After the storm

Out for a walk this afternoon in evacuation zone A, that didn't get flooded from the Hurricane Irene storm surge the way the news had been predicting. Also, thankfully, my neighborhood had no major damage, flooding or power outages (or worse). Others up and down the coast, and of course the Bahamas, weren't nearly as fortunate.

An earthquake and a hurricane in one week, and the 10 year anniversary of September 11th around the corner has made everyone's nerves a bit more jittery than the typical lazy days of late August.

The air felt particularly fresh this afternoon, like an exhale.

The Leading Lady

Last weekend I went up to the Hudson River Valley, which I hadn't visited since I moved back, but like the East End of Long Island remained in the shadowy background of my mind the entire time I lived in California.

Watching "Hamlet" at Hudson Valley Shakespeare at Boscobel, (which was amazing!), the entire experience was highlighted by the most dramatic leading lady of all, Mother Nature.

Looking out over the Hudson Highlands, before the storm rolled in, you really get the sense that things pretty much look the way they always have.

I hope they always will.



I read an article this morning in my favorite blog, Dot Earth. Most of the time Andrew Revkin explores natural resources and the environment and "how to balance human affairs with the planet's limits".
In this post, he simply goes on vacation and beautifully describes a camping trip with friends and family at Hither Hills State Park in Montauk. In "On the Merits of Parks and Bluefish" he elaborates on the value of where he was:

"...The park, like so many other state, county and local preserves and public spaces, is proof that one doesn't need a lot of money to reconnect with natural landscapes and seascapes. Even when times are tight, or perhaps especially then, it’s vital to invest in and maintain public spaces that can be utilized by all citizens, rich or poor...."
You can read the rest of the post by clicking here.

We need nature more so much more than we realize.

Enormity and the Power of One

Seth Godin wrote a post once about enormity that I often think about, especially lately, working in the non-profit world, that certainly has no shortage of daunting challenges. How can one person really make a difference?

Enormity doesn't mean really enormous. It means incredibly horrible. The problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn't work. Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down. Show us too many sick kids, unfair imprisonments or burned bodies and you won't get a bigger donation, you'll just get averted eyes. If you've got a small, fixable problem, people will rush to help, because people like to be on the winning side, take credit and do something that worked. If you've got a generational problem, something that is going to take herculean effort and even then probably won't pan out, we're going to move on in search of something smaller.Not fair, but true.

I love how the story of Rachel Beckwith has taken on a different narrative.

Please click here for a recent Today Show episode, showing how one nine year old girl's birthday wish for clean water for others has inspired over 30,000 people from all around the world to donate, raising over $1.1 million dollars so far (!).

Summer of Sharks

Three years ago today one of my best friends passed away unexpectedly. I was living in Southern California but in New York at the time, at a company picnic on the North Fork, when I heard the news.

It's that funny wrinkle of time when you blink and suddenly three years pass, you're now living back in New York 2.0, and over the course of time Dave's friends and family have figured out a way to go on with things, without him. In a way....

The posts on his facebook memorial, Blessed to Have Known Dave Freeman, are still fairly regular, often bringing a bittersweet smile, or chuckle, as friends and family mention a story or place or happening or idea that brings Dave immediately to the foreground. Sometimes the posts are about looking back, but it's often looking forward, going back to our touchstone, the person we knew with the greatest sense of adventure and perspective in him, wondering what Dave would think or say about something. What would Dave's take on it would be.
He was, for most of us, the high beam on a dark road.

Nearly 10 years ago, in the hot August of 2001, when we were both living in New York and working at the same ad agency, Dave had pronounced the summer "The Summer of Sharks" when things like PR party planner Lizzie Grubman running over someone in her SUV in the Hamptons and a couple shark attacks on kids in Florida was what was making major headlines. No one could quite see ahead that "Summer of Sharks" wouldn't last and of course we entered an era of 'real news'...

...Confusing news, upside news, news that is often overwhelming to process between wars, financial drama, earthquakes, people starving, nations running out of water, people out of work, flash mobs, unrest and uprisings...

In addition to what it's like to just miss spending time with a good friend, I think we all miss how Dave would interpret things, what he would say that would help make sense of all this to us. One of the things Dave would often say, clapping his hands impatiently was: "We're going to the future, people, are you coming??" Live in the now. Don't be afraid. Make something happen.Have an Adventure. Get fast. Keep moving. Change.

His specialty was the unapologetic kick in the pants, delivered with biting truth and humor.
While Dave now has a change of address, and in our non "Summer of Shark" times, "We're going to the future, people, are you coming??" still remains a reminder of where and where not to place our focus.

Right Time, Right Place

Last night I experienced one of those right time, right place moments.

