Slow things Down, Or Speed Them Up

Alright, so I'll admit that I've been a bit of a slacker these past few weeks with my blog. Any really the only person that is affected by it all is myself because when I'll look back and wonder where all my time went...I won't have a resource to jog my memory. In a nut shell, my life these past few weeks since it first snowed have been pretty amazing. A lot has gone on...naturally.

I turned 23 and celebrated my first birthday in New York City with some of my closests friends from every corner of my life. We went out to eat at Village Yokocho where my college friends RN and TT came up from Florida to visit, my high school friends KM, MS, & DB put their lives on pause, my London friends JL, AT, PD & CD help me celebrate and my New York friends DP, ML & JH where all there too. Of course those initials may mean nothing to some of you, but having everyone around that giant table eating dinner, conversing and having a good time meant so much to me. It was really fantastic to know have that many people out just for my birthday. I was worried that I'd end up celebrating alone, but how could you not feel so special and loved when that many people from all over show up just for you? As DB said "It says something about you." Well-- I certainly felt it and I was very grateful for every one of them! It was also very cool to have everyone meet considering they've all known me from very different phases in my life. I mean we change a lot from high school, to college, to the real world-- but more interestingly was that they all got along when the common denominator was me.

Along with RN & TT's visit to NYC, I showed them my favorite spots, so it was a weekend full of amazing food and good entertainment. Of course I took them to PDT where our fun was cut short by a police raid on the place. Nothing serious, but it felt like a scene from Law & Order the way the cops were picking up each individual bottle, holidng a flash light to it, whirling it around, checking out the menu, you'd think they were looking for traces of X or something in the bottles or some underground drug haven. We also caught the final show with all the original cast members of Spring Awakening. That was pretty exciting. It's funny because little did we realize that it was one of the main character's last performances and the audience would erupt into applause or tears at various instances, but we had no idea why! Then of course at the end as he said goodbye...we put the pieces together. It's probably one of the better plays I've seen with excellent music and a surprisingly modern storyline despite the fact that its set back in the 40s.

Not long after RB & TT's departure my family arrived. A week from today actually for the holidays. Every one I told they were staying with me in my apartment always asked me how the hell we were all going to live together for 2 weeks? Well, as luck would have it, my roommate would be gone for the entire duration of my family's stay, so we could use her room as well and the apartment is actually rather large. It hasn't been much of a hassle at all, I still work during the week, so it's not like we're forced to sit in the apartment together all the time and I've been enjoying their company. They've added a new air to my apartment that wasn't there before. It feels homey and comfortable. I'm definitely going to miss them when they go back to Florida. It's nice to have the home cooked meals and taking them around the city I've come to know and appreciate. On Christmas night we went ice skating in Central Park. Wow! Was that an experience. It felt so great to just be out there together, taking my little 2 year old cousin out on his first ice skating trip, laughing and just enjoying eachother's company. I think you don't really get that when you spend every minute together on a day-to-day basis. You start taking things like that for granted.

My job has also begun to pick up a lot, which is ironic considering it's probably one of the slowest times of the year. I've gotten more and more responsibility and the managing directors are really beginning to value my input and work. Keep in mind that for a person at the bottom of the totem pole and with me just starting my career...that's huge. I've gotten the opportunity to participate in a new business pitch for an account we ended up landing-- something I was told no other Assistant Account Executive has ever gotten to participate in before. I've also managed to get a spike in my salary... a really generous spike....which coincided with a christmas bonus-- so this really is a "wonderful time of the year." Of course, I'd spent most of the bonus before I even received it, but the temptation is just to high when its Christmas time in New York. I also managed to win a $500 gift card for Jet Blue at my company's raffle during the Christmas party... I really can't complain!

Now things are slowly winding down as the year comes to an end. I've really just been spending a lot of time just enjoying what's going on around me and soaking it all up. It seems like there just hasn't been enough time or rather that time is flying by, but for some reason I don't see that as a negative. I can't really explain it, but it's a really great feeling. I haven't been fighting to hold onto something out of fear of forgetting, but just enjoying things as the happen out of pleasure that they are actually occurring right there and then. I think that's where the loss of time happens...when the your worrying subsides and the living kicks in.

I Look To My Eskimo Friend

Let me paint a picture for you. I beautiful white picture that'll make even the ugliest of nature's creations seem flawless. I sit bundled up in my puffy, marshmellow north face jacket waiting for the hot chocolate sitting on my coffee table to cool down. The party shuffle on my iTunes appropriately plays Damien Rice's "Eskimo" (honestly) and the photos of the snow covered trees continue to import into my computer. I'm staring out my windows that overlook the backyard of my apartment building and the once sprawling tree now sits, for the most part, sporadically covered in yellowish leaves of which snow rests comfortably on top. The widget on my computer's dashboard says its 20 degrees in Brooklyn, 21 in New York City and displays a nice pile up of snow on top of the numbers for illustration.

