POSTSCRIPT

I did it, and I feel proud. 52 weeks discovering new things. 52 posts. I did so much freaking cool stuff. And yet, there is more to do and to say.

Most surprising about this project is how much fun I had — not only in the exploring but also (and perhaps more so) in the writing. This project gave me the power to claim myself a writer. I did the work to put words on paper — 41,324 words to be exact – and a (small) audience of people read those words. My writing wasn’t all great or even good, but I kept at it. I studied and practiced and started to form my process. That’s legit.

I have always lived with a spirit of curiosity and adventure, and I am confident that spirit is not going anywhere. Learning and exploring will drive my days as long as I am able.

But through this project, I discovered very quickly that when you set your mind to bring something new into your life every week, you create a world of possibility. There is no place for boredom in that world.

So, as the next years unfold, I plan to keep doing what I love, and doing less of what I don’t love, and filling that time with new things.

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A starter list of what’s left to do…

• See a standup comedy show
• Go to an NBA game, preferably at the Chase Center in San Francisco
• Get a tiny tattoo
• Take a course in map making
• Hear a performance in Carnegie Hall
• Attend a live art auction at Christies or Sotheby’s
• Bike on Governor’s Island
• Visit The Cloisters
• Walk the boardwalk at Coney Island
• Visit the Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, CT
• Ride the Staten Island ferry
• Eat lunch in all five New York City boroughs (left to do: The Bronx and Staten Island)
• Walk the entire length of Broadway in Manhattan
• Fire a gun at a firing range
• Visit the Mitsuma Japanese supermarket in Edgewater, NJ (and go by ferry)
• Publish a piece of writing
• And …

WEEK 52

The earth looked still as our plane from San Francisco landed in Newark a few days ago. It was Tuesday rush hour, but the highways were mostly bare. Parking lots sat empty. So did the airport gates, plane-less bridges to nowhere fanning out, one beside the other. I held a long inhale. It was a palpable stillness.

In the middle of April, I silently wished to be in New York City on my birthday. I then said my wish aloud to my wife, and we contemplated — then plotted — a safe and responsible journey. It was not so much for the birthday itself; I have never been one for celebrations. No, my desire was to come full circle with my year-long project. A return to our island.

This final week has been a homecoming of sorts. At different points during lockdown, Irena and I have longed to be in our adopted city of the past five plus years. The solidarity with neighbors. The chance to support local restaurants. Wanting to cheer and clap at 7:00 p.m. every night along with all New Yorkers, honoring the healthcare heroes. Irena and I always say that home is wherever in the world we are together in each moment, but more often than not these past few years, NYC has been our center of gravity. And we were feeling its pull.

Before this week’s journey, we braced ourselves for a city changed. And walking through our beloved Washington Square Park on Wednesday afternoon, I felt a little heartbroken. The city is at its most glorious: trees tall and full, and flowers everywhere. There is this thing that happens in New York in May, where sunlight really does dapple the sidewalks, peeking through the leafy green. I don’t know this light anywhere else.

Yet as we sat on a bench in the park, I could sense that people here have been in pain. The hum of the city has dimmed. On any given day, Washington Square Park is filled with drummers, poets, chalk artists, jugglers, human statues, people dancing, the guy playing a grand piano, someone making soap-bubbles the size of small children, painters and jazz trios. Well, any given day before now, that is. Yes, some people were out, picnicking on the grass, the NYU grads snapping photos in front of the arch and empty fountain. But all around us, we saw a masked world with too much empty space.

We had come to the park to weigh an idea for my 52-and-final first: What if I set up a sign and gather a few strangers, properly socially distanced of course, and conduct my first-ever public reading of my writing? It’s a cool thought and I am game to try, but best for a less sober time…

Instead, on this last day before my next birthday, I decided that we will make a necessary and important pilgrimage across the East River to visit a place that has been part of our life just about every day for the past four years. A place that, for us, is at once mythical and real, if that is even possible. We are going to The Lot Radio.

For the rest of this post to make sense, I need to rewind.

Music brought me to Irena. One week into senior year of high school, I got up the nerve to audition to play piano in the school jazz band, not considering that my future wife had long held that position. Turns out there was room for both of us on the piano bench that year. Irena is unequivocally the better pianist and musician — that is not even up for debate. But I too have “big ears” (an old jazz expression) as we will sometimes say. And so, music has been, is now, and always will be, central to our happiness.

Fast forward several decades. After moving part-time to Manhattan, we fell into the local music and club scene, dancing into the wee hours, often at Burner parties, and starting to form our go-to list of favorite DJs. And in some great timing kismet, Irena discovered The Lot Radio just as it started broadcasting early in 2016.

The Lot Radio is exactly what those words mean — a radio station (that happens to be in a shipping container) on a lot (that happens to be in Williamsburg) — and so much more. I am not exaggerating when I say that The Lot — specifically, the music played by the DJs who show up 24×7 for their two-hour sets — has streamed through our speakers and on our TV nearly every day since. It is mostly music we enjoy, but not always. That is fine. Because when you listen to The Lot Radio, you realize the expansiveness of music. It may as well be air, all around us, all the time.

We were long overdue for a visit.

Our chosen day was a bluebird stunner. Comfortable temperature. Just perfect. We gathered up the now standard don’t-leave-home-without items (face coverings and hand sanitizer that is) and headed outside, first walking south through Nolita, then east on Delancey and over the Williamsburg Bridge, followed by a left turn north on Bedford to our destination at 17 Nassau Avenue, Brooklyn:

But first, an observational tangent: Walking around the city these past few days has been revelatory. Block after block we thought we knew, but didn’t. As we strolled on people-less sidewalks (not marching in battle as it used to be) along streets with very few parked cars and minimal moving traffic to distract the eye, everything was revealed. Metalwork. Stonework. Arched windows. The fonts used in building names. Rooftops. Carvings and emblems. Mini parklets. Vistas down side streets. And I am a person who long ago perfected the ability to walk at pace while still looking up for inspiration. But there I was, retracing steps I had made many times over, and it felt like each was a new discovery.

As we approached the lot (The Lot!), we heard music playing — and myth and reality converged in just the right way.

The coffee stand was open, but the lot seating area closed (until better times, said the barista). During the pandemic, the DJs have been doing their thing from their homes but still broadcasting in their weekly slots, sometimes the live webcam atop the container picking up scenes of the neighborhood. And so we sat for a while in the sun on a bench and listened, becoming part of the scene.  

I love the origin story of The Lot Radio. It is one of those New York tales that gives me hope for what could be on the other side of all we are going through.

The man who founded it would commute by this small, triangular, empty lot basically used for refuse (which happens to have a view of the Empire State Building in the distance), when one day he saw a for lease sign. He says in that moment he envisioned an online radio station that could be home to the amazingly broad DJ and music scene around the city, and also an outdoor space (albeit tiny) for people to gather. One reclaimed shipping container later — half of it housing the broadcasting studio and the other half a coffee house to sustain the whole venture — and his vision came to life, a tiny lot for big creativity and endless joy.

And so … with The Lot Radio as my soundtrack, I say goodbye to 52 and look forward.

WEEK 51

Here I am, the penultimate week of my year-long project, far from how I imagined this week to be. Far from how I imagined the last two months to be. But I am making lemonade with what I’ve got, and finding new experiences worthy of doing (safely) and writing about.

Number 51 comes from my wife and partner-in-fun — dug up from a deep well of creativity. What if we circumnavigate San Francisco, she asked? Huh, I thought. That could be cool.

San Francisco, the city, equals San Francisco, the county. While small(ish) compared to other metropolitan areas, I knew we would not be hiking the perimeter in one day (and ultra-running is so not me). Biking, while possible, is not advised, especially on our crusty beach cruisers. Automobile it will be, with Irena in the pilot seat and me playing tour guide while navigating. Plus, we have a great car — manual transmission I might add — and she misses us.

Even if you have never set foot in San Francisco, it is easy to picture water surrounding the city’s west, north and east outlooks. So, the first mystery for us to solve is where is the southern border, and is it passable? I will get to that in a minute.

The city enjoys a unique geography at the tip of what is called the San Francisco Peninsula, covering about 47 square miles of land and get this — 185 square miles of water plus Alcatraz, Treasure Island, Yerba Buena Island, Angel Island, a portion of Alameda Island and even the uninhabited Farallon Islands, which on a clear day, you can see about 30 miles offshore in the Pacific. As enticing as it sounds to charter a boat and fully circumnavigate the city’s defined legal boundary, we will leave that for another time (or never).

After consulting numerous flat maps and satellite images, I planned our approach. We would hug the edges, following the (drivable) roads closest to the water. The “Southern Traverse” proved more challenging. The city/county southern border is a perfectly straight line which sounds easy peasy to navigate until you realize there are no straight lines in nature (or urban planning). The way the southern border slices through neighborhoods — even housing lots and golf courses — became the most fun quirk of this adventure.

The East Flank. We began our first leg in South Beach, turning east on Harrison Street, then south on The Embarcadero. After passing landmarks we know well — Oracle ballpark, the new Chase Center, the straight stretch south on Illinois St. in Dogpatch to Caesar Chavez, our sometimes Saturday morning run turnaround — then it got interesting. We crossed Islais Creek and headed east on a potholed road — us and about 30 cement trucks going to and coming from places like Cemex and Central Concrete Supply. Ten-story conical mounds of sand and gravel filled empty lots behind fences and locked gates, only a handful of miles from our apartment. The coolest part of this wasteland (named India Basin) was seeing the massive Recycle Center on Pier 96, briefly upstaged by the SFPD training exercise we drove through accidentally.

From there we did our best to navigate Hunters Point, the easternmost edge of the city’s land portion, home to the now abandoned but once vital Navy base turned Superfund site. So, imagine our surprise as we drove directly into a newly-built Truman Show-esque community with hundreds of lived in condos and townhomes lining landscaped, hilly streets looking out to jaw-dropping views of downtown San Francisco and the entire Bay Area (and, yes, the still vacant and deteriorating shipyard hangars). Residential pioneers and then some.

The Southern Traverse. This, our most anticipated leg, began at Candlestick Park, the sports venue of my childhood — demolished about five years ago and now an ugly, fenced field awaiting re-development — and ended at Lake Merced, just steps from the Pacific Ocean. The completionists in us wanted so badly to travel the straight line demarcating the city border. But alas, the combination of winding, half-moon shaped residential streets in Crocker Amazon (romantically named after European city capitals by the way … Prague, Munich, Athens, Paris, Moscow, Vienna) and our unwillingness to get out of the car with a compass and walk the thing — well, let’s just agree we got close enough:

The Western Flank. From Lake Merced, we turned north along Ocean Beach, driving, ironically, in a mostly straight line following the grid of low-slung houses that define the Outer Sunset. At this point in our journey, high noon, the sun was at its full intensity, and this half of the city had come out to play. Not a lot of sheltering as bikers, joggers and walkers ruled the streets as we continued north through Lands End, Sea Cliff and the Presidio to catch our first glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge, marking the opposite corner from Candlestick Point, worlds away.

Our final stretch — we’ll call it the North Flank easing into a slight southeastern bend – is our workaday outdoor playground, and yet for so many, these eight or so miles of waterfront hold the heart of San Francisco: Fort Point and the bridge, Crissy Field, the Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf, views of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill, the Ferry Building. And just about two hours after we pulled out of our parking garage, we ended on the familiar.

All this to say, it takes effort to know a place fully. Our circumnavigation surprised me. I have spent decades of my life inside these 48 square miles. I have crossed San Francisco east to west and back on foot numerous times. I have visited friends in any number of neighborhoods, far from the city center. And yet I have essentially flown over vast acreage, miles upon miles of streets I see only from elevated highways, where people live and hang out, work, eat and go to school. I found little of what we drove through charming or enticing – SF is one of those places where the natural beauty of its surroundings has allowed gross architectural injustices to go unpunished. But at a time when we have been forced to turn inward to our homes for safety and refuge, this journey woke me up to a city I hardly know, where people rise with the same sun I do and go about their day.

WEEK 50

My last hair cut was December 28, 2019. Not only pre-pandemic but the prior decade. I am so overdue for a cut that my hair has developed its own needy personality, like a small child who lives constantly attached to my head. Some days the hair-child is well behaved, a swirl of curls smiling back at me with a nice sheen, all moving in the right direction. Yet most days, said curls wake up cranky, and before they have a chance to start complaining, I mute them into a pile, Kewpie-doll style atop my head.

If only I had done that minor in cosmetology…

This week’s post is not about my attempt at a self hair-cut. I would be in tears on the floor. And I’ve been warned that only a trained professional can tackle my mess.

No, this week’s post is about my first time cutting my wife’s hair. To be clear, cutting any hair.

Irena has gorgeous tresses, baby-bottom soft, a rich chestnuty brown with golden tones, falling past her shoulders in a light wave. Her hair is glamorous. One of her best and most treasured features. So yeah, I’m nervous. I am not even good at braiding.

We started making plans a couple of weeks ago to take matters into our own hands – for cut and color – when (not if … we’re getting smart at this game) the already twice-extended shelter-in-place orders get re-extended.

Our first step was procurement. And as I’ve come to expect in the current environment, it’s procurement that drives the day. Hair shears? On back order. Color applicator brushes? Out of stock. My appreciation for hairdressers and colorists has been forever altered.

As luck would have it, the scissors and brushes arrived first (still no color kits as of this writing), so I laid the scissors in my hand and got to know them a bit. They were introduced online as handmade (a 52-step process no less) using Japanese stainless steel and other capitalized words like Cobalt Alloy, getting rave reviews for sharpness and feel of the cut. Having no mannequin to practice on chez nous, I snipped a few scraps of paper. Good control. Balanced. Smooth. I think we chose well.

Irena has had her New York-based stylist, we’ll call her FT, on speed dial, and she’s game to guide us through a live cut over FaceTime. So, on Monday morning, shortly after finishing our cappuccinos, Irena’s phone buzzes with a text, and she says FT is ready. Now? Now? I cram a 2-minute video tutorial.

There is no time to feel anxious. We quickly set up a mini-salon (complete with the April issue of Vogue) and beamed FT’s smiling face (and, I should add, great hair and leopard-print robe) onto the iPad. We got right down to business. I mean, my client and I don’t have much new news to catch up on.

I noticed right away that FT would be an expert guide, as she positioned me and my clumsy hands in sectioning Irena’s hair, which took a few tries given my spatial ineptness.

We started the cut on the back. I picked up the comb and scissors – never succeeding in holding both simultaneously by the way – and combed down a section. We decided on two inches. I measured against the folds in my finger, took a deep breath and made the first cut. FT could even hear the snip through the phone – ear candy to a stylist, she said.

We had our length guide, and I let out my exhale. FT and I moved through the remaining sections, always tracking alongside what we had cut. At the shoulder, I made sure, as instructed, that Irena’s hair landed in its natural plumb line. My coach called out little reminders as I worked: Stand in front of the section you are cutting. Cut against her back, not in the air. I was really doing this.

When we got to the face frame, FT said bluntly (with only a smidgen of encouragement) that this would be tricky for me, but we could do it. I learned a little head and face anatomy on the fly, then combed Irena’s hair forward, Cousin ITT style. FT lined me up to make a cut along her chin and then, on each side, in an angled arc. Snip, snip, snip and we were done: The Quarantine Healthy Hair Trim.

My client looked in the mirror, smiled a big smile and tipped me in kisses.

WEEK 49

People are getting creative with their exercise routines during lockdown. The friends who set up family boot camp on their front lawn, complete with kettle balls, weights, jump rope, resistance bands, found objects in the yard. The boxer who attached his heavy bag to the outstretched limb of a tree along the waterfront at the base of the Bay Bridge, punching away, sweaty and shirtless. And just a few days ago, there was the guy at the corner hanging from the crosswalk signal bar, wearing blue surgical gloves and mask, doing dead-hang pull ups.

For me, the monotony of hitting the same stretch of pavement is setting in (though I chant to myself over and over how grateful I am to be able to run and be outside). If I could change one thing, it would be feeling dirt under my feet with a tree canopy overhead. I miss nature.

But as the waiting continues (and continues and continues), inside my apartment is where I will be.