It was a lovely night, summer in the city style, and we were having dinner at Barbuto in the West Village, which is across the street from Tortilla Flats, a place that will always be etched in my mind as where I was when I first learned Princess Diana had been killed.

There were police barricades set up (which can be a common sight in New York) and we learned that President Obama would be coming by!

We saw him coming.

And we saw him going.

I have never been so close to a head of state, so it was pretty unexpected and exciting! Someone, who will remain nameless, texted me a less than enthusiastic reply when I had told him I had just seen President Obama.

So, the world is a mess, and there's no reason not to feel cynical and depressed about the state of things.

Or is there...
The day before at work I was just finishing a meeting, when the New York State Director brought in an envelope with $16 dollars that his 7 1/2 year old next door neighbor put under his door. She had a lemonade stand and wanted to give all the money she raised to The Nature Conservancy.

Then I read this Op-Ed in the Times by Nicholas Kristof about another little girl who also wanted to help make this world a better place...

Perhaps every generation of geezers since Adam and Eve has whined about young people, and today is no different. Isn’t it clear that in contrast to our glorious selves, kids these days are self-absorbed Facebook junkies just a pixel deep? No, actually that’s wrong at every level.

This has been a depressing time to watch today’s “adults,” whose talent for self-absorption and political paralysis makes it difficult to solve big problems. But many young people haven’t yet learned to be cynical. They believe, in a wonderfully earnest way, in creating a better world.

In the midst of this grim summer, my faith in humanity has been restored by the saga of Rachel Beckwith. She could teach my generation a great deal about maturity and unselfishness — even though she’s just 9 years old, or was when she died on July 23.

Rachel lived outside Seattle and early on showed a desire to give back. At age 5, she learned at school about an organization called Locks of Love, which uses hair donations to make wigs for children who have lost their own hair because of cancer or other diseases. Rachel then asked to have her long hair shorn off and sent to Locks of Love. “She said she wanted to help the cancer kids,” her mother, Samantha Paul, told me. After the haircut, Rachel announced that she would grow her hair long again and donate it again after a few years to Locks of Love. And that’s what she did.
Then when she was 8 years old, her church began raising money to build wells in Africa through an organization called charity:water. Rachel was aghast when she learned that other children had no clean water, so she asked to skip having a ninth birthday party. In lieu of presents, she asked her friends to donate $9 each to charity:water for water projects in Africa. Rachel’s ninth birthday was on June 12, and she had set up a birthday page on the charity:water Web site with a target of $300. Alas, Rachel was able to raise only $220 — which had left her just a bit disappointed.

Then, on July 20, as Rachel was riding with her family on the highway, two trucks collided and created a 13-car pileup. Rachel’s car was hit by one of the trucks, and although the rest of her family was unhurt, Rachel was left critically injured.

Church members and friends, seeking some way of showing support, began donating on Rachel’s birthday page — charitywater.org/Rachel — and donations surged past her $300 goal, and kept mounting. As family and friends gathered around Rachel’s bedside, they were able to tell her — even not knowing whether she couldn’t hear them — that she had exceeded the $47,544 that the singer Justin Bieber had raised for charity:water on his 17th birthday.

“I think she secretly had a crush on him, but she would never admit it,” her mom said. “I think she would have been ecstatic.”

When it was clear that Rachel would never regain consciousness, the family decided to remove life support. Her parents donated her hair a final time to Locks of Love, and her organs to other children. Word spread about Rachel’s last fund-raiser.
Contributions poured in, often in $9 increments, although one 5-year-old girl sent in the savings in her piggy bank of $2.27. The total donations soon topped $100,000, then $300,000. Like others, I was moved and donated. As I write this, more than $850,000 has been raised from all over the world, including donations from Africans awed by a little American girl who cared about their continent.

“What has been so inspiring about Rachel is that she has taught the adults,” said Scott Harrison, the founder of charity:water. “Adults are humbled by the unselfishness of this little girl.”

Yet this is a story not just of one girl, but of a generation of young people working creatively to make this a better world. Mr. Harrison is emblematic of these young people. Now 35, he established charity:water when he was 30, and it has taken off partly because of his mastery at social media. (He’s not as experienced in well-drilling, so the wells are actually dug by expert groups like International Rescue Committee.)

Youth activism has a long history, but this ethos of public service is on the ascendant today — and today’s kids don’t just protest against injustices, as my contemporaries did, but many are also remarkable problem-solvers.

As for Ms. Paul, she’s planning a trip on the anniversary of her daughter’s death next year to see some of the wells being drilled in Africa in her daughter’s name. “It’ll be overwhelming to see Rachel’s wells,” she said, “to see what my 9-year-old daughter has done for people all over the world, to meet the people she has touched.”

