped my water bill payment off at the municipal building, then shopping at the supermarket. I learned their name: spirea. I told my husband that we needed these in our newly landscaped lawn. An absolute must. Once we found them at the nursery he loved them too.  

Now they are everywhere, if you know what to look for. But I took special pride when both our mothers asked to cut a small bouquet from our blooming bushes before they left Fathers Day brunch at our house. They had never noticed, or never heard of spirea, my long lost friend. 

10 More Things

My birthday is almost here. It's sneaking up on me this year. With so much going on, the days just fly by: three restaurants to open, condos to build, and a two year old to raise. I'm going to be 32. I haven't thought much about it except that it sounds a little more mature than I am used to saying but that it also feels right.

Reflecting back on this year, I can see it was seminal. My daughter is growing into a person. The proud flesh of my marriage. My growth as a leader at work. A mountainous marathon under my belt. Best friends getting married. An old friend that passed. It has run the gamut.

It feels like I should throw some feathers in the wind -- put some prayers into the future. So with that, ten more things.

1. Take a storytelling class. Finish my essay "The Greatest." Be on stage.
2. Go to the Met more. Go to the city more. It's a pleasure, remember!
3. Go to a Korean spa and have an awkward naked experience but be profoundly exfoliated as a result.
4. Speak more Spanish.
5. Go to Europe with the Mr. And maybe The Baby. Let's go to South America too to visit the cousins.
6. Have another baby. Maybe lots of babies. Don't worry so much about the future.
7. Move. To a beautiful old house!
8. Watch less TV. Way less. Create more.
9. Eat more vegetables. (All of us).
10. Go for it. Really. Make a run at the best life ever.

New Acquisitions

The Little One and I have been going on mother-daughter trips to Marshalls lately. It's kind of the best. Any kind of mother-daughter recreational activity is something to be really cherished, and the retail therapy is a great bonus. Today we stopped at the bagel place in the same shopping center and had my little girl's favorite lunch -- a bagel with cream cheese and a side of lox. She gobbles up the lox like a penguin. We sat outside and she was delighted by her food, the people and pets passing by on their way to a pet store, the flags, everything. It was the perfect temperature. A perfect date.

Later we went to the beach -- our seventh time this summer! -- and stayed til after the lifeguards left. We practiced drawing pictures in the sand with our toes, building and decorating sand castles, chasing birds, and saying "blimp!"The three of us cuddled and counted to twenty and giggled until it was time to eat dinner. 

It was a perfect Sunday and I have some sweet new shoes to boot. It may seem excessive but I have had to throw two pairs of shoes three pairs of shoes (including the best black sandals ever made!) out in the past month because they literally fell apart. 

Trancendental

We were outside in the glorious Northeast spring weather weeding our garden beds and plotting our next moves, when I started pulling down the crazy vines that threaten to suffocate our 15 foot arbor vitaes. Baby SevPrez was pretty excited about this move, even more so when I started making a wreath out of the tamed vines in the yard. I kept telling her to show her daddy how impressive her mom's skills were. I believe I referred to myself as a modern day Betsy Ross... Bear Grylls?! Daniel Boone? Martha Stewart? Somewhere in that area.

Truthfully I was inspired by my mother, who once made a dozen small wreaths for use as the craft at my birthday party. Back in the day, we didn't go to Michaels, we went rogue. To the park! With our own bare hands.  From scratch! No wires, nada. They would end up being decorated by all my elementary school friends and transformed into holiday wreaths.

One of the best parts of motherhood is showing off mom-magic tricks that once blew your mind as a kid. Reliving the most special moments of your own life from the other side is just one of the gifts your child gives you -- true transcendence.

The Best Lights In All The Land

Thank you, family that lives on Creamery Lane, for putting up the most stunning display of Christmas lights I have ever seen, year after year.

This picture does it no justice. It can be spotted from a quarter mile away across a nursery in Colts Neck. You have to turn your head at just the right time to catch them, but needing an extra boost of the upside of life, today I sought them out upclose. It's only fair I share it with you.