While I am fitness-inclined and adore movement, I have never attempted a legit, gym-class worthy home workout. (Stretching does not count.) Could be that I have mostly lived in open loft apartments without dedicated exercise space. More likely, it’s because I equate sweating with the health club or outdoor sports. So much for old routines.

This week, I brought the gym to me. Specifically, to a corner of my bedroom. My goal was to complement my running – and reverse course on my ever-widening butt from what feels like hundreds of hours of sitting – with a medium intensity, full-body workout. Nothing fancy. A use-what’s-in-reach type of class – because barbells, like toilet paper, have been on back order for months.

I decided to start with free, on-demand videos and ramp up to a paid, livestream session with a trained instructor and workout mates.

Equinox, my expensive gym in New York, kindly paused all fees from the moment the clubs closed in mid-March, and invited members to try what they are calling “Social Fitnessing” through their IGTV channel. From a menu of cool-sounding and beautifully produced videos, I selected Split Work, an ingenious at-home approach where you put your feet on folded towels and slide them along the floor to simulate a reformer machine.

I have found during lockdown that the ceremony surrounding an activity is as important as the activity itself, so before clicking the play arrow, I took a few minutes to make the experience count. Cute attire? Check. Water bottle? Check. I thought about where to position my mat in relation to the instructor. Just like showing up for a new in-person class, I wanted to be strategically centered but not too visible for everyone to see me bungle the moves.

Maybe it was those extra moments of planning, but I felt like I was in the studio with Kailey. She kneeled on her mat, center screen, and introduced her two classmates on either side who we may as well call models – fit, gorgeous and inked. I moved easily in sequence with her clear instructions and calm voice, peeking at the monitor from time to time as the camera leisurely panned the studio, capturing the three of them from different perspectives. It was like working out next to that amazing person with perfect form.

After a few days lost down a rabbit hole bingeing on exquisitely produced on-demand workouts, I was ready to graduate to the real deal: live on video.

I poked around Classpass Livestream, overwhelmed by options: barre, mat, hip hop, abs and butt, HIIT, Zumba, yoga, pilates, indoor cycling, even something called Ukrainian exotic heels — live classes from anywhere and everywhere. I imagined people working out with soup cans and packs filled with books, jumping around living rooms, bedrooms, closets, hallways.

I did my research, read the reviews and paid 5 credits for a high-intensity workout offered by Sweat Health, a gym I’d never heard of in Oakland. I got dressed. Picked my spot (they recommended an 8×8 space). Assembled my props (a chair plus something I could lift overhead). Joined the Zoom waiting room … and at 12:04 pm, the screen flickered and there they were: strangers in my bedroom.

Ashley, the instructor, welcomed us, saying hi to a few regulars and asking about someone’s dog who ran into view. We all waved. Her prior class had gone long, and I found that appealing. Real-life is still happening out there.

I came into the experience with an open mind. Would I feel awkward, either seeing into people’s homes or having them see me? Turns out no – the class was so fast-paced I caught only a fleeting glimpse of the tiny video boxes housing my seven classmates.

Would this feel like a gym class? In short, yes it did, and maybe more so. Ashley’s instruction was pointed and personal – I imagined her as a coach wizard behind the video curtain, calling out plays and setting the interval buzzer, as we did squat jumps and inchworms in a 9-box grid on her monitor.

“Jayme, square those hips,” I’d hear her call out. “Daphne nice plank. Tom why don’t you lift your feet on this next rep to make it more challenging.” She worked us nonstop for 60 minutes.

It was one of those “together apart” moments. And, mostly, it was endearingly human. People doing their best with what they had at home, in the space they could create. A bit crunchy. Not produced. Because of how I had positioned my camera, my head cut off every time I did a standing move. We got tired. I was not the only one who stopped before the last 10 seconds of mountain climbers.

I had fun, and I sweat. If this is the future of gym class, I’ll do it again.

WEEK 48

In September 2013, the new seismically stable eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened after an obscenely expensive and insanely long 12 years of work. [Consider and compare that in 1936, the original bridge including both the western and eastern spans, took three years to build and came in under budget.] No matter. For a local, the new bridge, as we still call it, is gorgeous. The sleek, curving skyway and soaring white tower, and oh, the stunning LED lighting at night. It’s a happy bridge to drive.

Even more exciting, the architects and engineers planned for a pedestrian and bike path along the new span, stretching 2.2 miles from the shoreline in Oakland to Yerba Buena Island, where the two bridges meet in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Although the path opened about four years ago, you guessed it, I have never crossed the bridge on foot … until today.

We woke to another cloudless California sky – made even more blue, I’m convinced, as we continue to shelter-in-place – with light winds and a comfortable 65 degrees. I had researched how to find the start of the walking path, not obvious yet entirely what I expected from a workhorse bridge that hosts nearly 300,000 cars a day. This is not a normal place for a person to wander.

So, my wife, Irena, and I hopped in the car, drove across the bridge (which sounds confusing, but the proposed pedestrian path on the western span is a dream stuck on paper) and made our way into the Port of Oakland, passing towers of shipping containers, truck depots and block-long warehouses, until we found the trail-head parking. (Trail meaning asphalt path.)

I remember watching in awe more than a decade ago as the new span took shape alongside the old bridge, remnants of which have been refashioned into cool-looking vista points on the shoreline at each end of the pedestrian path. Now I get to see it all, up close.

A bridge as massive as this one (the widest on the planet says Guinness), is an entirely different experience on foot. Walking is a way to slow down and experience detail at every angle, and it’s striking to be moving at a pace of say 4 miles-per-hour in a place you normally travel 15 times that speed.

Very often, as Irena and I powered up the rise from sea level to the span’s summit, I felt like I was walking along the edge of the sky. As if the white protective railing had fallen away, leaving a borderless expanse of blue all around.

Approaching the gleaming 525-foot tower, my heart beat faster, awed by the science of it all. It’s a remarkable feat – the largest single tower, self-anchored suspension span in the world, which means, as I learned, that one long cable wraps up, down and around the tower.

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Being face-to-face with the cable itself, the bolts, the rigging – it wowed with a natural beauty although it was anything but natural. On one hand, I found the materials relatable on a human scale. On the other hand, standing in the open air, suspended 200 feet off the water atop an engineering marvel was humbling and unreal.

I’ll share one final observation. Not surprisingly, the volume of automobile traffic has plummeted on Bay Area roads and bridges since lockdown began in mid-March. The reality of that hit us after we made landfall on Yerba Buena and turned around to head east, back to our car in Oakland. For a solid three counts, the five eastbound lanes to the left of the walking path went completely silent. Like we entered a sound-proof chamber. It was so notable and unexpected, we looked at each other and blurted out, no cars!

WEEK 47

A couple of years ago at Burning Man, one of my campmates showed me how to tie an important knot. I sat by his side as he held the rope in front of him, moving effortlessly and with a steady and confident hand – one loop, the end up and over, another loop, down and through, tighten, under, around and back again. I was mesmerized.

As I watched my friend, I was taken by the certainty of the whole thing – that by knowing the properties of the rope and knowing the purpose of a particular knot and knowing how to tie the knot correctly, you would be sure of its strength for the intended function. Trust, right there in my lap.

It’s no surprise, then, that last May I scribbled “learn to tie knots” on my first list for this project. A life skill that somehow passed me by (as did learning how to light a fire without a match and jump-start a car).

Now, sadly, with lockdown extended yet again, I am out of luck to take the REI climbing knots workshop I had bookmarked for this Spring (not to mention the cool-sounding compass and topo map navigation class). I curse the procrastinator in me.

Homeschooling, here we come…

I start by foraging for supplies. Deep in our storage locker, I unearthed a four-foot stretch of rope, a bit beat-up with fraying ends and longer than desired, but acceptable. After rummaging around the burner bins, I found one thick-ish lace from an old boot. A misfit set of materials, but isn’t the current environment all about adaptability?

Next up, instruction. With an explosion of online learning you’d think a virtual live instructor-led knot tying class is on offer somewhere in the world, but alas no.

I spent my first hour of self-learning bouncing around a clever website with knot-tying animations (the ropes tie themselves!) for about 200 knots. The names are exotic and magical: Rapala, Stevedore, Monkey’s Fist, Icicle Hitch, Honda, Figure 9, Matthew Walker, Bimini Twist. I am both overwhelmed and intrigued.

Many of these featured knots are stunning, mini works of art, and, as it turns out, a mere sliver of the more than 3,900 knots on record. I imagine the knot-tying equivalent of a national spelling bee, with esteemed members of the International Guild of Knot Tyers (a real thing) dazzling the judges with their speed and nimbleness.

After accepting that personal mastery is a long way off, I tried my hand at a few from the site’s Basics collection. I let out a little snort-laugh when I saw that the only knot I know how to tie – and which I generically call a knot, as if all tissue is Kleenex – has an identifiable name, the Overhand knot. It even warrants a category: single-strand stopper knots. This gave me hope, and with one knot down, I then tied the insanely simple Double Overhand. A beauty.

When I moved on to tackle several other basics like the Figure 8, Half Hitch, Slip and Square, I came face-to-face with my (previously unknown) spatial limitations. Over and over, I struggled to make a connection between the animation on the screen and the rope on my table. I couldn’t easily envision the rope placement, let alone how one knot gets tied inside the other. And the terminology tripped me up – what’s a tail? A bight? A standing end? It took me an exceptionally long time, with bursts of profanity to counter my mounting frustration, to accomplish what I suspected– and after further practice confirmed – are simple steps.

At this point in my homeschooling, I realized that learning something new reveals how you learn.

I haven’t yet decided if I am a good learner. But I am almost certainly not a good self-learner, at least not at the outset of picking up a new skill. This surprised me. I put the rope away for the day and thought hard about learning.

When it’s all new, I concluded that I learn best with a guide and learning-mates by my side. I like watching a demonstration, then trying to do the thing by myself and then – this is important – watching others try to do the thing. The more senses engaged the better. A rhyme or mnemonic to go along with is heaven. And my brain needs context and terminology right at the start.

I am, however, a great self-practicer (my new term). So, I picked up the rope, and over the next couple of days, both with and without the images, I worked to get the movements and muscle memory into my fingers. The success was all mine: A working vocabulary of six basic knots.

The most fun is that I now see knots all around me. I pause and look, lay them in my palm if I can, spin them around, and admire the beauty in their function. I want to learn more. I’ll be the first to register when we can go to school again.

WEEK 46

Online gaming is a foreign land to me. Even thinking about gaming, I become that person who’s never left her country, unsure about where to go and how long it will take to get there, what to pack, how to spend my time and whether I’ll like the locals. The journey ends up being more than I want to take on, so I stay put IRL.

Why the aversion? It’s curious because games were everywhere in childhood. Each weekend, my family spent hours driving to our mountain home, our noses stuck in Auto Bingo. I remember stacks of board games, from my youngest days playing Chutes and Ladders and the Game of Life to Othello and Scrabble, even Monopoly and backgammon filled many rainy days — and who didn’t love Clue? Outside, we lost track of time acting out imaginary stories, the enormous granite rocks of our mountain backyard becoming the rooms of pretend houses. Inside, we hung with friends in our garage filled with arcade games including our very own pachinko machine, foosball table and pinball machine — even a first-year Atari pong console.

My problem, I’ve concluded, isn’t getting lost inside a game. It’s doing it at the computer. My three decades of work life have been defined by sitting in front of a computer. The computer screen has always signaled work. Anything not done on a computer is most likely not work.

Then, this happened: Stuck at home on week whatever-it-is, I ran out of books, and the libraries and bookstores are, of course, shuttered. Adding to the misery of no paper in the house, our mail has gone missing (for five weeks now), which means no escaping with my travel and outdoor adventure magazines.

I’m left with the realization that my screen is the only way to get out. It’s time to visit my first online game.

As for where to go, the answer fell into my lap: GeoGuessr. To play, you’re dropped into random locations around the world through Google Street View and have to mark (guess) your coordinates on a zoomable map.

Talk about a game custom-built for me. First, I’m a human GPS – you can deposit me anywhere I’ve been before and I’ll find my way back to places, sans map, with remarkable accuracy. It’s my superpower. Next, my brain is filled with mostly useless proper nouns, things like the names of buildings, restaurants, streets, highways, authors, parks, ski resorts, museums. If that’s not nerdy enough, for decades I’ve collected paper clippings of places to visit, organized in a library by continent and country.

How hard could this game be?

The GeoGuessrs crushed me with their speed and precision.

After signing up and looking around, I decided to build my confidence starting with Famous Places. It seemed gauche to barge in with an unproven persona.

I hit play and was immediately transported to a courtyard enclosed on all sides by stone buildings, several stories high. There were puddles on the ground from a recent rain, and people milled about in shorts and sneakers. Summer tourists, I figured. I spun around and zoomed in on what looked like a museum exhibit banner, with Slavic script unknown to me. After spending too much time in the courtyard, I click-walked out the gate and onto a cobblestone path, packed with people and cafes near a lovely bridge. The place looked familiar. Prague, I thought, and decided to make a guess. I found the flat map in the corner of the game screen, zoomed to Europe, found the Czech Republic and put my little + marker on the word Prague. Oops. 5 miles off the target. Lesson one: you win the most points by marking the exact spot.

My screen then filled with the Flatiron building. Score! I zoomed into North America, then New York City, then to Fifth Avenue and 23^rd Street and positioned my guessr on the spot where I thought the photo was taken. I landed a couple hundred feet from the mark. Not bad — and I had moved quickly — but I wanted to do better.

Next, I was surrounded by palm trees, sand and blue sky, standing in front of The Pelican. Amazingly, I’ve had breakfast in that café in Miami Beach. Although that was 13 years ago, I remembered it was near 8^th street on Ocean Drive. To confirm, I took a walk in Street View to the next corner, then positioned my geo marker and nailed it. A perfect score.

Round number four stumped me. I knew immediately I was standing on The Great Wall of China but where exactly? Having visited (more than 25 years ago), my hunch was the section north of Beijing, but when I zoomed in on the flat map, all the writing was in Chinese. My guess landed about 65 miles too far east.

My inaugural tour ended at the backside of Cristo Redentor atop Corcovado mountain, overlooking Rio de Janeiro. I’ve stood there, too, so for me, this was a layup, and I added another perfect round.

So, with a modest amount of swagger — and after a second game visiting the Arc de Triomphe, Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu, Copenhagen and the Roman Colosseum — I signed up for the PRO trial.

Then it got interesting. I joined my fellow GeoGuessrs for the Daily Challenge, with three-minutes per round on the clock.

Oh my. I was dropped into nothingness:

For clues to our whereabouts, GeoGuessrs look at vegetation, wildlife, what people are wearing, street signs, building construction, language on the side of delivery trucks, all the things you’d expect. Here, I moved up and down the roads I could find, for miles and miles. I ate up my three minutes without a guess. I’ve since learned that picking any spot on the map is better than none. But how 10 people got a perfect score this round is mystifying. It turned out to be a road in Saskatchewan, Canada. [And no, the SK-64 wasn’t on the game map, though it wouldn’t have helped me.]

Round two put me in a nondescript parking lot:

I quickly spun around and found myself in a suburban town with American flags on porches. I found a high-school track field with a sign for St. James but needed something to help identify the state. Just as the timer ran out, I put my marker in the center north of the U.S. (based on trees and architecture) and, shockingly, landed 280 miles away from St. James, Minnesota.

For the next three games, I knew I had to move quickly to gather clues (three minutes is a snap of the fingers), and unless I knew the spot on sight, my goal was to make an educated guess and not embarrass myself any further on the leaderboard.

Here’s the play-by-play.

For this spot below, my first guess was somewhere in Southeast Asia, and after finding a building that said PhilHealth, along with many signs in English, I put my marker on the Philippines near Manila but was 337 miles too far north in the country. Actual location, the Western Visayas.

On this next map, I toured up and down many streets, eventually going by Transylvania Bank. I then found a road sign (written in the local language), indicating that Bucharest was 500 km away. With proper nouns and geography to the rescue, I settled on Romania, and amazingly (to me), marked the spot within 18 miles.

