Hello,
I’ve been dealing with a suspicious feeling recently — the notion that things might be getting back to normal.
Work has been reliably manic. I’ve been sprinting for as long as I can remember. In the moments that haven’t been spent working, our apartment has been filled with visitors. Family and friends no longer have to wonder what our life in New York looks like, they’ve seen it and signaled their approval with smiling faces and a palpable reluctance to get on their flights home. Meanwhile my wife has returned to her career on the road with live music, performing the dizzying magic trick that is arriving in an empty venue, feeding and corralling some of the biggest names in business, then sitting back and watching with satisfaction as those acts blow the roof off the place. Seeing her backstage at the Hollywood Bowl was like watching a creature be released from captivity and back into the wild. The thinly-gripped chaotic motion of a live band touring is simply where she’s meant to be.
So maybe, just maybe, we’re back to normal…!?
I don’t mean to be flippant or trite. I know the world is about to drag itself through a dark economic winter, that despicable forces are lunging for the levers of political power, and that fear is a growth industry — I just mean that after the isolated inertia of the pandemic, perhaps the wheels are starting to turn again?
And so greetings now not from New York City, but from Oaxaca in Mexico.
We’ve come away for a month. I’ve deleted Twitter off my phone, my work email has been uninstalled, and the coming weeks will be about walking, talking, drinking, eating everything in sight, and generally underlining that we’re back to living the way we want to and the way we do best.
I’m also going to take a break from this email, but I wanted to leave you with a couple of links to tide you over. They’re all from the recently returned, and unofficial voice of the NYC tourist board, Casey Neistat.
This one (which should start about midway for you) encapsulates a lot of how we’ve felt about our adopted home. Full disclose I can’t watch it without welling up. Things really weren’t normal for a while:
But now we’re back! Reports of New York’s death were greatly exaggerated.
This video gives you a sense of how we feel about NYC on a day to day basis:
And this final one, from the archives, was the inspiration to leave it all behind for a month:
So I’ll see you all in a few weeks. Over the next few days we’ll celebrate Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) and it’s sure to a poignant one, but even as we sip Mezcal, surrounded by huge papier-mâché puppets and thousands of strangers, we’ll have that sneaking suspicion — maybe everything is getting back to normal?
Until next time, let’s be careful out there.