Brooklyn flower shopThere is a pleasant buzz about, and I think it’s called spring.
I think it’s called rebirth and fresh hope and sunshine. Serendipitous moments just kicking around our neighborhood in Brooklyn, which is full of fresh energy and life, people pushing strollers and showing some leg, windows flung open and side streets with their green canopies begging for exploration.
Foraging in new neighborhoods, too, for promises of treats whispered on the wind, like the Red Hook Lobster Pound and Baked and Mandiba (Christa’s favorite), and Fort Green park on a perfect Thursday in May.
Jordan is listening to his high school soundtrack (Soundgarden, Shudder to Think) and I’m kicking it to Datri Bean and a hip hop artist named dessa that Tara recommended. Tara is my Twitter friend. She lives in Louisville and has a background in public media, just like me. This week I met another online friend of mine, Colleen. She has pale skin and dark red hair and lives just a few blocks away, and we met through my blog ZENyc, which I’ve since shelved. Soon she’ll be posting something I wrote for her blog: “35 Things I’ve Learned in 35 Years.” Hint: dark chocolate appears on the list more than once.
Speaking of what we’ve learned, my friend Lindsay graduated from high school this week, and some of the elder lady folk in her life have been posting quotes from T.S. Eliot and Kahlil Gibran to her Facebook wall to cheer her on. I quoted Eliot in my own high school graduation speech: “To make an end is to make a beginning – the end is where we start from…”
Over at Harvard, Amy Poehler – my hero – gave this lovely, sunny, funny talk to the class of 2011, in which she emphasizes the importance of other people to our happiness. Find people who challenge and inspire you, she says, and spend as much time with them as possible. Were wiser words ever spoken? Of course I love that so many of her life lessons are derived from improv (think improv!), which is only fitting, since she’s the high priestess of improv comedy…
Thank you, Amy, for reminding us of the power of human connection, and for being so goddamned funny.
And thank you, spring, for zigging my zag. You done good.
How about you? What’s putting an extra zip in your step these days? What’s capturing your imagination?
Having it Alt 