For my final round, I imagined myself somewhere in Africa, based on the vegetation, shops, motorbikes and the way people dressed. But it’s a big continent! Where was I? I came across a sign for the Uganda Reptile Museum (a place not stored in my mental filing cabinet), and with time running out, I zoomed to Uganda on the flat map, picked the capital of Kampala and held my breath. 16 miles off target.

Let’s be clear: My first competitive showing was a disaster, and I won’t publish my score. Much to my surprise, more than 25 people got a near-perfect score on the leaderboard. Who are they, I wondered, as I moused over their tiny thumbnail photos and mostly male names? I want to believe they’re not cheating by typing clues into a search bar on another browser tab. I want to believe these GeoGuessr Pros sit at home, unshowered, tethered to their devices, roaming the earth in Street View.

The question now is whether I’ll keep gaming. I admit, it was exciting to be dropped randomly into an unknown place from my perch at the dining table, walking through far-away neighborhoods and landscapes. Playing game after game, a reality non-reality started to mess with me.

But in my heart, I believe I’ll pick the adventure travel books and magazines over a screen. That is, until I can go out in the world again.

WEEK 45

The uncountable moments that my wife and I spend together cooking and eating with our friends are among those I treasure most in life. Moments that have formed a core part of who we are as a unit. It’s the familiar rhythm – setting the date, planning, shopping, preparing, enjoying, not wanting to say good-night – that we’ve so dearly missed during lockdown.

Here we are, on the eve of The Second Month, longing for the very tiniest easing of restrictions. Even having one person join us at the table would be an elixir for the soul. Yet the governors and mayors keep moving the goal post, and there is no clear end in sight.

What comes next is a happy story.

As she often does, necessity led the way to a really cool idea. Enter six friends with many and varied talents, including in the kitchen. Combine that with a jonesing for togetherness, and out popped a plan for a virtual dinner party.

Over group text, the plot unfolded:

What if … we all cook the same menu? On the culinary front, our group of couples — I&J, R&G, E&J – specializes in, among other things, encased meats, fresh pasta and baked goods. All the major food groups.

What if … we each “bring” an ingredient? Irena makes her own sausage links and happened to have extra hog casings on hand (because who doesn’t during a pandemic?). R&G know their way around durum wheat semolina flour and offered up hand-shaped cavatelli. E, who owns a cookie shop, envisioned a ginger apple tart for dessert.

Behold the first-ever quarantine potluck.

As our video dinner date drew closer – with texts of food-porn prep along the way – I got giddy thinking about the in-person transfer of goods. Per the San Francisco mandate, food delivery is an essential service and, therefore, a legitimate reason for us to leave our homes. Not to mention a chance to see our friends, even if from a distance.

“The Drop,” as we called it, took on great import. R&G selected an empty parking lot behind a shuttered school and texted us the coordinates and a meet-up time.

R&G arrived early, costumed in full pandemic attire – jumpsuits, face masks, hats, goggles and heavy boots – and chalked out safe zones on the asphalt, six feet apart, for us to each deposit our food packages.

Despite the seriousness of the endeavor and our respect for social distancing, we couldn’t stop laughing – especially imagining the next person stumbling upon the clues from our food crime scene.

Later that evening, freshly showered and coiffed, we hopped on our three-way video call. Like always, we started with cocktails, in this case gin & tonics, using Irena’s homemade tonic syrup, which she’d put in the care packages along with the links. I felt a familiar warmth and togetherness as we raised our glasses and looked each other in the eyes to say cheers, despite sitting so many miles apart.

About an hour later, we carried our laptops into our respective kitchens, unpacked our ingredients, and started cooking together.

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We had decided to make the I&J signature “swine and wine”: pork sausage sautéed in a cast iron pan, then tossed in pasta along with chopped fresh Roma tomatoes and basil, which are stewed lightly in balsamic vinegar. R&G talked us through the cook timing for the cavatelli.

We all fired up our burners at the same time and got to it. You could even hear the links sizzling through the speakers.

No doubt this was a simple meal to prepare, yet cooking simultaneously in three different homes, across nine burners, with different temperatures and pans, required a lot of focus. And we’re an experienced bunch!

We mostly nailed it on timing, brought our dishes to our respective tables – along with video cameras – and got down to the business of eating.

Dining together is familiar territory for us. Our group of six has done this a lot. But talk about an other-worldly experience to look at the screen, seeing our friends at their tables miles away, yet all tasting the same bites. There was no shortage of collective oohs and aahs and yums.

A while later, we cleared the dishes and came back to the table to enjoy (i.e., devour) E’s ginger and apple tart with fresh bourbon-infused cream, each pouring liqueurs to go along with.

Like any good dinner party, the conversation dipped in and out of any number of topics, from movies and shows to sex and drugs to personally revealing stories. We had the right arc of seriousness, fully acknowledging our privilege to be healthy in a safe community, with the means to come together like this. There was much laughter, too. Everyone glowed.

More than FOUR HOURS after we first logged on, we blew each other kisses and said our good-nights. The whole thing was masterful and magnificent. A beautiful counterbalance to the reality of our days.

WEEK 44

In the early 1980s, a San Francisco artist named Peter Richards had the bold idea of building an organ out of stone and concrete situated on a jetty in the Bay, its “pipes” constructed to carry the sound of waves. He received a National Endowment of the Arts grant to explore the feasibility of such a sculpture, and after collaborating with a local stone mason, the resulting Wave Organ was unveiled in May 1986.

Amazingly, I only learned about this phenomenon a few months ago when I mentioned my 52×52 project to a local friend. I’m a sucker for public art installations – especially works that require some element of nature to experience their full effect. And although I was warned that the sounds it emits are subtle and that the site itself is a bit rundown after these many decades, I knew that visiting the Wave Organ would make my list.

For the past week, I’ve been consulting the NOAA Tides and Currents web page to find the optimal time to launch my mission. High tide is critical, as the organ works best when waves ebb and flow, and water moves in and out of its hollow pipes.

The site is about five miles from my home, near the eastern edge of Crissy Field in the Marina district of San Francisco. At any other time but the present, I’d likely recruit a friend to join me, and we’d combine the adventure with lunch and shopping on Chestnut Street, or a hike in the Presidio. But it’s yet another day of our shelter in place public health order, everything is closed, including the parking lots at the beaches and trail heads, so this will be a solo outing.

I’d considered taking Uber one way to the Wave Organ and jogging home, yet getting into a stranger’s car right now would require a face mask, gloves and hand sanitizer. Not fun.

Then it occurred to me – my Burning Man bike is sitting in our storage locker in the garage. Yes it’s caked in dust and wrapped with blinky lights and has never rolled on asphalt, but what a perfect mode of transport to visit a funky piece of art.

Riding a beach cruiser through the empty streets of our locked down city was surreal. I pedaled through Fisherman’s Wharf passing boarded-up T-shirt shops and the wax museum, not a single tourist to be found. I rode alongside a few local swimmers braving the cold waters at Aquatic Park. Up the Fort Mason hill and down into the Marina, I powered through a chilly headwind, passing a few solitary runners. And there it was across the inlet – the jetty – its rock wall forming the outer edge of the St. Francis Yacht Club marina.

I saw a young man sitting at the Wave Organ when I arrived. The overall site – a bit bleak and nondescript on the approach – was larger than I expected, with ample space to keep our six-foot distance from one another.

The first thing I noticed were the pipes, snaking up and out of the stone and rock, curving like eels.

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The sculpture includes 25 PVC and concrete pipes, all placed at different heights, along with several stone seating areas where you can put your ear to the pipes and feel enveloped by the low hum of the current.

• 

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Let’s be clear. This was not in any way the soothing sounds of waves crashing against the beach in succession, lulling you to sleep. I’d go with more of a mash-up: flushing toilet and low gurgle from a backed-up drain.

But the ingenuity of the vision to build an oceanic soundboard – and the moxie to execute on it — astounded me. I’m glad I made the trip.

I’ll also add that sitting inside this piece of art powered by the ocean, at a time when our lives in so many ways have ground to a halt and our routines have been upended, I felt comforted by the simple truth that the rhythms and cycles of nature carry on.

WEEK 43

This is not the week that I – nor any of us – expected to have. Yet here we are as individuals and society facing our first-ever, government mandated shelter in place of mind-blowing proportions. As I write this, more than half the U.S. population has been told to stay home except for those providing essential services and to make trips to the store, while India just ordered a total ban on leaving home for its 1.3 billion people. This is not a time we will be eager to remember, but I doubt we’ll ever forget. It may become the defining “where were you when…” moment of our lifetimes.

For us in San Francisco, lockdown began at midnight on Monday, March 16, and is expected to last at least three weeks. Ours were the first shelter-in-place orders in the nation, affecting about 7 million people across several Bay Area counties. I’ve not been a fan of our mayor until she made that decision.

Since then, Irena and I have shaped a new daily rhythm. We do some of our familiar routines in unexpected new ways (like standing on lines of tape placed six feet apart at the grocery checkout), and we’re doing some novel activities to break up the day. As I wrote in my post last week, I’m grateful to be together with my wife in a comfortable home, and that all those in our close, and extended, lives are healthy and safe.

I decided to write about my first week sheltering in place. I’ve been taking notes in my tiny, pale-green notebook as I walk the empty streets. I talk to myself and compose sentences on long runs. I share stories and anecdotes with friends by text and phone. None of this has made the dread and uncertainty go away, but I know if I get the words on paper, I’ll be able to remember this time the way I lived it.

I’ll start at the beginning.

On the morning of the first full day of lockdown, I ventured out for a run along the waterfront. Rationally, I knew I was allowed outside – and sun and exercise must be good – but I’ll admit I felt radical and lawless that first morning. I kept my head down, averted eye contact and cut a wide berth around the handful of strangers sharing the sidewalk. On my daily runs and walks since, I now look at those around me, although very few of us share smiles, and it’s easy to get agitated when people come too close. One thing that fills my heart is spotting friends and family walking right beside one another, an intrepid few even holding hands.

On the second day of lockdown, in the late afternoon, I joined Irena on my first Zoom video call to attend an impromptu “quarantini” cocktail party hosted by several of our Burning Man campmates, who we haven’t seen since last August. She and I filled our own little video box in the now-familiar grid everyone has been posting to their social media pages. Like a relaxed neighborhood hang-out, people joined, dropped, re-joined. We talked about nothing in particular. We met dogs and kids, watched friends cook dinner, do burpees on the front lawn and hang in their living rooms. Our faces hurt from smiling so much.

The virtual party continued the next evening when we joined a live set hosted by one of our favorite DJs, who is sequestered in the Bahamas and streamed live poolside. We’ve danced in front of him numerous times on the Playa and in clubs around the world, and of course, watching live DJ sets online is nothing new. But there was something different this time as people logged in to Facebook Live from their homes around the world, sending hearts of love across the screen.

At some point in the middle of the week, things turned more sober as I walked the empty city streets downtown. I stopped to read the many signs in the windows, some with thoughtful messages printed in nice font, others in endearing hand-written scrawls. “See you very soon, be well!” I peered into lunch-time delis on the ground floors of office buildings and saw food sitting expectantly in refrigerated cases. This unnerved me – but not as much as seeing a few restaurants and one hotel with wooden boards nailed over their windows, waiting for the distant hurricane to strike.

As the week went on, Irena and I developed elaborate hygiene routines. After learning that most items at the store are touched by 10 different hands, we began forcing all non-perishable goods into a multi-day quarantine in the front hall. We don’t have enough antiseptic wipes for the packages, and the stores are out of stock. So, there sit bottles of wine, boxes of pasta, tissues, canned tomatoes. It felt like Christmas when the Pellegrino bottles graduated to the refrigerator.

We’ve also instituted a few important daily house rules: Floor exercises and stretching to unwind from all the sitting. An evening walk outside no matter the weather. And, duh, wearing real clothes and shoes for dinner. Off with the sweatpants, hoodies and flip flops, at least once a day.

Surprisingly, sleep has been the big winner. For a variety of reasons, we’ve been able to disable all morning alarms this week, and ever since the city shut down, our neighborhood has become pin-drop quiet, far from the norm. We live in a nearly 100-year-old building, and the sounds of the city seep through every crevice in the original factory windows. Not during lockdown. It’s like we’ve been transported to the deep countryside.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that I live a dog’s life now, more than ever. Despite (maybe because of) the gravity of the situation around us, I wag my tail when it’s time to go outside. I run in circles at mealtime. I move around the apartment looking for spots warmed by the sun. Small things carry huge import.

With one week and a few days of sheltering in place behind me, the novelty of my many virtual [fill in the blank] firsts has begun to wane. But thankfully, the week ended with the same healthy report-card for family and friends. I know statistically this won’t continue, but the optimist in me is rooting for more of the same. Steady would be a great outcome.

Like everyone else, I’m taking this moment by moment, staying present, alert and humble. I continue to marvel at the explosion of creativity across the many communities I’m part of – work, music, clubs, restaurants, Burning Man: The virtual courses, coffees, walks and runs, book clubs, dance parties, livestreams, nightly howls, even remote symphonies and movie nights. The shared humor and silly posts.

Like everyone else, I cannot wait for the all-clear signal so I can begin to put these dark days behind me. But what we’re capable of as humans to stay connected and lift our collective spirits – that I’ll remember.

WEEK 42

With the San Francisco mayor ordering residents to shelter in place (separate post to come on this topic), it has been a time to look inward. I’m grateful we are healthy and have a safe and comfortable home in which to shelter. I know that is not a given for some. We are fortunate to have the means to work and connect remotely. And we are with each other. For that I am most grateful.

A few days into this new reality, I needed a mental distraction and looked around the apartment for something new to learn. Plenty of rainy day tasks stared back at me – wash the windows, clean the blinds. But what could I learn to do for the first time, where all the required elements were already inside our walls?

I opened the fridge, and the answer revealed itself in a bag of carrots and a bulb of fennel. I will learn to pickle vegetables.

I’m not a natural artisan, more taker than maker. My wife, on the other hand, has for years been perfecting her own sausage links, and most recently conquered homemade tonic syrup, starting at the very beginning with cinchona bark.

Pickling is more my speed. Who can resist colorful jars of pickled vegetables lining the shelves? Not to mention that crunchy sour/sweet flavor.

Very quickly I learned there are layers and layers of nuance with pickling, which at its most fundamental involves soaking food in an acidic brine – that is itself heated – to yield a sour flavor.

What pickling is not is fermentation (though they are related), in which the food develops its sourness without any added acid or heat. Think of kimchi (which I’ve made), for example, where that funkiness comes from a natural chemical reaction at room temperature. Those fermented foods are known to promote gut health. I’m going for flavor instead.

My research uncovered that pickling likely began eons ago in Northern India. Today, when you think about the foods of the world, pickling is everywhere – not surprising of course given the need for food preservation. Perfect for a city on lockdown.

I decided to start small and easy. I’ve got two glass jars with lids that fit, carrots, fennel, some citrus and a fully loaded spice drawer.

I spent the first hour or so online triangulating across recipes and techniques. Quick refrigerator pickles need only vinegar, water and salt along with sugar, if desired. From there, the palette is infinite.

A basic brine is equal parts vinegar and water, but doesn’t have to be. The vinegar selection is wide open too – white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, wine vinegar or all of the above in combination if you desire. I read posts from chefs who use fresh herbs like dill, thyme or oregano along with smashed garlic cloves, fresh ginger, whole spices like coriander and peppercorns, mustard and fennel seeds, even ground spices like turmeric and paprika. Too many choices can spell inertia for me, but I pressed on.

Then it occurred to me. I most crave pickled vegetables while at Burning Man. They are heavenly on a hot arid day, the sharper and more aromatic the better. I’ve got my flavor inspiration.

For the carrots, I imagine the high desert Atlas mountains of Morocco, and root around in the spice drawer for cardamom pods, coriander seeds, black peppercorns and turmeric, along with fresh garlic and thyme. I boil a simple brine of basic white vinegar in a 2:1 H2O to vinegar ratio, along with salt and some sugar.

For the fennel, I slice it very thin and opt for a flavor combo of North Africa and Asia, using thin peels of lemon along with whole star anise. Here I decided to use both apple cider and white wine vinegar, in a 1:1 ratio. Plus of course salt and some sugar.

