Category: Personal (Page 8 of 25)

The word achievement rarely hits me in a literal sense. Most of my days revolve around tasks and accomplishments, usually in a procedural sense: what got checked off the to-do list in the office today? Did the kids get to school on time, and with all their stuff? Did I remember everything on the shopping list I forgot to bring to the market? And my exercise, such as it is, usually takes on rote forms: 12 miles round trip on the bike to the office, one round of golf, a full hour of effort in the yoga studio, walking home from the far subway station. Not much in the way of achievement.

In the depths of a severe winter, I was happy today that I got to yoga at all. (That in itself felt like a bit of an achievement.) So when our instructor told the room to pair off for headstands, I smiled and decided to pass. I’d never done it and wasn’t about to try.

“Are you going to do a headstand?” the instructor asked me. Nah.

“Do you want a spot?” said the guy next to me. Nah. “Me neither!” he smiled.

But then a woman meandered over to me from several mats away. She hadn’t paired off with anyone. “Do you want me to spot you?” I asked her.

“Oh, no, already did it myself, I don’t need a spotter. What about you?”

“No, I can’t do a headstand.”

“How do you know? Why don’t I spot you?”

I sized up my new companion—older than me, relaxed, already done with her headstand—and realized saying no was no longer the right answer. “I guess I can try,” I said.

Down I went onto my yoga mat, head between arms, legs in a crouch. I gave a little kick and suddenly my legs were over my head. I could feel my spotter holding my left leg, firmly as I straightened my knees, then lighter as I found my balance. I was sure I’d fall at any moment yet I didn’t. I spent a good long while upside-down before bringing my legs back down without falling.

I sat back up on my knees. I was startled. Elated. Proud. Really proud and elated. I think I thanked my spotter four times for the encouragement. “You were good!” she said. “No shaking or swaying at all.” She pointed to the person next to me to show me a comparable pose.

I found myself beaming uncontrollably. “You made my night,” I said by way of a final thank-you.

When I got home, my kids asked me how yoga was (they both enjoy it themselves) and I found myself bragging to them like a kid myself. “I did a headstand!” I exclaimed, then helped the three-year-old do one. He beamed, too.

Life’s rhythms for a dad in his 40s are pretty workaday. Finding areas in which to achieve reminds us of how much more we can do when we take the initiative. My own little achievement wasn’t on par with running a marathon or finishing a novel, but the visceral experience resonated strongly. It has me excited to try harder at yoga, and to find more areas to experience that intense feeling of achievement again, whether I’m blogging or working or parenting or biking or whatever else may come next.

Thank you, yoga spotter, for the encouragement and the endorphin rush. You really did make my night.

Hey, I posted on Medium for the first time today, a retrospective on the XOXO Festival I attended this past weekend.

I’d like to append it here with a note of introspection. I am one of the old-school bloggers and creators that ushered in the community many years ago that, in its own winding way, led to the XOXO Festival. As I’ve noted in this space before, I’ve often been too slow to embrace my digital community in real-life settings, missing out on both the connections that I’d have made as well as the creative sparks that come from such settings.

Somehow last year I failed to learn my own lesson and missed out on the first XOXO. I was, frankly, miserable for weeks about it after the event concluded. This year I made no such mistake, and my determination rewarded me handsomely, as the event was every bit as wonderful as I’d imagined.

Six months into my 40s, six weeks into my new job, five weeks into a new apartment, and two weeks into being the father of a grade-school-age child, I have found energy and excitement in all the change. XOXO made a little bit of magic this weekend, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I came back from Portland with dozens of new friendships and a renewed commitment to making great things. I’m excited to see where it goes.

In the summer of 1990 I worked at the old 4 World Trade Center on the commodities exchange, the one made famous in cinema in “Trading Places,” although somehow the gravitas of where I landed my first-ever paying job only partially sunk in at the time. As a high school student, I drove with another kid to the PATH train in Harrison and rode in every morning. Worked four days a week for $250 cash checking trades for a dollar futures trader. Nice work at 17 if you can get it.

At lunchtime I either went to the fancy Wall Street McDonald’s, the one with the piano player and doorman and carnations on the tables, or to a terrific old-world coffee shop that used to be across the street from 4 WTC, sort of a cross between a diner and Katz’s Delicatessen, where I’d get honest to goodness New York knishes, and I’d eat them with a sprinkle of salt.