Rachel Beckwith, R.I.P., and may our generation learn from yours.

Where They Go By Water

My working theory is that adults need field trips too. We need them to keep us wide eyed and creatively inspired; to spark that deep sense of wonder around what an amazing world we live in.

(Even when it can seem a bit crazy from time to time...)

I temporarily abandoned NYC office building life with power points, calls and long meetings and went on my first field trip for work, visiting our chapter in the East End of Long Island yesterday,with an educational tour of where we work.
Atlantic Double Dunes Preserve - East Hampton.

Montauk.

And then a ferry ride to Shelter Island, a place I'd never been, but always knew in my heart I would love.

We stayed overnight at the Manor House, build in 1890, located on the grounds of Mashomack Preserve. Mashomack is an amazing 2,039 acre nature preserve that's a third of the entire island with tidal creeks, mature oak woodlands, fields, freshwater marshes and home to many plant and animal species.

We spotted two rather chubby racoons crossing the road last night as we were driving in, ospray and a family of deer today and heard lots of critters last night as we slept.
This is my colleague Adrienne and Mike who runs Mashomack, and toured us around the preserve in the front of his pick up truck. Mike has been living on the preserve for 31 years. As you can imagine, he has some good stories!


Shelter Island was established in the 1600's and originally inhabited by the Manhansets, Native Americans who were part of the wide-spread Algonquin culture. It's located between the North and South Fork of Long Island, and is surrounded by Shelter Island Sound and Gardiners Bay.

It's only 100 miles from New York City, but feels a world away.





Mashomack means "Where they go by water."
It is a very special place.

River Tao

I just got home from a work retreat where colleagues of mine met in Richmond, Virginia for 2 days of marketing planning discussion, followed by an afternoon tubing adventure down the James River.

This is our "Before" picture...

The River Guide Company thought it might take 3 hours from where they dropped us to where they were picking us up. When we entered the river, it was very very still and I don't think anyone thought we'd get to where we wanted to end up by mere floating. So we paddled with our hands.

"Does it even feel like we're moving?" my colleague Karen said to me. It didn't, even with our paddling, it felt like we were staying in one place, until we tweaked our 'marine vessel strategy' by lifting our rear ends a bit to be a bit more aerodynamic.

Over two hours into our journey, right before the area we were getting picked up, we suddenly ended up in a faster part of the river. During the 'rapids', we had a couple casualties: The cooler (and its contents) tipped, and I went the wrong way around a big rock, lost my shoe, and ended up going in a different area from where my colleagues were.

"Going with the flow" takes on a whole new meaning when you are in an inner tube, paddling with your hands, and going against the river to get back to where you want to go. I laughed to think of how true that statement is, as I beached myself on a rock, trying to figure out how to get to where my colleagues were.

Earlier that day I had seen a quote from J.K. Rowlings, referring to the time of her life when she began to write Harry Potter. She was a single mother, on welfare, and her mother just died, and quite likely she felt like she was in a stagnant river.

"Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve. I was determined to try. I was determined to try because, frankly, my life was such a mess at this point, what - what was the worst that could happen? Everyone turn me down? Big deal."

Sometimes it's about going with the stream, and sometimes it's about action!

With my one shoe on, and inner tube in hand, I less-than-swan-like climbed over the rocks, and began swimming across the river against the current until my colleague Andrew waded out, extended his hand and gave me a toe in.

And sometimes it's about a little help from your friends....

This Place...

I miss this place.

Rocks and water,

And an amazing trees-to-people ratio.

How quiet the harbor is at night.

Listening to waves lapping against the seawall.

Seeing stars for the first time in a year.

Smelling the North Atlantic air when you wake up.

How the sky looks at night.

Being near, on or in water all week.

Moody weather.

Being inside with a fire going.

A sense of remoteness of the Maritimes.

Who I miss!

Who I miss, part 2.

(Blurred photo possibly a casualty of the photographer snapping pic after ahem, 8 hours of lobster boil merriment celebrating my sister's birthday)

Obsessively watching Haven all the time.

(If you're not familiar...the TV show centers around the quirky characters and supernatural 'troubles' affecting a the fictitious seaside village of Haven, Maine.

It's kindof a X Files meets Scooby Doo - and it films here!

In addition to the pleasure of recognizing settings in various episodes,

And seeing the cast and crew around town

This place actually seems like Haven...)

Being in a place where you still sense the past all around you.

(My brother in law is regaling kids with a story about The Teaser, an American privateer ship, that exploded to avoid being captured during the war of 1812...with present day sightings in the harbor, and in an area house.

If you believe in that type of thing.

And in this place, it's easy to...)

I snapped this same photo last year, from the dock of a 100 year old boat house.

The joy of nothing really changing....