Once decided, the mechanics of assembling all the elements was easy, although I did read that novice picklers make the mistake of overheating the pickling liquid, and that what matters more is how long the vegetables sit in the liquid at what temperature. An exploration for another day…

The hardest part was waiting 48 hours to open the jars!

Our first bites added a zing to what has become a routine lunch in these days of being at home, and only at home. I expect they will taste even more delicious as the flavors mingle and lockdown continues.

WEEK 41

This week’s “first” lacks the charm of dogsledding and the drama of biking Manhattan. It is, however, noteworthy for its astonishing truth: at the age of 52 years and 41 weeks, I am buying my first computer.

The backstory is equally fantastic. I’m getting ready to leave the company where I’ve been employed every day since 1991. During those 28 years, my career advanced right alongside the advancement of computers in business. And working for a global company with technology at its core, all I had to do was show up, for my entire adult life, and be coddled by really good corporate IT.

My memory of how we got work done in the early days is foggy. Yes, we used desktop PCs. And e-mail. And fax machines. And shipped discs by overnight mail with files that needed to be shared. One day, as the years went on, they handed me a laptop. And a modem. Then WiFi. Then a smart phone.

They did this, of course, so I could work all the time, at which time I had no time to set up my own personal system at home. Nor did I want to. I lack curiosity for technology. I’m a non-adopter if there is such a thing. I even wrote an unfinished essay called I hate my iPad.

Alas, here I sit, in March of 2020, just a couple of weeks away from having to hand over my corporate-owned – and only – laptop, which after 28 years is filled with thousands of files and old e-mails. Breaking away from the global mothership to not only buy — but also set up — a new computer has been so daunting that I’ve had to will myself to focus on micro steps so as not to hyperventilate and pass out.

Step one, of course, in any important life purchase is to phone a friend. Lucky for me, she lives in the same apartment. My wife knows her technology from decades in tech-centric companies plus writing software and audio algorithms and wiring keyboards and programming electronic music and just being super smart.

I know enough to know that we need to start with the hardware, and she asks me a few questions about the kind of laptop I want. I surprise myself by blurting out several requirements: Touch screen. 2 in 1 notebook design (essentially a 360-hinge to become a tablet). Comfy keyboard (as a writer, this is my axe after all). Svelte and not too corporate looking. Windows (for all of you Mac purists out there, just hush-up).

Together, we winnow down the choices and do a couple of field trips to local stores to test the specimens in the wild. I bang on a few keyboards and marvel at the sharp displays. I learn about U processors (good for productivity and everyday performance) and G processors (better for graphics). I hold the chosen models in my hands and picture myself side-by-side with all the other unemployed writers in a cute café.

I’ll jump right to the conclusion. I’m sitting in front of my new machine, the 13.3-inch HP Spectre x360. The buy was swift. The set-up, mostly dummy proof. Cortana, the lovely Windows virtual agent held one of my hands through a friendly, on-screen pep talk as we walked through the basics. Thank goodness my equally lovely in-house IT expert held my other hand as we got stuff off the machine I wouldn’t need and deleted what turned out to be insidious pre-installed programs. How do mere mortals navigate this stuff?

Each day since, I’ve been proudly configuring my new instrument. I got Office and key apps downloaded and running without incident. I even succeeded at my own cloud-based file transfer from my work machine. This morning, I read the New York Times online in tablet mode.

It’s a lovely little machine. And though I’ve got more to configure (it’s not going to back itself up), I feel a tiny bit more grown up and ready to venture out on my own.

WEEK 40

For past 10 days, I’ve been living in Whistler, British Columbia. I say living because I’ve been comfortably domiciled along with my mom in a two-bedroom condo in the Benchlands area of Blackcomb Mountain, just a short walk to the slopes, followed by a few days alone in a smaller condo in Whistler Village. All necessary and important recon for my dream of being based here for longer stints…

Whistler is hands down the best place to be outdoors. (For nostalgia, though, nothing beats Bear Valley in the Sierra Nevada where I spent most summers as a child and nearly every winter weekend, learning to ski between my mom’s legs shortly after I could walk.) In Whistler Blackcomb, the skiing is so vast that despite my focused efforts to rip as much quality vertical as possible in nine back-to-back days on the mountain, I spotted from each chairlift ride many great lines still to explore. If that’s not enough, the surrounding snow-covered peaks and glaciers continually take my breath away. Given the drama and scale, it’s like a combined Alps / Himalayas everywhere you turn.

Being here I’ve realized an inherent challenge in my 52×52 project – balancing time for both the new and the familiar. As I remind myself, this project is a year-long gift to try something new each week, and I’ve had some amazing firsts. But I often feel tension to maximize those precious few days to do exactly what I already love – in this case, downhill skiing.

Skiing is me at my most selfish. I would ski every single day if life permitted. It’s the only sport I know that requires all of me. And I mean that, from my big toes to the imaginary string at the top of my head. To ski well and hard, I am intensely present in body and mind, constantly reading the terrain, engaging my core and muscles, making tiny adjustments as I move forward and over my skis, turning, flexing, extending, gaining speed, taking speed away. There is no noise; no room for outside thoughts. I look at it this way – skiing takes all of me but gives me all of me, plus nature, in return. It’s the most exhilarating feeling, and with an average of 15 ski days a season, I’m in no hurry to give up those moments.

Then my cousin Nancy, who was with me for a few days on the trip, hatched an ingenious plan. If any day on two sticks is a great day, what if I change up the sticks mid-day to try something new?

Nancy is not a downhill skier, but she finds plenty to do outside in winter, and on her short list, I find out, is learning to skate ski. We’ve both done our share of classic cross-country skiing but have never been on skate skis. Not surprisingly, Whistler has an exceptional Nordic program, including teaching skate technique, and we booked a late-afternoon lesson. Thus began my tale of two ski days in one.

I woke to bluebird skies, a rarity in this damp place, and went right to Blackcomb Peak. I spent the first few hours by myself lapping soft snow off Glacier Express chair, followed by an epic top-to-bottom 5000+ vertical-foot run starting with a hike to Blackcomb Glacier and ending at the base gondola. Full face grin the whole time.

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After a quick pit stop in the condo for fuel and a costume change, I headed to the Nordic center to meet Nancy. Turns out she and I were the only takers for the 2:00 p.m. lesson, a blessing as we both fell almost instantly after putting on our skis.

Toshi, our lovely Japanese instructor, first explained the equipment. Classic is the traditional style of cross-country skiing that most of us imagine, using very long, narrow skis that flex in a bow-like shape. Classic skis have a grip zone or kick zone – completely absent on skate skis – and you typically ski classic in grooved tracks, finding a rhythm by pushing against the kick zone.

While skate skis also have that same bow-like construction, every inch of the base is waxed so the skis can glide continually. “Glide continually” is an understatement. Each time I tried to stand upright, I became a cartoon character slipping backwards on a banana peel.

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Toshi demonstrated the basic technique, working the skis in a V-angle, like a duck walk. To move forward, we had to roll one ski at a time on its inside edge and push the ski out and to the side in a gliding motion. That V-angle varies from very wide on steep terrain to narrower as you get some speed.

Intellectually I got the action – even with Alpine skis I need to skate from time to time across flat surfaces on the mountain – but internalizing this motion, while balancing with a free heel on slick sticks and holding nose-height poles, was massively challenging.

Poor Toshi. We had waltzed into the lesson exuding confidence in our strong baseline fitness and athletic coordination, not to mention days of classic skiing. Thank goodness for his patience and love of the sport. He had switched from downhill to skate skiing many years ago to get a better workout and escape the growing crowds on the slopes. More recently, he began training in biathlon. Basically a complete fitness bad-ass with a big heart.

Our first 15 minutes on the skis were hysterical, but after many repetitive drills, Nancy and I got better at remaining upright, stopping without toppling over and doing some basic skating moves across the groomed corduroy trails.

I loved the poling techniques we learned, which Toshi described like different gears for power: Diagonal, where the right and left skis and poles alternate, was the lowest gear. Then came offset (v1), used primarily for climbing. Most versatile is the medium gear of one skate (v2), which felt like double polling, meaning I did a pole plant for each leg push/skate, getting great speed. I most enjoyed two-skate (v2 alt), which helped me cover the most ground in a trance-like hypnotic motion.

When the movements clicked, I felt bionic – legs extending into long, gliding sticks and arms morphing into skinny poles to power up a slope. Like anything worth doing, skate skiing will require a lot of practice to get to any level of efficiency, but I’m hooked. It’s a sexy cool alternative for blizzard days when the upper mountain is on wind-hold. And who knew, a double day on two different kinds of sticks is an even better day.

I’ll end with a beautiful quote I read in an article about ski explorers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson who just conquered the first ski descent of Lhotse Couloir in the Himalayas. When you ski in the mountains, says Morrison, “Mother Nature is your canvas. You make your painting on it and the next day it blows away.”

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WEEK 39

This week’s first is named in honor of my good friends Jill and Geoff who coined the most wonderful term for running in a city at a slow pace.

These two feel about running the way most of us feel about walking. Or riding in a car. It’s their preferred mode of transport. Their legs are such efficient carriers of forward momentum that they get less tired running than they do walking. Even up hill. Even at altitude. Even as tourists. Even with a hangover.

J&G routinely arrive in a new city, drop their bags at the hotel after a red-eye no less, suit up (even wearing the occasional plastic garbage bag in the rain) and head out to explore. They’ve pulled this off in Monte Carlo. Hyderabad. London. New York. Countless other locales. And so, tourist pace is born.

I, on the other hand, have a complicated relationship with running. I mostly don’t care for it but do it because it burns calories quickly, and eating is really the point of one’s day. When running outside, I stay on familiar routes, along the Embarcadero in San Francisco, or by the Hudson in New York. When traveling, I only run outside if I know the city and there is a defined path, like along the Charles River in Boston.

But the combination of running and “touristing,” let’s call it, has never drawn me in. For one thing, as an urban explorer, I tend to look up constantly. I like paper maps. I like not sweating.

Now is the time to get over myself, I decide, and bring tourist pace to the streets of Tokyo. Get this: I had so much fun, I did it twice.

Friday morning, I woke just after sunrise to a cloudless 45-degree morning and Mt. Fuji looming outside my window (albeit 60 miles away). Two colleagues had convinced me to join them on a run through the city – their first in Tokyo as well.

Setting off at a lovely tourist pace (I explained the back story), we headed west of the hotel towards Aoyama and Yoyogi Park – areas I know very well in fact. But I will admit that running at dawn through these primarily retail neighborhoods – long before the city wakes up – was an entirely new experience for me. We passed still sleepy locals walking their dogs, a few other runners, delivery trucks and sidewalk sweepers. And quite unexpectedly, on Omotesando-dori we passed a line of at least 100 people, some wrapped in sleeping bags, queuing for a pop-up face mask store. We looked at them like they were crazy, and they returned the stare.

The highlight of the run was the Meiji Shrine – a place I had last visited on New Year’s Eve a decade ago. Given the very early hour, there were at most 10 people praying, following the traditional Shinto prayer pattern: bow twice, clap twice, bow one last time. The reverberance of the clapping will stay with me…

Here was our Friday morning route:

And a three-dimensional view from the 53^rd story of the hotel.

Saturday morning I was at it again, this time alone and ready to explore a new area – running a circuit I came up with from Roppongi to the Imperial Palace and back along the Akasaka Palace grounds.

Around 7:00 am, I stepped out of the hotel, turned a different direction than the day before, and the whole thing became instantly more challenging.

I carried my phone for safety reasons, but promised myself I would navigate only using a sliver of a paper map to get myself the 3K from the hotel to the Imperial Palace grounds. I ran at an easy tourist pace along narrow sidewalks, passing tiny shops and restaurants. No one was out.

My quiet street then spit me out onto a wide boulevard dwarfed by imposing government buildings. At this point, I doubted my own GPS superpowers — shouldn’t I be there by now? — but kept on it, the lone jogger. This was not the most attractive part of the city, but after cresting a small hill (Tokyo is shockingly hilly), I saw the moat around the Imperial Palace grounds and the Sakuradmon Gate where I’d planned to start my palace circuit.

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It turns out that the Imperial Palace loop is one of the great urban runs, a 5K uninterrupted route around the perimeter of the palace grounds. I joined the flow – counter-clockwise mind you – and fell into step with huge groups of Japanese runners. Although I often feel like a running imposter, here I had found my tribe.

WEEK 38

I can neither speak nor read Japanese, but I feel at home in Japan, especially in Tokyo. For the mountain mouse that I am, this is curious. Yet it comes down to the fact that even with the sensory overload and intense humanity that define Tokyo on one hand, the city is equally defined by pockets of perfect stillness.

It takes no more than 20 steps from a double-wide, traffic-laden thoroughfare with wall-to-wall skyscrapers to lose oneself in neighborhoods of winding streets – a wonderland of human-sized spaces where people actually live.

It is the Japanese cultural fixation on specialization that I find most endearing. Remarkably, this is evident in Tokyo’s eclectic zoning where, along streets barely wide enough for a car that fan out in all directions, you find door after door of establishments obsessed with one thing: a miniscule restaurant decorated with elaborate woodwork offering only soba noodles sits next door to a clothing store set in a refurbished indoor swimming pool which itself is down the street from a basement-level owl cafe (yes they are alive), all co-existing with zen-like single family concrete homes. Somehow it all works.

This week I am in Tokyo once again, my sixth or seventh trip. While I plan to spend ample time geeking out over food and design and architecture in all the places I love to re-visit, I am on the lookout for first-time experiences. And so I find myself alone on a 40-minute subway ride to Asakusa to learn how to cook Shojin Ryori – traditional Buddhist cuisine.

I desperately wanted to learn how to make tofu from a tofu master in a tofu shop at dawn but came up empty handed, even with locals on the case. On the contrary, I found an abundance of classes focused on sushi, tempura, okonomiyaki, udon and soba. All delicious food of course, but a bit too obvious. Then, near the end of my search exhaustion, I uncovered one class teaching Shojin on the one afternoon I was free – with the added bonus of being in a new-to-me neighborhood.

Asakusa is considered by many to be the heart of old Tokyo, sitting to the northeast on the banks of the Sumida River. My Japanese colleagues kept referring to Asakusa as downtown, which I found puzzling. In a city of 14 million people with numerous business districts how could this be downtown? But their point was historic. This is part of the original city center dating to the Edo era.

One of the most visited spots in Tokyo happens to be in Asakusa – Sensoji Temple, the oldest Buddhist temple in the city and a perfect starting point for my adventure. Sadly, much of this neighborhood (including the original temple built more than 1,000 years ago) had been destroyed during World War II, which explains the brightly painted reconstruction.

I exited the subway and walked right through Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) – the first of two gates leading to the temple — and became immediately invisible in a swarm of thousands of Japanese. Quite a surprise for 3:00pm on a Wednesday! I wandered the grounds, along with many men and women in traditional attire, did a little bow in the temple, and tried to soak up a bit of Buddhist virtue before my class.

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With map in hand, I found the Chagohan cooking school in a quiet area of Asakusa a few blocks from the temple. I’d call this more suburb than downtown, with single lane streets and bikes galore, none of them locked.

Masa – the owner, chef and instructor – opened the door and addressed me as Jayme-san. I entered the lovely shop and met his wife Junko along with my one classmate, Veronique from Bordeaux. I found the space delightful. Masa and Junko had set up stations with individual cooktops, and had all of our ingredients for multiple courses prepped and waiting on small metal trays.

Masa began by explaining (in English) that Shojin Ryori (ryori = cuisine) is the art of cooking simple dishes. Its literal meaning is devotion food – a way to respect Buddhist principles, the most important of which is ahimsa, compassion for all beings. Given this, we would be cooking a strictly vegan menu – even our dashi (broth) would get its umami from a base of shiitake mushroom and not the traditional fish (bonito).

Masa also explained that in Shojin cooking there are minimal seasonings, and in some temples, there are strict rules even about which vegetables can be used depending on the season. Other elements of the cuisine form part of a monk’s practice. For example, making dengaku miso (sesame paste), which we did, can involve hours of repetitive grinding in a mortar and pestle. Perhaps most fascinating, Masa taught us that Shojin never uses ginger or garlic – he called them “energizing” – as they may interfere with the calm of a monk’s practice. (I would have happily taken a ginger-only class, so this was a bit of a disappointment.)