 

Today is like no other day in my 22 years of existence, mainly because it is the first time in my life that I've ever stood in snow, touched snow or even saw snow. I think a part of me still doesn't believe that the white piles resting atop the roofs, covering the streets and frosting my fire escape is real. But here's what makes me the happiest of all... that even after 22 years of life, I can still find something so captivating. This only leads me to believe that I haven't become jaded by the world or life, that there are still a million of life's little nooks and crannies I've left to experience...it's almost child-like in that when we're 2 everything is so new. We're mystified by the possibilities and the world, for a single moment, is whatever you're standing, touching or seeing-- today it was my first snow day! When I think about it, it really is one of God's most unbelievable gifts-- and I've never been religious, but how could you not look out your window and see you yard look like a bed of cotton balls or the top of a delicious vanilla-frosted cake. Your street looks like that of a postcard and even your neighbor, who you're hardly even acquainted with, seems that much more familiar. Why can't I think of rainy and sunny days the same?

The weather reports had been talking about the possibility of snow today for the past couple of days. There was little hope for it on my part, knowing that my time would come soon enough. I went to bed half expecting to wake up to see snow, but thankfully a co-worker texted me at 8 a.m. with "You gotta love this..." and I knew immediately without even drawing my shades that there was snow outside! There was no processing time for me. I jumped out of bed, pulled the curtains aside and if I remember my reaction correctly I somehow muttered "ohh myGodd (pause- cue high pitch voice) its snowing!" it was kind of a slurring of the words mainly because the abrupt jump out of bed left me a little off for a minute. After gaining composure, I wasn't sure what to do next. Did I go outside? Was it ok to go outside? Was it like rain, where I'd rather be in bed sleeping? I grabbed my camera and opened my window and started snapping pictures, but I knew that I wouldn't want to remember my first experience with snow from atop 3 stories from a window, so I ran to my fire escape and snapped some more. Until I finally said screw it, slipped on my birkenstocks (I probably would have grabbed the flipflops), a hat and rushed outside where I was one of the few people on the street. The timing was just right! The snow on my front step and yard were untouched. Still neatly and perfectly white making what was once a gravel pit look like a picturesque pile of white, sugar coated cubes. I realized that I was by no means dressed for the weather, apart from my jacket which to my surprise even wearing just a t-shirt underneath was incredibly warm, but the birks and sweat pants were no match for the wet, slippery snow. 

I live two blocks from Prospect Park, so I'd been told that the most beautiful part of snow is really early in the morning when it was untouched by the tread marks of people and cars, which even at a 8 A.M. there was some activity and the snow that once painted the streets white was a mucky brown. 

I cautiously walked down the street as soon as I realized that my shoes provided no traction or grip in the slushy-like snow... this is after almost busting my ass 2 or 3 times walking on a flat surface. Imagine my cautionary steps on the slopes of the sidewalks as I approached the street! Once in the park, everything around me looked unreal. It was perfect. Just as I had seen in movies and imagined in my head. The trees hardly bared leaves and those that did resembled christmas trees or flaunted their red/orange leaves. Abandoned logs were deceptively nestled in the snow. I say deceptively because as I approached one and took my first step toward it...my foot sank into the snow, filling my shoes with the icy snow. There was no back to my shoes, so my heels were numb and my hands felt like a million tiny needles were prickling me, but I couldn't stop taking pictures and I was having a ball with it. There was nothing that was going to ruin this for me!

I stopped a lady walking her dog and explained to her my circumstance. She graciously snapped a photo of me and continued on her way. I stood there with what I think were snow flakes falling for minutes! It felt like rain on my face. I touched the snow and it felt like a finely ground slushy, but much colder than I would have expected. 

So I sit now, contently on my couch, blogging about my first exposure to snow and I have to say that it is better than I could have imagined. Again, it's so awesome to me that I can be so WoWed by something like this and there's no doubt that everything looks that much more beautiful frosted in snow. Now, I just can't wait for the snow to be fluffy enough to build a snow man, roll around in and of course go sledding in Ft. Greene Park!! Call me a little kid, but how could you not think this is exciting!?

 

I'm looking back at the pictures I took this morning and I still can't believe that, that's me standing in the white snow! Oh man I love New York! It just started to snow-- as in actual flakes falling from the sky! that's even more beautiful than seeing already on the ground!