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It was a challenging 15 months. It was the best of times; it was the worst. Trials and tribulations abound.
My constant companion was WQXR, New York’s revamped classical station.
I reunited with many old friends who either went through life changes (e.g. divorce), moved back to the NYC area, or whom I visited on the Left Coast. I made new friends and connected with family. Many of us having aquatics backgrounds, I made my overdue return to swimming. I’ve been 9 months nursing injured wrists from a cab door colliding with my 10-speed.
After 3 years, the longest beach breach of my life, I returned to the shores of Wildwood Crest, NJ, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. I returned with my childhood friend who introduced me to the barrier island in the early 1970s. We saw our landlady of 30 years, but who could no longer remember him; I fear it broke his heart. They spent many a summer evening chatting in her kitchen. I also went with my young fraternity Brothers, who had never been there (and I pretended it was 1981).
I experienced my first and second high school circle '2nd Thanksgiving', on the Friday after Thanksgiving, with my classmates from the High School of Music & Art (the 'Fame' school, now La Guardia); we enjoyed 24-hour jam sessions filled with wine, laughter, and song.
I visited the Cloisters for my annual Christmas outing, a ritual initiated by my Dad when I was a kid. I then gathered with HS classmates at The New Leaf Restaurant in Fort Tryon Park to toast the season. I took my annual hike in the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, to reflect upon my year - another ritual, started with a friend now on the Left Coast. I celebrated New Year's Eve with childhood, and new friends, in an Upper West Side pre-war building, and then a New Year’s Day vegan, kosher brunch in Chinatown.
This is my New York, and life according to me, not TV’s ‘Sex and the City’.
I faced the challenges of business, but survived. I built an excellent new team for marketing. We're overhauling our website, planning educational videos, and started an educational MeetUp group, 'Women and Money', which we will inaugurate on Valentine's Day in midtown. (Please join us: www.MeetUp.com, join for free (top right: ‘Sign Up’), then search (top right) 'Women and Money' and sign up.)
I traveled the US researching real estate investments for clients and staying in 5-star hotels. I finally returned to the BWI (British West Indies) for my almost-annual, pre-tax season escape. I sunned, rested, exercised, and enjoyed social intercourse with an international crowd of guests. I hadn’t had a vacation in two years in spite of my attempts to adhere to Free/Focus/Buffer time. Someone died on a SCUBA dive.
I experienced a plethora of deaths, including too many classmates. There was a blur of a half dozen in the two weeks between Western and Eastern Christmas.
There are many changes on the horizon, even if we can't foresee them, such as this years' forecasted sun spot activity (which I'm told already created the highest ultra-violet radiation in the history of humankind, just 10 days ago). And the Mayan Calendar ends on 12/21/2012.
The one constant in life is change, a process to which most people have an aversion, but which we must embrace. The only certainties are death and taxes (- and for me, not being able to get a date).
And of course, the world will end on 12/21/2012 to which the silver lining is that we need not Christmas shop. I've already scheduled my 'End of the World Party' for the Saturday prior.
Although we must live for today, while planning for tomorrow, don't forget to do both - just in case.
But enough about me, how did you like my performance?
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