We donned our aprons, and over the next two and a half hours, under Masa’s tutelage, Veronique and I each created this beautiful collection of dishes:

We first tackled a steamed-rice “sushi” (in quotes because the rice did not have vinegar) layered with asparagus and topped with tamago modoki (mock egg) and edible flowers. We used a cypress-wood mold to create and cut the sushi – greatly simplifying what I imagine is a lifetime of learning to conquer rice that sticks to everything.

The mock egg (which you can see atop the rice in the photo) was a fascinating (and long) process of sautéing chopped tofu in rice oil, mirin and soy sauce along with gardenia water made yellow by soaking a dried gardenia bud. We kept adding gardenia water to the tofu, and boiling it off, until the tofu resembled scrambled eggs. Oh those vegan monks, so clever!

Daigaku imo, our candied sweet potato, was the standout and frankly could substitute for fries any day. My favorite part of this dish was the plating. Masa gave me long chopsticks to delicately build a small mountain of sweet potato in my bowl, before sprinkling it with black sesame seeds.

We then sautéed vegetable “steaks” including shiitake, daikon, baby corn and more sweet potato. The highlight was learning how to precisely cut the top of the mushroom to reveal a star.

Last up, the kushiage – skewered and deep-fried vegetables. We learned how to prep the okra with tiny knife-work along the tops to make them more aesthetically pleasing. The need for this extra work went over my head given that the whole thing was then dusted with flour and panko crumbs and deep fried. Coincidentally, I had eaten with local friends at a kushiage-only restaurant the night before, and here I was learning how to gingerly slice and fan out Japanese eggplant along a thin wood skewer.

I loved the whole experience and credit Masa for being a warm and engaging teacher, and for making a strong cultural connection. The food, however, left me wanting. It looked phenomenal and colorful, and the dense flavor of the sesame miso was divine with the sautéed vegetables. I made a point to eat slowly and find in the different preparations the natural flavors of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. But most of the bites lacked character to my palate.

Then again, putting it all in perspective, if I were a monk living in a monastery, I’m quite sure eating this meal would be the highlight of my day.

WEEK 37

It’s New York Fashion Week, and I’ve become obsessed with getting a seat at my first-ever runway show. How hard could this be? Nearly impossible it turns out. I texted friends in public relations. In publishing. I reached out to entertainment managers and boutique buyers. Irena and I even went to a Fashion Week rave on the wildly unlikely chance that we’d meet models or designers or stylists who would invite us to a runway show. No luck.

Then it occurred to me. Fashion Week is an industry event. Just like CES or the auto show, right? Although it’s easy to equate models and fashion with celebrity, these are in fact working shows for buyers, journalists, bloggers, photographers and all those in the fashion-verse. Industry folk can purchase thousand-dollar and up packages to the major events, so why would designers willingly give up a precious seat to a curious onlooker like me?

Then, after hours and hours of online searching down a very deep rabbit hole, I found a few shows open to the public at the more civilian general admission price of $40. As in all things, you get what you pay for.

I selected a Saturday afternoon show sponsored by the SOCIETY, a production house that proclaimed its intent to make Fashion Week an inclusive experience for all. Their shows took place on Broad Street, just two doors down from the New York Stock Exchange and around the corner, oddly enough, from the prior night’s rave.

[A quick sidebar on that: A DJ we’ve danced to many times, Guy Gerber, often draws a beautiful-people crowd, and with a dose of Fashion Week added to the mix – in the ballroom of a 1927 landmark venue on Wall Street that originally housed the Bank of New York – the event delivered. Many tall bodies, some fitted dresses and towering heels, a handful of jumpsuits, two friends in head-to-toe white sequined tuxedos with platform high tops. Lots of fun eye candy.]

Back to our fashion show …

Irena and I queued up around 1:00pm in front of 41 Broad Street, another historic bank building from the same soon-to-be-Depression era. Of course at that time, given the proximity to the New York harbor, this area was the commercial heart of the city.

The tickets suggested that we “dress fabulously as there will be photographers,” yet not all in line read the fine print. We were a motley crew of fashion-curious, everything from leather pants, floor-length pink toile and designer bags, to ratty jeans, backpacks, puffers and sneakers.

After the VIP group at the front of the line passed through the velvet rope, we made our way inside. A slightly raised, shiny white, U-shaped runway dominated the center of the cavernous (and very chilly) space, with chairs all around. We found a bench near the back, and directly across from us sat a trio of women in the front-row who had brought their A-game: fur hats, shiny fabrics, bold makeup, big brand labels layered onto more labels. We counted about 100 selfies in the first 10 minutes.

Six designers were on the program – all unknown to us – with a range of looks. The first few walked what I believe would be considered ready-to-wear fashions, like leggings, bandeau tops and jackets. But the majority of the 75-minute show featured elaborate get-ups with ballgowns, intricate shoes, headpieces and technical fabrics.

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I was delighted to see that the models do indeed do a catwalk-walk, standing incredibly straight as if suspended from a ceiling string, with blank eyes and a distant look. From time to time, a model would pause to pose and make very deliberate individual eye contact with an audience member, but mostly their eyes gazed at the horizon.

After each collection, the models did a quicker lap in tighter succession, with an odd dainty hand clap as the designer herself walked the runway (our show happened to feature all female designers).

During our post-show lunch debrief, Irena and I started thinking about what we saw from a business perspective. Understanding that this is an industry event, what’s a successful outcome for a niche designer? And is there crazy competition to even show your collection?

The effort to create the looks was mind-blowing – the clothes themselves yes, but the hair and makeup and headpieces and what looked like one-of-a-kind shoes. It must have been hours and hours per collection and weeks of all-nighters sewing and preparing.

I suppose if we were curious enough we could ask around and get an answer. But it’s more fun to take in the spectacle.

WEEK 36

Can you feel color?

I asked myself this question as I sat on the floor of a 100-year-old boiler room, leaning up against a 40-foot column, watching, sensing and, yes, feeling, a digital installation to launch the 2020 PANTONE color of the year.

The experience is called Submerge, and it’s open for only a couple of weeks at a new space called ARTECHOUSE beneath Chelsea Market in the Meatpacking District of New York.

I found the concept of ARTECHOUSE itself fascinating. A mash-up of art and technology, it started in D.C. with an outpost in Miami as well, and is designed to push the boundaries of immersive digital art. It would be right at home on the playa. The press materials talked about a lot of stuff I don’t understand in terms of insanely high-resolution laser projection technology, but the line I loved was this: bringing every pixel alive in the widest color spectrum.

If there is a way to feel color, it will be here.

The 2020 PANTONE color of the year — Classic Blue – is said to evoke feelings of “peace and tranquility … imprinted in our psyches as a restful color.”

After staring at the wall-sized PANTONE color chip at the entrance to the exhibit and thinking about Classic Blue, I realized that for me, this calm comes from the color’s familiarity. It’s what I see in nature. The strength of the deep blue oceans in images of our planet, the majestic blue of Lake Tahoe, the endless sky on a bluebird day.

And so I opened the door of the exhibit and stepped into blue.

Digital projections blanketed three massive walls and the entire floor, while sounds and musical elements followed the colors as they moved across the space. I descended the staircase, picked up two small cushions, found my spot leaning against one of the steel columns and took it all in.

There were patterns, grids, dots that looked like blue raindrops, swirling shapes of liquid smoke. The projections washed over any and all surfaces, including our bodies and faces.

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The range of blue was fabulous – deep, bright, muted – and incredibly flattering as people’s bodies became silhouettes against the projection.

At times I was inside the sweeping, wide brushstrokes of a Van Gogh. Other times I walked an Escher staircase. Mostly I was swimming in a can of blue paint. I may have even become the paint.

I sat transfixed for more than 45 minutes, and as the graphics cycled, I shifted locations a few times to gain a new perspective. In all, and as predicted, being bathed in blue inspired calm and confidence. I felt boundless.

WEEK 35

I’m starting this week’s post with a word association. I will say “dogsledding” and you will think of the first words that come to mind. Pause here.

Iditarod. Alaska. Mushing. Huskies. Tundra. Freezing. Fun. Am I right? These are the answers I got when I told people I tried dog sledding for the first time.

I’m not in Alaska, but I may as well be, with temperatures in the low 20s, partly cloudy skies, standing on what looks like frozen tundra at 10,500 feet above sea level, jagged mountain peaks all around, no civilization in sight. This is the home of Alpine Adventures Dogsledding off Route 24 near Leadville, Colorado:

My good friend Debbie, who lives about an hour away, had tried dogsledding a couple years ago, and it sounded like the perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon, escaping the crowds at Vail. The experience delivered: a three-way tie between the adorable dogs, the scenery and the actual mushing.

Given the extreme cold and variable weather, participants are encouraged to dress in ski pants and jackets, waterproof boots (we inserted toe warmers), base layers, gloves, neck warmers, hats and googles. We wore it all and didn’t feel over-dressed.

We checked in at a little hut on the property and found our guide, Blu, who clearly loves his job. He said he came to the area 10 years ago on a three-day ski trip and never left.

We followed Blu to the staging area and met our eight-dog team. These are Alaskan Huskies, he told us, and have the strongest hearts of any mammal. We learned that sled dogs can pull more weight pound-for-pound than any other draft animal – and at quite a pace. When they’re mushing, the dogs run about six to fifteen miles per hour. Blu also showed us their fur – a special dual-layer coat designed for cold weather. In fact, they only run the dogs when temps are below 40 degrees.

At the front of our team, Blu paired Guru (2 years old) with Zipp (10 years old). The lead dogs are the smartest and have been trained to guide the sled. They set the pace and pick the path. Granted we’re mushing on a defined snow-packed route, but it’s up to the lead dogs to decide where exactly along the path they want to run.

We then met Bobby and Dolly and the remaining four dogs – whose names I cannot remember – but one was blind, another had one blue and one brown eye, and the last two brought muscle to the team. Within an instant you could sense each dog’s individual personality, and I imagine over time, Blu and all the staff come to know each dog’s bark and their quirks and desires.

The dog team pulls the sled (duh) which includes a basket for one person to ride while the second person stands and mushes the team. Mushing involves three activities: standing strong with both feet on the brake to hold the dogs back until it’s time to go; slowing the team by placing one foot on a placemat-size piece of rubber between the sled rails; and riding with both feet on the rails as the dogs are at speed. It takes about one second to get the hang of it, although I’m sure real mushing is much more complicated.

Blu drives a snowmobile out in front fitted with a rear-facing seat so the remaining customers can face the dogs and watch the action. He gives the musher arm commands to release or set the brake, or slow the dogs down. The dogs want only to run and get crazy amped when they know it’s almost time to go, barking and trying to pull against the brakes. When we stop to change out drivers, the dogs roll in the snow and play.

Debbie took the lead driving first, and I hopped into the sled, with an exhilarating dog-level vantage point as we hit top speed.

After a couple of miles, we switched positions, and I mushed, an equally exhilarating experience standing at full height, the dogsled team pulling out in front, framed by the mountains.

About those mountains. Immediately to the west of us sit Mount Elbert and Mount Massive, Colorado’s two tallest mountains at 14,439 and 14,429 respectively. Just as we started our tour, the clouds broke to brilliant sunshine. You could not have asked for a more perfect setting.

After our tour, Blu invited us to spend time with the dogs – they have about 150 on the property ranging in age from puppies to 15 years. He introduced us to the racing dogs who would be leaving the next week to compete. We also met two litters born last April. We let the dogs approach us and initiate contact – nearly all of them wanted to nuzzle and be petted.

The property includes a six-mile trail, and Blu explained that the dogs typically run four loops a day, burn 10,000 calories and eat raw beef and kibble. I will spare you the photograph of the buckets of frozen raw meat.

Do the dogs like to run? I’d answer a resounding yes. It’s in their DNA, and as Blu said, the dogs “tell them” when they want a change. I most enjoyed the time with the dogs, learning about this special breed. And as Debbie and I sat on the back of the snowmobile with the dogs running towards us, I couldn’t help but notice what I took for wide smiles on their faces. You can see how easy it is to fall in love…

WEEK 34

At the corner of Spring and Mercer Streets in Soho stands a (now) gorgeously restored five-story cast iron building, painted a deep shade of gray-blue. A peek inside the massive street-level windows reveals hard-wood floors worn in spots, a preserved tin ceiling, Donald Judd rectangular metal “wall units” hung three in a row, and a few Alvar Aalto chairs and low tables.

This is the former home of Donald Judd at 101 Spring Street, which I learned about a few years ago when a friend who was visiting us in New York dropped his bag at our apartment and headed immediately to his long-scheduled tour of the property. Sad as it sounds, it’s taken me all this time to do the same.

This past Saturday, Irena and I joined six others on an artist-guided tour, the only way the Donald Judd Foundation (as it’s known today) allows visitors. Judd purchased the entire building in 1968 and moved in with his then-wife and infant son. What were they thinking? The building was in complete disrepair, Soho was – according to all I’ve read and learned — a wasteland. I imagined the pioneering Judds living like squatters in their new home, with minimal heat, among now-priceless art and tossing their trash in nearby dumpsters.

I’ve never been inside the home of an artist of Judd’s caliber – nor an artist of my lifetime. During the tour, our guide spoke in present tense about Judd and his wife and children (their daughter was born in 1970). As I walked the space, admiring the family’s furniture, appliances, utensils, meat slicer, books and so much phenomenal artwork, I convinced myself they were out of town and planning to return next week. The truth is, Judd and the kids moved to Marfa, Texas in the mid-1970s after he and his wife divorced, although they spent time at 101 Spring when Judd was working in New York, and then moved back in the 1980s when the kids were teenagers. As our guide explained, after Judd passed away in 1994, his homes were meant to be left as they were at that moment. Space oddly frozen in time and lived in.

My relationship with Judd dates to Modern Art History classes in college, with a great appreciation for his three-dimensional pieces. Although he began in his early years making traditional drawings and paintings, he quickly shifted to work in three-dimensions. He never referred to his works as sculpture (“specific objects” he called them), and as we learned during our visit, the placement of a work of art was as important to its understanding as the work itself, a concept he coined permanent installation.

It is the beauty of the space itself and Judd’s vocabulary of form that I found most wonderful about 101 Spring Street. While no photography is allowed, a quick online search brings up many articles and images. I loved learning about how the building itself influenced Judd – it was one of his first opportunities to experiment with architectural scale and things like light, materials and texture. Several of his choices matched our aesthetic.

As the visit unfolds across the five floors, you experience how this artist family lived and how the artist himself experimented. One of the coolest facts of the tour is that everything you see – all the art and elements – remain as Judd installed them originally.

The family’s main living space occupied the second floor with Judd’s own wooden furniture and built-ins. It was surprising to find an industrial stove and stainless-steel dishwasher – completely unheard of at the time — but likely something the family picked up a few blocks away at the restaurant supply stores, which still exist, on Bowery.

Judd used the third floor for his studio, a phenomenal space enveloped by dusty-peach-colored plaster walls and ceiling – completely integrated so it appeared to be one folded plane. Because most of his fabrication was done off-site, the studio became a place for reflection and contemplation. To that end, in the center of the space, he installed two massive metal floor pieces (and I mean massive) shortly after moving in. We learned that it was incredibly important for him to work and create in the presence of his own installations, to walk around them and be with them as a form of inspiration. I found that fascinating.

The family slept (all of them) on the fifth floor. Two things strike you when you enter the space. First is the very simple, low bed platform in the center of the floor, a sort of island with a mattress and white linens. Second is a wall-to-wall Dan Flavin fluorescent light installation that mirrors the cast-iron windows and gives the room a purple orange glow when illuminated. Judd had also designed little sleeping lofts for the kids and the most exquisite stainless-steel basins and fixtures in the two bathrooms at the far end of the floor. There is a fantastic archival photo of the kids and their mom hanging out on the platform bed in the early 70s, watching a tiny TV.

During and after the visit, my mind kept going to the children. The guide spoke about them frequently, how the rooms were filled with their toys, which is a wild concept when you realize they played among works by Claus Oldenburg and Frank Stella along with Aalto furniture, Rietveld zig-zag chairs, not to mention all of Judd’s own creations.

