Meeting myself on the streets of New York
Reflections on New York, resourcing oneself and books about how patriarchy impacts women
It’s been a painful, challenging, beautiful, transformative summer, and despite many attempts, I’ve found it nearly impossible to write anything meaningful over the past several weeks. Reflection requires a degree of separation and space from your life that I haven’t had for a while now, so it’s been hard to share.
Amidst these challenges, August has been a full month of lots of work, and some exploration and learning. On the exploration and learning front, I took a liberatory coaching program that really sharpened my coaching skills and felt like the best course I’ve ever taken (do get in touch if you’re looking for coaching support! I’m offering sessions) I took an overnight Parks Canada Learn to Camp course and went camping for the first time in more than 20 years. And most recently, I went to New York after almost a decade. The last and first time I was in New York I was single, I lived in Toronto, it was autumn and I was in my twenties, flying to New York for a weekend. In that trip everything I experienced felt like a tiny miracle. I loved cities but hadn’t visited many at that point, and I marvelled and delighted at everything I saw.
Almost nine years later, I have chronic pain and it was over 35 degrees every day. Because of my pain I tired easily, and I found it hard to walk for extended periods of time and to cope in the heat. Overall it was a very challenging trip, but I want to share with you some magical moments when I felt more myself than I have in a very long time.
The night we arrived we stood in an enormous line for a food truck I was keen to try, and I made friends with the people around us in the lineup, chatting for the two hours we waited for food. The night was lit up by the buildings around us, across the street was the offices of publisher Simon and Schuster, and the air thrummed with possibilities. It was past midnight when we finally exited the lineup, and together with our new lineup friends we ate dinner at an outdoor table, sharing stories about our lives, our loves and our experiences till the early hours of the morning.
A couple of days later in a cafe/plant store I had the odd sensation of seeing someone across a room it felt like I knew. Though I would never randomly start up a conversation in Vancouver, I started chatting, a conversation which led to laughter and smelling candles with a stranger to figure out the perfect scent for their new New York home.
Over the past few years and in the pandemic in particular, I have forgotten parts of myself. New York reminded me that I am chatty and curious, that I light up in the presence of good conversations, that I often enjoy company more than solitude. I went to a meetup of Muslims in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. I visited a dear family friend in New Haven who I first met almost twenty years ago and felt deep gratitude for their entire family. Whenever I could, I chatted with complete strangers.
The highlight of the trip was seeing Wicked on Broadway, a dream of mine for close to twenty years. It was my first Broadway show and over the course of three hours I cried more than once at its beauty, message, songs and dazzling commitment to excellence. This commitment was visible in the costumes, the live orchestra, the choreography and dance performances, the technical artistry, and the stunning performances from each actor. Before the show and during the intermission I spoke to the people behind me and beside me, my excitement and delight effervescent. Afterwards I left the show quiet and joyous, keen to keep the show’s magic with me as long as possible, full of gratitude for the incredible night I had, renewed in my commitment to make art.
And of course, as an urban planner I went to the High Line. At one point, eager for a rest, I sat down in a spot that I realized instantly I had sat in several years previously. It felt joyous, loving and sad all at once to take in what had changed in my life since then, to slip off certain layers of grief I had accumulated in the intervening years that no longer fit, to quietly celebrate the doing of hard things and the trusting of oneself. It was a steadying moment, a moment of whispering commitments to myself of who I am, the things I want, and how I want to take care of myself.
One of those things is this newsletter - the place where I most widely and most often share my thoughts and feelings on hope and keeping going when things are hard. September marks one year of this paid newsletter, and if you haven’t yet subscribed, but read the newsletter regularly and are able to, please do sign up. I’m committed to a regular newsletter schedule but this year I will be writing more and more for subscribers alone.
I share all of this not simply to share travel anecdotes, but to say creating containers for experimentation and return can be valuable ways to reset and resource oneself. Sometimes that container is through changing physical locations like travel or moving, or life circumstances like changing jobs and sometimes that container is created through specific time periods. September for me for example has always been a time of new beginnings, new possibilities and bouquets of sharpened pencils, but each day can be that container if resourced with a clear intention. That container is also created through minuscule moments through the day where we resource ourselves through practices that center us and bring us back to ourselves. All three are important, and the last one is what we need most of all.
As you enter into September, what practices from the summer do you want to keep with you?
In this edition of the newsletter I am sharing books that I’ve been reading over the last month or so that have been helpful in helping me think more about patriarchy and how it shapes/acts on women. While this wasn’t my intention from the outset, from the books I ended up reading to random strangers we met on the plane, patriarchy felt like it was “in the field” while I was in New York.