I don’t think I ever went up into the towers. 4 WTC was a low-rise, maybe 8, 10 floors, high enough that the day the power went out taking the stairs was annoying. I remember thinking that the trade center was both impressive and mildly disappointing in a “gee, it’s kind of desolate at street level” kind of way. Finding that coffee shop and that McDonald’s, walking up to the music store at J&R on Park Row, meandering all the way over to the South Street Seaport, now, that was New York.

Of course, the Trade Center was New York, too, inimitably, and remains so in our hearts and our memories, 12 years on. Tomorrow morning I’ll be in the neighborhood again, commuting in the reverse of that summer, in what is now a rather different slice of the city. There’s an old-school deli on my walk between the 2/3 and the PATH that I like to stop in for breakfast on the way. I haven’t asked about their knishes. I think I may.

Correction: this post originally listed the futures exchange address as 7 World Trade Center.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything deeply personal on this site, but today deserves an exception, for today is the tenth anniversary of my marriage.

Had you asked me in the summer of 2000 how life would play out, I would not have painted the picture I have now, living on the Upper West Side, preparing to send my oldest child to kindergarten in the city, getting ready to take a vacation in a car older than my wedding vows, four weeks into a new job, a dog come and gone from our family, living in a rented apartment after moving twice in fifteen months. Who could ever guess such things? Not I.

That said, here’s what I hoped would happen, all of which has played out to plan: I’m married, I have two wonderful boys, I’m thoroughly jazzed about my career, and I love the new apartment and the fact that I’m still in Manhattan. And I’m beyond lucky to be married to my wife, Amy, who is sharing this wonderful moment in time with me and, frankly, continuing to make everything in our lives happen the right way.

We’ve made each other laugh, we’ve consoled each other when we’ve cried, we’ve celebrated personal and professional victories large and small. We routinely sacrifice our own desires to accommodate the other. We brought two amazing people into this world and we strive as partners to give them all the love and support and perspective they can handle. We see the world the same way, and when we don’t, we learn from each other. We are smarter, savvier, more thoughtful people by virtue of our being together.

Since we got married, Amy and I have traveled the world, together and separate, across five continents. We’ve spoiled ourselves at amazing hotels and, at least once, feared for our well-being in another country. We’ve indulged in everything from business class international travel to $13 ninety-minute footrubs in Beijing (you have no idea). We have seen many a Broadway show and Hollywood movie. We’ve swooned over foods of all stripes, not least of which include a spicy tuna roll in the Village and a spaghetti with clams on Amsterdam Avenue. We’ve bought furniture, art, china, gadgets, real estate. Almost always, we’ve done these things as a team, by mutual decision or consent.

We’ve supported each other countless times and ways as our careers have evolved. Amy has watched me explore five (sheesh) full-time employers, a handful of startups and freelancing and consulting opportunities, business trips from Staten Island to Sydney, and two years in business school. I’ve watched her make it 13 years at the same job, going on film shoots from Punta del Este (I went on that one) to Prague (hey! I went on this one too), advancing to the upper ranks of her field, winning awards and producing work that has, on more than one occasion, become an instant classic.

I have often joked that I am so bad at project management that I married a producer for balance. Our marriage truly lets us play to our strengths. We are the epitome of balance, to the point where we subconsciously stagger our emotions when we’re sad, so each of us can take a turn providing support and perspective for the other. I conceptualize, Amy executes. She packs, I carry. Amy does most of the laundry, I do most of the grocery shopping. Unique? Probably not. Satisfying? Unspeakably so.

All of which is prelude and subordinate to the other members of our home, Nathan and Eli, who are pure bundles of joy and pride in our lives. Neither would be here without my wife’s sheer willpower and determination, in myriad ways, and neither would be as bright-eyed, responsible, organized or well-dressed without their mother’s magic touch. Not a day goes by that I am not appreciative of the sheer parenting that Amy puts into running our home.

Ten years of marriage, two careers and two kids often puts a relationship into an operational mode. It’s rare that we get a chance to reflect on things and enjoy the moment. So we took a night for ourselves this week, going out to a fancy dinner to celebrate our enduring love as a couple; and tomorrow, we head to Martha’s Vineyard—our eighth visit to the island together—for a week away with the kids. It’s a great way to cap a milestone in our lives.

A few weeks ago, when I had to take our sick toddler to the pediatric emergency room, and my wife was orchestrating our well-being from two thousand miles away, and her sister the doctor was checking in on us feverishly while talking to both our pediatrician and our ENT, and a swarm of family support rained down, I took to Facebook and posted, simply, “I married well.” I couldn’t have been more accurate.

I love you, Amy. Here’s to many more decades of great things together.