As I walked home that afternoon, a quiet snow falling on Soho, it occurred to me that Judd’s son and I are the same age, and spent the first few years of our respective lives only five miles apart in Manhattan. There he was in 1969, around a year old, sitting on his parents’ platform bed in the middle of a raw Soho loft, while I was being pushed in a stroller along West End Avenue and 76^th Street. Our experiences and families couldn’t have been more different, yet we started and ended our day essentially breathing the same air. Manhattan island compatriots, worlds away.

WEEK 33

Some might say it’s a crime that in the more than 1,800 days since I moved (part-time) to New York City, I’ve never set foot in Strand Book Store. I love books. I love local bookstores. And this place in particular is steeped in neighborhood history.

I’ve also never attended a book reading or book launch. I’ve listened to painters describe their inspiration and process for a particular work. But never have I heard an author read their own words in print.

The Strand hosts numerous in-store events, and the best of the best show up to talk and read. All that’s required is purchasing the book or a gift card. A win for all.

So, for this week’s “first,” I chose the release event for a new illustrated book by Patricia Marx and Roz Chast, You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples. Irena joined me.

I knew nothing of these two before seeing the event advertised. The reading turned out to be more stand-up and less actual reading — not surprising once I learned their pedigrees. Roz is a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Patty is a staff writer there and former writer for Saturday Night Live, although she was quick to point out that Roz is an excellent writer herself. They’ve been friends and collaborators since the late 1970s, and they began the evening sharing their friendship origin story: Roz was the illustrator of a piece Patty wrote. Patty’s mom didn’t care for the essay but liked the illustration so much, she encouraged Patty to call the illustrator. That apparently never happens. Patty, always one to do what her mother says, met Roz, and they’ve been on a “play date,” as they described it, ever since.

But first a bit about the store. We entered from Broadway into a vast space, the double-height ceilings filled with old wooden stacks. It’s a bookstore so you expect to be surrounded by books. Here, you are swallowed by titles, though not necessarily in a bad way. You realize quickly that paper rules in a space with a proclaimed 18 miles of books. Strand opened in 1927, a few blocks from its current East 12^th Street location in an area that had been called Book Row covering — get this — six city blocks and 48 bookstores. Is that even possible? Today, the granddaughter of the founder runs the business, which makes it all the more romantic.

We made our way to the third floor Rare Book Room. It’s not a particularly stylish or dressy space although a few rows of hanging twinkling lights tempered the bite from the fluorescents. Picture a haphazard library in your grandparents’ house, the shelves lined with leather-bound volumes, a few busts of dead writers scattered around, locked cabinets with out-of-print treasures. The crowd, however, delivered. A bit older, all sporting that only-in New York City look: Upper West Side intellectual, most certainly left leaning, hair a bit kinked and likely to compost if their co-op allowed it. And huge Patty and Roz fans.

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The pair presided over the event with an endearing quirkiness that made it seem like their first public outing. They walked to the front of the room carrying baby blue ukuleles. They futzed with their mics. “How does this clicker work?” They kicked things off with amateur looking slides, beginning with a photo of each of their parents (the first “couples” they knew) and stories of the hilarious bickering that defined their childhoods – and inspired the book. They proceeded to introduce themselves through photos of famous world leaders and events with their heads photo-shopped into the scenes, riffing in an improv kind of way. “That’s us at Woodstock, facing the wrong direction,” said Patty. “No, everyone else was,” argued Roz.

Before taking questions, they read captions from the book’s pages and had us in hysterics, then upstaged themselves by singing original political and life-advice anthems strumming along with their ukuleles. “We formed a two-woman indie-band called Ukulear Meltdown,” they told us. “Back in the day, it was a sensation.”

It was such a delight to watch their friendship on stage during our hour together. They clearly crack each other up. I wished I could put them in my pocket and bring them to every family gathering.

WEEK 32

Several months ago on a list of why-not-try places in San Francisco, I read about the House of Air trampoline park. A spin through the website revealed serious training classes for aerialists, multi-week camps, trampoline dodgeball (even writing that fills me with terror from junior high), open air jumping and fitness classes. Having no memory of ever being on a trampoline in my life – and realizing that I may be nearing the age limit for said activity – I thought, how crazy and dangerous could this be?

It’s early on Saturday morning, and my neighborhood is blanketed by low misty clouds. Driving towards the Presidio, I somehow pop out of the fog into glorious sunlight on the Golden Gate Bridge. This sight never stops taking my breath away, and always puts me in a good mood.

I pull up to House of Air, located in building 926 on old Mason Street. I learned from the little history display inside the front door that the building dates to 1921 and served as the Crissy Air Field main plane hangar. What a perfect spot for a trampoline park, and even more perfect given the House of Air mission: giving flight to the flightless.

I had signed up for the 60-minute workout, and with that came a waiver to rival a Tahoe ski resort. (Trampolining is an inherently dangerous activity, bolding theirs). Inside the building were numerous dedicated trampoline areas located along elevated walkways, each surrounded by padded walls and rails and – oddly – ceiling-height netting, which made me wonder, how high can someone bounce?

Our class of 10 funneled into “the Matrix” and picked our spots in front of a tiny and amazingly powerful instructor (I am convinced that when she bounced she was well above our heads). The website called this a “full-body workout class that allows you to bounce, fly and spin while strengthening your core, toning your muscles and burning calories.” It also claimed 10 minutes of jumping on a trampoline equates to 33 minutes of running. (As a runner, I call bullshit on this one.)

That said, jumping on the trampoline required serious core strength to stay balanced. We went through multiple cardio sets of things like jack-rabbits (jump, heels to butt, jump, knees to chest); pike jumps; jump turn left, jump turn right, center giant split jump legs wide; frogger jumps starting at the back of the trampoline, three squat jumps forward, turn, three squat jumps back. My favorite move was a seated falling jump – essentially you put your arms behind you at your butt, hands flat, fingers pointed forward, get some air, jump to a flat position with legs out in front of you, and then the momentum and your hands bounce you right back up to standing. Once I mastered that move, I couldn’t get enough. Our instructor insisted that we always look forward and up – looking down can throw you off balance. Just like skiing – look where you want to go…

Despite the fact that I felt (and surely looked) ridiculous and uncoordinated (this video of the class will leave you laughing), I had fun. If it was closer to home, I’d try a second time. I often consider the fitness level and body of an instructor a good sign for the kind of workout you get. Our little powerhouse was ripped.

And what’s not to love about the little House of Air mascot, a penguin with a jetpack.

WEEK 31

I mutter these words to myself as I stand, ticket in hand, in front of the Tactile Dome at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The ticket comes with a disclaimer in big bold font: you must be able to crawl, climb and slide in total darkness. No fear of the dark. No claustrophobia.

No more excuses, I say! Curiosity finally wins the battle.

Trying this new experience has been on my list for months. Each time I consider going, anxiety prevails. What if I have to crawl on my stomach? What if I touch something disgusting? Will I really be in complete darkness? Will they hand me a panic button for quick extraction? What if I’m SURROUNDED BY CHILDREN?

The Exploratorium website has a copy of the original press release when the Tactile Dome first opened in 1971. It’s a fascinating read, even today. As I made my way along the Embarcadero to the museum, I thought about this idea that we rely overwhelmingly on our visual sense—especially to define what’s real. Yet as the release points out – and a key purpose of the exhibit – it’s the ability to touch that is the truest test of reality.

I entered the Exploratorium (overflowing with hundreds of kids) and very quickly realized that Burning Man is like an Exploratorium for adults in the wild. I imagined everyone wearing crazy costumes, covered in dust, working their way through science experiments…

Surprisingly, there were quite a few adults and older teens in line for the 2:30pm entry to the Tactile Dome. How did they hear about this, I wondered? What drew them in? I guess curiosity comes in all shapes, sizes and ages…

The Tactile Dome attendant led our group of 11 into a small ante-chamber, with low lighting and moody music. We stored our shoes along with purses, phones and things in small cubby holes. Our young guide (he’s been working the Dome since it re-opened at the Pier 15 location in 2013) explained — as best he could — what we might experience. It’s not a maze. There’s one path. It’s impossible to get lost. He can reach any part of the dome in a few seconds. And, he monitors our movements with an infrared camera, so if he senses any distress, he will come to the rescue. He did caution that we should expect to feel disoriented. Even after six years, he said, he’s always struck by how foreign it can be. It’s not for everyone.

Also interesting (and unexpected), the attendant divided us into groups of friends or family – or singles if alone. He explained that he starts a new group (or individual) when the prior group is half-way through. No running into strangers or accidentally groping (or getting groped by) people you don’t know. Ok, that is a huge relief.

I was the seventh person through the curtain – following a dad and two teen daughters; a brother sister group; and a young girl alone. After me, a mom with four teens.

Almost instantly, I plunged into complete darkness. Instinctively, I kept my eyes open, though sight offered no help. I navigated mostly with my right hand lightly brushing along the right side walls, my left hand reaching in front and above, to check height. As I felt the ceiling closing in, I dropped to a squat and then a crawl. The lack of visual cues distorted my sense of speed. I had the impression of moving like an inchworm.

A few moments in, I heard the low rumble of a fan, likely an air conditioner or air purifier. Engaging another sense calmed me. I became aware of the air and space around me. My memory tells me I spent most of my time on all fours, but every so often, I’d sense that I entered a larger chamber – simply because of a change in air. Sure enough, I’d raise my hands above me to find completely open space to stand. Moving along at full height was disorienting in its own way.

I felt soft surfaces, others rubbery, some very smooth and silky. My favorite felt like jungle-gym netting that I climbed over. There were a few 45-degree inclines to scoot up and slides to go down. I remembered the attendant encouraging us to take our time and explore. It’s not a race, he said. I lost track of time, and I would have pegged my time to complete the path between five and 20 minutes. Actual: six minutes.

Yes, I got to do another lap. (More below). But before I explain that trip, I’ll share that as I sat in the waiting chamber with the others after my first go, I realized the experience was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. I didn’t feel unsafe but not completely safe either. I concluded that what made crawling through tiny dark tunnels bearable was knowing I could be extracted in a moment. And while it would be fun to try with a group of friends – even after a cocktail or a mind-altering edible treat – I liked that I did it alone. Just my own touch, the sound of my breathing and thoughts in my head.

My second time through I opted to use my left hand as the dominant guide, following along the left wall. The textures felt completely different, and I had a few panicked moments that I had gotten lost in a dead-end (impossible) and somehow turned myself around (not the case). After some deep breaths and a slow crawl forward, I found my (favorite) rope-thing and instantly relaxed with the familiar. From there, I let myself go much faster down the final slide into the giant pool of beans at the end.

WEEK 30

I read about this week’s first on a Time Out list of holiday bests. New York City goes bonkers between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Midtown morphs into an impenetrable swarm of humans: the silly season on steroids. Ice skating rinks, holiday markets, window displays, lights on anything and everything. As annoying as it can be (I have to alter my subway route home given the afternoon gridlock near Rockefeller Center), in truth, with the right weather and right amount of people, the holiday season can be magical.

Tonight’s activity is a faux parade called Unsilent Night – a 27-year tradition that I first learned about two weeks ago. Each December, a New York-based composer named Phil Kline writes an original score and leads what he calls a “chorus of boomboxes” walking from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to Tompkins Square Park, a mile away in the East Village. Others have called it a “luminous soundscape.” Essentially, the audience “plays” Phil’s piece carrying boomboxes or other mobile speakers along the city streets. Did someone say live public art?

The website and FAQ are remarkably detailed for an event that appears on the surface to be haphazard and hippyish: Meet under the arch in Washington Square Park at 5:45pm. Bring a mobile speaker – preferably a boombox. Download one of four tracks. Dress warm and get ready to create a walking stereo.

As I write this first draft, it’s 4:00 p.m. on the Sunday of the event and task one is choosing my track. I listen to all four. The sounds are ethereal, with bells, some gongs, chanting. I download tracks one and four. The idea is that all of us in the audience have randomly selected a track, and when Phil counts us down, we hit play on our device. The resulting four-track piece played simultaneously becomes Unsilent Night.

Step two is syncing my cell phone to a portable speaker. I install the Libratone app. Bluetooth is buggy, of course, and when my phone goes to sleep, the signal drops. Fifteen minutes of trouble shooting later I’ve got the track playing through our stylish ZIPP speakers.

[As an aside, the fascination with boomboxes — I read in Phil’s online story – came from the very first winter in 1992 when he composed four 45- minute tracks, laid each on a different cassette, and popped the tapes into boomboxes. He still hands out vintage boomboxes at the event and apparently has a soft spot for the sometimes warbly sound of cassette tape.]

[A second aside. As I sit here writing, Irena is cooking a wild boar ragu that began with an overnight marinade in red wine, rosemary and garlic and is now on the stove at a low simmer. It smells divine. I am so excited to do this sonic festival and even more excited for dinner.]

Here’s how it unfolded.

What a cold night. We’re wearing full down, hats and heavy gloves. Thankfully it’s dry. We approach the arch and find a crowd of about 100 people. All types, sizes and ages represented. Too many people attempting to use their phone speakers (LAME!) and not enough boomboxes.

Phil attempts to yell instructions to the crowd (after 27 years he doesn’t have a megaphone?) and right at 6:00pm we count down five-four-three-two-one-play.

Slowly the sound envelopes us. Irena’s got the speaker overhead, and we shimmy our way as the crowd moves east across the park. The sound is in constant motion as we and others move. It’s like caroling, but not. We’re silent but carrying a sound sculpture.

As we file out of the park, our crowd of mobile speaker “musicians” compacts into a long line. New York City is very much part of the experience, as we snake our way along sidewalks made skinny by Sunday night trash bags and scaffolding. The crowd expands as we cross avenues – Broadway, Lafayette, Bowery, all the way to Avenue A. We lose people at crosswalks. They catch back up. Wherever you are in that very moment and whichever tracks are around you make the music. It’s organic and random and ever-changing.

I’d be walking alongside three or four loud boomboxes each with a different track, the full piece filling the air around us. Then I’d lose the boomboxes at a street crossing and end up surrounded by people trying to get music out of their phones, my speaker dominating. The experience was all-dimensional. A snake of sound.  

It was great fun to watch those we passed. Many took pictures and video. Some smiled. A lot looked confused. And – believe me, I’ve been there – a few New Yorkers in a hurry mumbled obscenities to get out of their way.

Our procession arrived in Tompkins Square Park under the large elm tree at 6:43 pm. One minute left on my recording. The final notes diminished and we let out a little cheer.

WEEK 29

Dance as an art form is a foreign language to me. And I say this despite the joy of moving my body to a groove. Despite years of ballet as a teen. A few modern dance classes as an adult. And let’s not discount learning Latin ballroom when I lived in Melbourne (more a reflection of the Australian obsession with competitive dancing than my love of ChaCha and Rhumba).

But live dance performance has been entirely missing from my life. The desire is there. I’m moderately aware of the most accomplished choreographers, living or past. I clip listings from the Arts section each winter when the renowned companies tour their new works. Yet I always choose something else to do.

No longer. Within five minutes of the curtain rising at the Juilliard New Dances program last Friday, I felt euphoric. My heart full and open, taking in the lush sounds, movement of bodies in space, the minimalist set, warm and flattering lighting. I knew instantly I need and want more of this.

Let me back up. A week earlier, I’d read one of those (often-clipped but ignored) blurbs about a seven-day run of original performances by students of Juilliard Dance. I loved the premise: four well-known choreographers join forces with students at the start of the school year to create four new dances – one for each class year. World premieres for them … and a first for me.

On a blustery night of miserable, relentless rain – where all you want is to be swaddled in cashmere by a fire – Irena and I trekked to Lincoln Center and walked into the Juilliard School. Lincoln Center itself is worthy of accolades and hyperbole – one of the largest performing arts complexes on the planet – with all the biggies in one place: The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, and there’s jazz, chamber music, theatre, film and more. All new for me and prime subjects for future 52×52 posts.

Programs in hand, we entered the theatre, effectively a college auditorium, yet with seating for about 1,000 people, great sight lines and phenomenal acoustics and staging, it was anything but amateur.

