In the fun of a family group call spanning
Australia and England and the US
(Remember when Vicky first left and it cost a fortune to make a single international call?!)
I forgot to eat before I headed out on my run
Stopped by Kinship Coffee
And grabbed a ginger molasses cookie
And I ran my intervals around the park
And the air was warm
And the flowers were bright
And I felt
​Good.

​The rain held off and
The smoke stayed away just enough
For us to to take a tiny boat
Cheering and laughing across the waves 
To Governor’s Island
Where a feast was waiting
Overseen by chef Missy Robbins
And Lady Liberty herself, showing off in the setting sun

Cocktails to start, decorated with orange peel rinds
We lounge on deck chairs facing the water
Admiring all the boats passing by and
Talk about life and death and all that is between
We realize it has been twenty whole years since we first met
Tell 18-year-old us
In 20 years you will still be friends
And you both live in New York
And one of you is getting married next week
And one of you just separated from your love
And here you both are

The meal starts with caciocavallo cheese melted over the grill
And smeared onto toasted garlicky sourdough bread
Wine from the islands of Italy is poured like water
And plates adorned food are delivered to the table with breathtaking speed
Charred pickled scallions with calbrian chili and oregano
Artichokes and smashed english peas
Toasted sesame bread - cloud-like in their pillowy softness
Fava beans with grispy garlic and grilled snap peas dressed with salsa verde and capers
Asparagus melting in senape, hazelnuts and brown butter
Spring onions basking in pesto trapanese
Littleneck clams dancing in charred lemon butter
(literal heaven in a clamshell)
Salmon and fennel and branzino and potatoes swimming in lemon garlic butter
Topped off lemon gelato and crunchy but astonishingly soft biscotti
The mmm’s and aaah’s and a little more of that one
And can you pass the other plate please
And the laughter of fourteen strangers
Bonding over food and wine and the fabulous view

How lucky we are to be here
How extraordinary
How fortunate
How delicious
How thankful
We are.

​It was hard to find respite
In the noisy busy city
But I encountered a flock of flamingos
And a leaping cow
And their out-of-place-ness
Made made me smile

A small step forward
In my business
That will hopefully mean
Leaps and bounds

How appropriate that the morning after pride
There was an enormous full arc of a
Bright beautiful rainbow
Gracing the sky
She made my heart sing

I wore my sparkly shoes to work
We had a mini pride parade
Which was joyful and fun and flamboyant and silly
And all the wonderful

Why can’t we shine
In our full radiant sparkly-ness
Every single day?

I spent nearly two deliriously happy hours
Perusing the exhibit
At the New York Public Library
I didn’t quite see all of it
All the carefully crafted footage
From thousands of performances
Steve Martin and Robin Williams in Waiting for Godot!
Donna Murphy in The King and I!
Audra McDonald in 110 in the Shade!
A Chorus Line!
Sondheim!
What a visionary Betty Corwin was,
What a legacy she left behind and
How lucky we are to have this record.

Days of
Getting. Shit. Done.
Running, sorting, working, and
Collapsing into bed exhausted
But satisfied.

​watching sean hayes play rhapsody in blue
I was inspired and moved
an extraordinary play about a difficult man

earlier in the week
I was witness to
james t. lane telling his story
a difficult journey for an extraordinary man

the stories of music and art
finding beauty in the pain
reckoning with life upon this coil
how we fathom our existence
this difficult extraordinary thing.

music and art
music and art.

today I met two extraordinary women
two fellow cancer survivors
who make music and art
with humor and joy.
they touched my heart
and lifted my soul.