The evening’s performance was a progression of sorts beginning with the first-year students and ending with the class of 2020. The dance director wrote about the risk-taking required to create a new dance – all elements needing to “come together with perfect synergy” across choreographers, composers, musicians, dancers, even the lighting, costume and production teams. This intense collaboration produced the 360-degree live experience that unfolded on stage.

I know how music is made. I’ve watched painters paint and sculptors sculpt. We’ve all taken photographs and written sentences. But what goes into making dance? Choreography is mystifying. Is movement first or music first? How does the mind see bodies of all different shapes and sizes moving in space? And what about space itself – both the empty spaces between bodies and the space where dancers touch? When does fabric and lighting enter the composition, or the effects of shadows as forms move? For me, this interplay of elements in all four dimensions, live and ephemeral, was magical.

The class of 2023 opened with a piece called Sight & Sound, which turned out to be the most athletic of the four dances, set to a score adapted from Detroit techno producer Carl Craig and recording artist Kevin Saunderson, featuring live piano and a performance by DJ Virus J. The dancers’ black leggings and fitted tops would have been right at home sweating at Equinox. They danced barefoot, mostly independently, with such soul and energy – and apparent delight – I wished I could hit re-play and see it again.

The second-year students danced a piece called This Great Wilderness by Jamar Roberts (who, as an aside, in the week since the performance was profiled twice by the New York Times as the resident choreographer of Alvin Ailey) – with an original score performed by musicians from Juilliard Jazz. I pinched myself (again) realizing these are kids, probably not even 20-years old, moving their bodies fully, in unreal ways. The same body we all have.

Also present across all the dances was the power of the floor – not something I’d expected given that the ballets I’ve seen are mostly upright, yet also not surprising. For the past couple of years, I’ve been working with a movement specialist who’s a trained dancer and fully aware of biomechanics. She’s a believer in the power of body work using the floor and gravity. It’s an instinctual way to move.

This power came alive in the third piece called Desde, which appeared to be much more technically advanced, visceral in many ways, with dancers climbing on each other, lifting each other at their waists, carrying one another on their shoulders. The set took on an otherworldly glow, the only source of light coming from a circle of yellow bulbs at the rear of the stage. The neutral costumes erased gender, and with the back-lighting, the diverse bodies were just that, bodies in motion.

For me, the most meaningful aspect of the evening was the absence of speech, a salve after an intense work week where everyone talked at all times, at each other, interrupting, everyone vying to be heard. Our lives are dominated by spoken words, and it’s exhausting. Oddly, although there was music and sound, my memory of the evening is of silence.

My other memory is feeling love from the stage. I imagined an intimacy that comes from learning and growing together, in small cohorts of 20 to 25 students. Add to that the physicality of dance, one’s body changing and transforming, and an overwhelming artistic impulse that overshadows all else. What it must feel like to be moved to create something so beautiful.

WEEK 28

I started the 52×52 project six months ago to treat myself each week to something new, a way to have fun, discover, learn, challenge, observe and, importantly, hold myself accountable to explore my writing. I’m not going to do a look-back just yet, but scanning the inventory of posts, I love that I’ve done all these things and have a few readers alongside me. That’s a new feeling.

This week my present to myself is a Thanksgiving holiday in Madrid, and yes, it follows directly from last week’s post about Milan. (My cousin Nancy coined this my Double M trip. As another aside, if you read the week 19 post about seeing the psychic, you’ll remember she predicted I would travel overseas before the end of the calendar year and that it would be “very good for me to cross water.” Psychic scores a point.)

Back to Madrid. Technically, it’s not a new destination for me. I visited as a teen on my first-ever European trip when my mom and I drove what I assume were thousands of kilometers through England, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. As an adult, I’ve visited a couple of times for work, but those trips only give you a glimpse from an office window, maybe a dinner or two if you’re lucky.

Over the past few days, Madrid came to life. The door opened just enough for me to fall in love, and I left wanting to learn a bit of Spanish, rent an apartment for a month and get swept up in the energy and beauty.

The Madrid we experienced is a stunner across all senses, certainly the central neighborhoods where we spent our time: Retiro, Salamanca, Chueca, Malasana, Lavapies, Arguelles, Plaza Major, Santa Ana, Barrio de Las Letras, even touristy Sol.

The immensity of spectacular architecture in the city center left me speechless. All I could do was look up and point, constantly, at the intricately carved white-stone buildings, one after another so pristine you’d think the city gets scrubbed top to bottom each month. Along perfectly manicured, double-wide boulevards sat exquisite one-time palaces and block-long government buildings with steel, glass, stone and brick. One of my favorites – the Bank of Spain building at the corner of Paseo del Prado and Calle de Alcala – showed off an eclectic mix of intricate exterior elements including the most gorgeous cast-iron hanging lamps, one in each window along all the facades. I never tired of looking at them.

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We wandered residential neighborhoods of tree-lined streets and independent shops, each building outdoing its neighbor with charming wrought-iron balconies. The oldest parts of the city came to life post siesta (stores still close from roughly 2:30pm to 5:00pm), the narrow, bricked lanes filled with people shopping. And beyond all we saw, there are more districts with modern towers, many by the star-architects of today.

Across neighborhoods, we found shop after shop inviting us in with unexpected contemporary interior design blended into what I imagine are 100-year old spaces of vaulted ceilings, iron columns, worn tiled floors – and they all smelled divine.

Then, of course, there’s eating and drinking and loving life, which the Madrilenos perfected. Everyone around us seemed to achieve all that we stand for: sleep late, eat later, drink always. And they were constantly engaged in conversation, in pairs or large groups of people—no phones or devices in sight. The amount of intense, serious discourse made the Parisians look lazy and lowbrow.

Irena and I have been getting our Spanish-cuisine on these past few years, learning about and enjoying sherry and vermouth, as well as wines from lesser-known regions (to Americans) like Toro. We’ve been into jamon iberico long before it was approved for export to the US, but more recently, we’ve been loving the food from Galicia and the Basque country in the north. Madrid had it all – more restaurants than we could ever try with beautiful, sexy interiors, flawless execution and service. We ate our way across the city: octopus, croquettes with jamon iberico, tomato tartare, artichokes, arroz with peasant (deliciously rich like a risotto), bass ceviche, tuna, hake and every night secreto – the hard to find “secret” cut of Iberico de Bellota pork.

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I am a sucker for cities where people are out and about, in parks, plazas, gardens, restaurant patios, at all hours of the day and times of year. Madrid had a lived in and livable energy.

On Sunday afternoon at 6:00pm, the Mercado de San Miguel was wall-to-wall people, taking their vermouth or wine or beer along with any number of pintxos. Most stores are open until 9:00pm daily. Even the Reina Sofia museum has free evening hours every night from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, which we took advantage of on our last day, between lunch that ended at 4:30pm and a dinner reservation for 10:30pm. What a perfect way, buzzed on sherry and well-fed, to see all our favorite early 20^th century painters.

On Tuesday night at 12:30am, walking back to our hotel, we stopped to have dessert at a restaurant with a large terrace overlooking the Plaza de la Independencia, tables nestled among heat lamps and every seat taken. Who are these people, I wonder, and how can I be one of them?

WEEK 27

I’ve been visiting Milan since the early 1990s, when Irena and I lived in the south of France for 18 months. We drove to Italy every chance we could get – sometimes just over the border to Ventimiglia to buy wine and Reggiano (at the time, Italian products were very limited in France). We’d make longer trips in winter to ski Courmayeur at the Italian base of Mont Blanc. But it was Milan that became our frequent, big-city urban escape, a speedy 3.5-hour drive away.

This past Monday, I arrived in Milan for a week of work, and on the ride from Malpensa, I thought about the two of us 25 years ago, in our rented Citroen, passports and Lira in hand, navigating from the Autostrada to a hotel in the “Centro” with a paper map unfolded on my lap, and Irena calling out street signs in Italian. That’s how you learn a city.

I get the sense that we enjoy Milan more than most, with its walkable golden triangle of high fashion, hipster ‘hoods like Brera and the newer Porta Nuova district a bit farther north by the train station. As with many places in Europe, the streets we wander here, and stores and restaurants we love to visit, tend to stay exactly as they are, year after year. I find that permanence calming and reassuring, and in such stark relief to New York where the speed of turnover can feel disorienting and breathless.

But romance and favorites aside, on this trip, I am determined to branch out in the limited time available and explore a new-for-me area – Navigli – the subject of several articles on must-do neighborhoods in Milan.

The weather was atrocious. Five days straight of oppressive low clouds, and skies that cycled from spitting rain to full downpours, left a dull grayness over what is, in good light, a monochromatic city. Add to that intense, 10-hour workdays in a windowless meeting room, and it’s no wonder I woke up sluggish and irritable Friday morning. Irena had arrived mid-week and already reached her limit navigating tiny sidewalks holding an umbrella.

But good food and wine and gelato can lift the spirits – not to mention this project. How could I leave Milan without doing something new? So, off we went, Friday at 2:00 p.m., paper map in hand, to walk a few kilometers from the Duomo (Milan’s cathedral and heart of the city) southwest to Navigli.

The neighborhood is named after the Naviglio Grande, the oldest and biggest canal in Milan built centuries ago (we’re talking 12^th century) as part of a network of waterways that connected land-locked Milan to the Ticino River, which flows from Lago Maggiore in the north. The Naviglio Grande is more than 50km long and played an essential role during the construction of the Duomo – and likely many other buildings of that era – as massive marble blocks were transported from northern Italy by river and canal.

Some of the city’s oldest churches are in Navigli – one we passed on our walk, the Basilica di San Lorenzo, dates to the 4^th century. It’s impossible for me to stand before something that old and contemplate the Milanese going about their lives.

Today, of course, nearly all the canals in the city have been filled in, except for a portion of the Naviglio Grande lined with centuries-old buildings that now house tiny shops, galleries and one adorable restaurant after another.

Despite the damp, 45-degree weather (which persisted for two more days through our Sunday departure) – and the gray canal water blending with the drab sky – the area was charming and remarkably full of life. Locals and visitors sat outside under awnings and umbrellas, drinks and nibbles in hand, chattering away.

I imagine this place on a clear and dry day, maybe in spring, looking like the many tourist photos I found online. Something tells me it will be here when I return…

WEEK 26

Just as there are dog people and cat people in this world (I’m dog, without question), there are those who eat to live, and the rest of us who live to eat.

Most people in my life exist at the live-to-eat end of the spectrum. We plan dinner during lunch. Shop for ingredients with joy. And form friendships around cooking and eating.

One of those friends, Mark, I’ll call our Godfather of food, completely self-taught and deep in regional cuisine (like his favorite Galicia in northwestern Spain), but even more accomplished in technique. Although we have friends who’ve honed their craft in a thing or two – pasta, ramen broth, wine, coffee beans, French sauces, cookies, for example, as well as our own household’s artisan forays with Irena’s mastery of bespoke sausages and, more recently, fresh tonic syrup – Mark’s breadth of expertise is stunning. He was making 75-degree Celsius duck eggs years before consumer sous-vide contraptions showed up under Christmas trees. He’s as comfortable searing a steak in a cast-iron pan as he is baking bread from scratch. Then there’s everything from slow-cooking meat overnight in a smoker (pro-move: put the duck on the top rack so the fat from the duck drips on all below), to using liquid nitrogen at home to make exploding olives a-la molecular chef Ferran Adria, to cooking paella on a portable induction burner on a sidewalk in San Francisco (yes, that happened, for a work lunch party).

This week, Mark spent a few days with us in New York, and naturally, food was at the center of all things. Although my self-imposed 52×52 project guidelines prohibit new restaurants from making the cut for my new-thing-of-the-week, we did in fact eat nearly the entire menu at a recently opened Nikkei cuisine spot in the West Village (Nikkei merges traditional Peruvian ingredients with Japanese techniques), and we ventured to Harlem to Reverence, owned by Mark’s very good friend, chef Russell Jackson, who asked him to be Godfather to Russell’s seven-month-old boy – thus a nickname was born. Our supposed “night off from eating” turned into a Spanish-themed dinner party at home, with tuna-stuffed piquillo peppers, five-hour sous-vide octopus and pan-seared secreto, a special cut of Iberico pork.

The knife enters the story on Mark’s last morning with us.

At this point in the 72-hour arc of his visit, I am delirious, but determined to achieve my new thing for the week. So, just before he leaves for the airport, I insist on a knife sharpening tutorial. I’ve never once sharpened a knife, and can’t possibly pass up such perfect conditions. Not only do we have a master knife handler in the house, but we also have the king of knives in our rack – a gorgeous carbon steel Bob Kramer chef’s knife that Mark gifted us many years ago.

Mark sharpens using a Japanese style and has taken a few courses himself. We’ll call my session a pre-briefing, version 0.1, that introduced key parts of the process, instruments, vocabulary and basic technique. It’s now up to me to keep practicing.

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We start by soaking the Messermeister whetstone he gave us on his last visit. It’s important to soak for about 5-10 minutes to remove air bubbles from inside the whetstone. The 2000-grit side is our starting point, to help get a good edge angle. Later, the 5000-grit side makes the edge even sharper and provides the finishing polish.

He pinches the knife blade near the handle, and, importantly, maintains the very same angle as he pushes the point of the knife slowly away with his fingers in an even stroke as it crosses the whetstone, and then pulls it back.

He repeats this rhythm for several strokes, and then moves across to where he hasn’t yet sharpened. Flip the knife over and repeat. Periodically we re-soak the stone to form a little slurry, so that the particles in the stone create a more abrasive surface to help sharpen.

As a last step, I learn how to correctly use the honing steel to help align the knife blade. This, as well, is all about finding and maintaining the correct angle. Interestingly, Mark holds the steel point-down with his left hand and has the knife in his right hand. With the back of the blade touching the steel, he pulls the knife back towards him and down the steel, holding that perfect angle.

How do we test our work? We take a page from a glossy magazine, fold it in half with a soft, rolled edge, hold it in the air and slice off a piece lengthwise.

Sadly, it’s time for Mark to call his Lyft to the airport. In his honor, I spend the next hour – with several YouTube video intermissions – attempting to sharpen the rest of our knives. I’d give myself a generous C+. I love that there is mastery and seriousness and perfection in this process, and much, much more for me to learn.

WEEK 25

Food is the ultimate human connector. A hot meal brings warmth, nourishes, sustains life. This week, I was fortunate to join a group of colleagues for a half-day of volunteering, delivering meals (or “sunshine” as our group lead called it) to homebound seniors on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Over my life, I’ve volunteered in many capacities, and have always wanted to contribute to a community activity centered around feeding those less fortunate. So, when I read an officer poster calling for volunteers on Wednesday morning, I cancelled my meetings and signed up.

The day arrived with a record low 22 degrees — time to move the winter coats to the front-hall closet. I woke early, swaddled myself beyond recognition in a down jacket, scarf, gloves, warm socks and boots, and rode the subway to 86^th Street to meet my colleagues at the Church of St. Paul/St. Andrew. The basement was alive with activity as meal coordinators packaged the hot and cold meals into large, insulated carry bags.

We learned about the operation. Meals on Wheels is a phenomenal global organization with a decades-long history, having started in the UK after World War II. New York City’s Citymeals-on-Wheels began in 1981, and now delivers millions of meals annually to mostly elderly individuals (the average age is 85) who are unable to purchase or prepare their own food. It’s also an opportunity to check in with these seniors, more than half of whom live alone, and may be isolated even in a city as populated as New York.

We broke into teams of three, each receiving a list of names and addresses for 15 people living in nearby buildings. Our team — Sammy, Christine and I — read down the names and addresses and came up with a walking plan. We had five buildings within a several block radius, spanning 89^th to 91^st Streets, between Columbus and Broadway.

With bags over our shoulders and hats pulled down over our ears, we headed out into a brilliant blue-sky morning.

We stopped first at a senior housing building—the Goddard Riverside—a tall, red brick, elevator building with small apartments clustered on long hallways, and a social center on the ground floor listing a range of activities for the locals. We visited five people – Angela, Manuel, Vesselka, Shirley and Norma – and in nearly every case, our knocks were answered with big smiles and delight in receiving the meals we handed to them.

Some arrived at the door by wheelchair, others with their walkers. Some opened the door only enough for us to hand them the wrapped meal trays and ask a few questions—how are they doing and feeling? Manuel invited us in, and shared a few minutes of stories in a combination of English and Spanish of his life in Cuba, his recent heart surgery in New York and introduced us to his parakeet and fish. Norma wore a bright patterned house coat and was all smiles, calling us girls and waving after us as we walked down the hallway.

Next, we visited Iris across the street, and the doorman knew exactly where we were headed as we announced ourselves. That gave me a good feeling, knowing that despite being homebound, many of these seniors live in buildings with a watchful and caring presence. Especially as the majority of our deliveries were to women, I wanted to know they are safe.

Back across the street, we tried to find Ellen and Mirta, neither of whom was home. That was a bit stressful as the meal coordinator asked us to do everything possible to hand the meals directly to the person. Despite our best efforts knocking on doors and calling by phone, we left their meals at the front desk.

Our last two stops were at the Wise Towers senior center, run by the New York City Housing Authority, where we met Kenny, Deborah, Juana, Felicita and the Nunez couple. Some of our seniors spoke only Spanish, and we did our best to check-in. In all cases, our deliveries brought wide smiles and warm chit-chat. I tried to picture this from their perspectives, each day opening the door to a different group of strangers holding meals in their outstretched arms.

We headed back to the church, our carry bags lighter, and met up with the rest of our colleagues, all of us feeling fulfilled. It was a beautiful and heartwarming couple of hours. Although we played only a very small part in what I imagine to be a massive operation preparing, cooking and packaging hundreds of meals a day — not to mention organizing newbie volunteers every morning to fan out across the neighborhood — it felt wonderful to contribute and connect with fellow New Yorkers. I remember each of them, and can hear their voices and see their warm faces. I hope they enjoyed their food.

WEEK 24

After the last several weeks exploring some crazy new things, my “first” for this week is decidedly calmer. A break from facing my fears.

I turned to my backyard in San Francisco to discover the city’s POPOS. These are Privately-Owned Public Open Spaces – not unique to SF – but perhaps because of the city’s normally glorious weather and compact downtown, they are bite-sized treats in the form of a plaza, terrace, atrium or small park.

The SF downtown planning code changed in 1985, requiring developers to devote one square foot of public space for every 50 square feet of commercial space they built. I find it quaint for a city like San Francisco to provide space for its citizens to relax and not feel crowded by sky scrapers. There is so much natural space and light in this city – certainly compared to the canyons of Midtown Manhattan – and when I spend time in SF, I notice immediately the sky around me and the healthy moisture of the air on my skin.

My mission was to find the best POPOS inside or on top of office buildings or enclosed in gated parks. Not simply 24/7 open plazas. I wanted the mystery and secrecy and sense of trespassing.

First stop: 150 California. I entered a nondescript office building and asked the guard about the 6^th floor sun terrace. He pointed me to an elevator, and up I went. Sadly, the sun had already left the premises, but the setting was pleasant – albeit dominated by an odd jungle-gym like metal sculpture (the Burner in me was itching to climb it). I sat and took a work call, which felt a bit illicit. The best part was the view of the beautiful urban garden across the street at 101 California.

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I then walked to 343 Sansome, a gorgeous skinny art deco building that I’m sure I’ve passed by without notice numerous times. And I am the girl who always looks up when she walks. Riding the elevator with a bunch of office-goers, I felt like the villian in an action movie. Surely, they were on to me. I exited the 15^th floor to a large deck with olive trees – how cool is that – and an unobstructed view of the Transamerica Pyramid.

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Back at ground level I strolled nearby to Commercial Street. How have I missed this fabulous treasure of old buildings? Each day we literally walk on history with no awareness. A quick online search revealed that the eastern edge of Commercial Street at Sansome was the original San Francisco waterfront, and I stumbled upon a plaque marking the headquarters for the Hudson’s Bay company in 1841. Across the street, I found my destination: tiny Empire Park at 648 Commercial. Behind an iron gate sat mixed groups of people reading and on their phones in this intimate though slightly rundown space.

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My fourth stop was the most dramatic, the Transamerica Redwood Park. I’ve walked by the base of the Transamerica Pyramid hundreds of times, but usually on the weekend, and the park isn’t open. I arrived around 3:30pm, and despite the waning sun, the day was warm and surprisingly not windy. Perfect to take in this impeccably maintained Redwood forest in the heart of the financial district. The park was built in 1972 at the time the building was constructed. I learned that the pyramid was despised back then for being so unconventional – no one knew what to do with this shape designed, by the way, to let sunlight reach the street. Today, of course, the building is essential San Francisco and the park an absolute delight. Along with a half acre of towering local redwoods, there is a fountain of frog sculptures dedicated to Mark Twain’s story of the Calaveras County jumping frog which, as a quick aside, figured into my childhood driving through Angels Camp and Murphys on the way to ski each weekend in Bear Valley. A story for another day…

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I headed South of Market to my final stop at 543 Howard Street. San Francisco doesn’t often get its architecture right, but there are a few deco buildings like this one from 1927 that nod to the neighborhood’s manufacturing roots.

The roof deck was a gem, with ample sun and seating and perfect (I mean perfect) views of the new Salesforce Tower and Park. A private gift in exactly the way I imagine POPOS were envisioned. I could see easily spending the day outside here, getting things done.

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WEEK 23

I have been terrified by this week’s first since I came up with the idea: bike to work in Manhattan — my first time ever riding a bike in any of the five boroughs.

Step one: Plan the route. My apartment in Noho is about three miles from the office in Midtown, so an easy, short, flat ride. The trick, of course, is finding a route where I will feel safe and not die.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been obsessed with checking out bike lanes (not always where I need them), assessing construction (it’s everywhere) and observing the morning rush (chaos).

By car, it’s a mostly direct shot to work, heading uptown on Sixth Avenue. But after poring over city bike maps, I discovered that the bike lane on Sixth peters out quickly after Greenwich Village. Plus, I know from walking the sidewalks in Midtown, that it’s pure insanity at street level.

I then discovered a lovely green line on the bike map stretching nearly the entire length of Eighth Avenue — a genuine, dedicated bike lane. Although that route would be a bit out of my way, and require biking by both Penn Station and Port Authority, I decided less panic was worth the price of a few more pedal strokes.

Step two: Find a bike. If you’ve spent any time in Manhattan, it won’t come as a surprise that I opted for the Citi Bike bike-share program. The blue Citi Bikes are ubiquitous. I read on the site there are upwards of 12,000 bikes throughout the city, with more than 50 million rides completed since the program began. That does nothing to calm my nerves. I take a deep breath, sign up for the app and buy a single ride pass for $3.

Step three: Go. I awoke this morning visualizing my ride and thinking of reasons to abort the mission. But lucky for me, it’s a blue-sky day and 55 degrees. Ideal conditions and no room for excuses.

I know deep down my fear is irrational. People bike in Manhattan on every block, every day, at all hours of the day. And they survive. But there are days on foot that I feel lucky to make it across the street given the many cyclists and scooters careening the wrong way … oblivious pedestrians texting and wearing headphones … double-parked cars … busses … block after block of construction. The list goes on. In some ways, drivers make me least anxious as they too are navigating this pandemonium.

Since I’m writing this story, I did indeed make it.

I picked up the bike at Mercer and Bleecker around 9:30 a.m. and had planned to start right off disobeying traffic laws by biking the wrong way on Mercer Street for one block to get to West 3rd Street. But with two garbage trucks and a massive dump truck blocking traffic, I couldn’t make it. I ended up doing a mini loop east on Bleecker, north on Lafayette and then turning onto West 3rd.

My first pedal strokes were exhilarating. I scooted around two double-parked cars, crossed Broadway, wove between pedestrians, got passed by speedy bikers and made two left turns. All of this to arrive a block from where I picked up the bike.

Finally heading west, I decided to loop around Washington Square Park for a bit of practice. My bike seat was too low, and I kept attempting to brake with the pedals rather than the hand brakes. “You’re not on a beach cruiser at Burning Man,” I yelled to myself. It all took some getting used to.

In just a couple of blocks, I made the right turn onto Sixth Avenue without incident and then left onto Greenwich Avenue, which seems like such a sleepy street when we walk the sidewalks. Not on two wheels.

I quickly discovered that as I approached stop lights, I needed to thread the tiny space between parked cars on my right and traffic on my left. It’s not like I could hang back and block the way for other bikers. I also discovered very quickly that just as one walks through Manhattan in a continual rhythm against the lights when there are no cars coming on cross streets … so too on a bike. I had to keep with the flow — stopping might have caused a bike pile up of epic proportions.

Crossing Seventh Avenue on Greenwich I felt a flicker of confidence. “I’m really doing this.” One block later, I cruised right onto Eighth Avenue. There it was – a green painted bike lane stretched out in front of me. And there they were – bikes all around. It’s like I turned onto the freeway.

For the next 38 blocks my heart beat wildly as I navigated a whole lot of crazy:

• Do I hug the left curbside, or do I stay to the right?
• Gosh this bike path is narrow.
• Is that a motorized skateboard weaving towards me?
• Electric bikes fly by with deliveries.
• Now I’m being passed by a bike pulling a trailer stacked with giant crates.
• I stop at 23rd Street and get a nod from a fellow Citi Bike commuter with a satchel over his shoulder.
• Another commuter in a dress and heels!
• Crap, the sign says construction detour: here I go into the traffic lane for a block.
• I bounce over uneven payment.
• Screech to a halt when a car turns against the light.
• Pass a family of tourists.
• Curse the guy walking in the bike path.
• Does this thing have a bell?

And there it is, a most unexpected obstacle: a three-tier catering delivery cart — stacked high with coffee containers, cut fruit and bagels — being wheeled right down the center of the bike path for an entire block.

I docked the bike in the mid-50s and went the last couple of blocks on foot, with that wobbly feeling you get when you’ve been on a boat. When I arrived at the office, I was still amped and breathing hard. And exhausted – not from biking a few miles, but from the mental concentration and constant eye work. I kept my gaze fixed directly in front of me to process the traffic, obstacles and road conditions while doing quick peripheral scans for the unexpected. It was unbelievably challenging, and remember, I was in a dedicated green bike lane without speeding traffic or busses alongside of me.

Though no longer a Citi Bike virgin, I doubt I’ll cycle to work again. The subway sucks most of the time, but it affords a bit of mental check-out at the start and end of the day. We don’t get many opportunities to stare off into space..

WEEK 22

The invitation to Saturday night’s séance requested cocktail attire. We were headed to the historic Norwood Mansion in Chelsea for a visit to the other side. Seeing as this was our first séance, Irena and I each wore something from a family member who had passed away – for me, a ring from my grandmother, and for Irena, an evening bag from her Aunt Pearl. We decided if anyone was going to make an appearance, it would be Aunt Pearl.

The Norwood Club, where we happen to be members, is a five-story townhouse that was built in the mid-1800s by a wealthy New Yorker named Andrew S. Norwood for his family. The building was later a boarding house and then a funeral home, and has been beautifully preserved, with its curved staircase, many marble fireplaces, high ceilings and carved moldings. Think hipster Victorian filled with contemporary art.

Our guide for the evening introduced himself as a mentalist who loves storytelling. He led us on a journey of strange illusions to recreate a true séance.

We started with a bespoke cocktail and Victorian-themed canapes. For their time, séances were firstly social gatherings, an evening of entertainment and absinthe that may or may not have ended with spirits being summoned and guests fainting.

As we also learned, the Victorian experience of death was so very different from ours today. People typically passed away at home and families would often pose in portraits with their recently deceased loved ones, which they called “memento mori.” Photography had been recently invented but was crazy expensive. That – combined with short average life spans – meant that post-mortem photography was the only option, quite the macabre family album.

I never thought the Norwood Club was haunted, but it may as well be. Mr. Norwood – apparently fascinated by the spiritualism movement that became an obsession in his era – held numerous séances in the downstairs parlor where we were seated on velvet-covered chairs arranged in a circle facing an elaborate floor mirror. Houdini himself was rumored to have spent time at the house.

Or so we were told. The whole evening walked the line of what is real and what is imagined. What we fear and the grip fear has on our lives. When asked who believes in ghosts, half our group of 17 raised their hands.

Our guide took a meta approach to the whole thing by weaving in the history of spiritualism in the mid-19^th century and using himself as a character to demonstrate how a spiritualist would use illusions to get the audience to believe. Credibility was important back then. The Fox Sisters, we learned, put Spiritualism (with a capital S) on the map, then confessed – shockingly – to fraud. To prove himself to us, our guide made a pair of eye glasses, borrowed from one of the guests, flip upside down and slide across the floor.

The best illusions of the evening involved each of us as theatre.

The mentalist put me in a pseudo-hypnotic trance (no, not really), standing in front of the group with my eyes closed and head bowed. Over the course of several minutes, I felt him tapping on my left shoulder blade and then brushing my nose lightly with a handkerchief. But it turns out he was across the room, touching another participant when I felt it on me. This one had us all stumped.

Next, we each held in our right hands a metal chain with a crystal pendulum hanging from the end, our elbows bent at our sides. On the magician’s instructions, we stared down at our crystals, held our hands completely still and used our minds to move the crystal in circles, ever wider, then back and forth, then stopping abruptly. There were gasps of delight as this worked for most of us.

Our guide’s ultimate trick involved him drinking an elixir (which apparently tasted terrible by the face he made) to slow his pulse and put him into an altered state able to divine information. Before the séance, we were each given a small card to write the name of a person who had passed away and a few details about them. A guest handed the mentalist three random cards, all in envelopes, and sure enough, he got the names and details right. Except for a tiny mix-up as he thought Irena’s card was someone else’s.

The evening ended with an attempt to speak to the dead. Or as our guide said, it’s easy to speak to the dead; it’s getting them to speak back to us that’s the tricky part.

We formed a special séance circle: left hand on our left knee (to ground us to the room) and right hand on the left wrist of the person seated next to us (to link us together). “Never break the circle, or someone could get hurt.”

The mentalist turned off the lights, and we chanted over and over and louder and louder: if there are spirits among us, make yourselves known. Yes, I felt several cool breezes. Yes, the floorboards creaked. Yes, doors slammed. I even felt like someone was standing behind me, although I couldn’t see a thing. It was a little creepy. But, alas, no one spoke to us.

Then it was time to head upstairs for a cocktail.

WEEK 21

In the alternate reality of my weekend morning half-dream state, I imagine myself in new and entirely impractical vocations: I’m a mountaineer, polar explorer, structural engineer, travel writer, freestyle skier, even a cartographer, because who wouldn’t want that job title?

Those will have to wait for a future life. This week I get to be a print-maker for a day.

I’ve always loved the feel of paper, especially nubby fibrous stock that soaks up ink like paper towels. And antique printing presses are so sexy, with their cast iron bases and giant mechanical arms that go “thunk” into place, all tactile sensation and feedback.

So for this week’s first, I made my way to South Street Seaport to learn how to work a letterpress. Walking from my apartment I had a spring in my step, which sounds completely silly, except that during these past five months of trying new things, I’ve felt anxious from time to time. This adventure I knew I’d love.

I learned – with much admiration – that my destination, Bowne Printers (aka Bowne & Co), was the oldest publicly traded company in the US until it was acquired in 2010. And if that’s not enough, the print shop itself (now part of the Seaport Museum) is considered the oldest continuously running business in New York City, practicing letterpress for more than 250 years.

At its zenith in the late 19^th century, Bowne employed more than 8,000 people working their presses. Today, my instructor is one of two designers who keep the place humming, making sure each of the antique presses is operated at least once a week.

Here’s how it went down:

I touched historic presses, including a hand-operated iron Washington Press that had been fabricated just a few blocks away in the early 1800s. I designed my own personalized notecards and learned how to hand-set vintage lead type (they have hundreds and hundreds). I proofed my design on an antique Vandercook cylinder press. I mixed my own ink. I operated a 19^th century table-top press to print my run of stationery, and I even cleaned the press with a special solvent.

Now for the details:

Class started with a bit of history. Letterpress itself is a technique of relief printing, essentially meaning that copies are made by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface. The printer places piece of movable type – which is itself individually cast – into a “chase,” inks it, places the paper in the press, moves the lever arm and voila. This is printing from Gutenberg in the mid-15^th century all the way until the second half of the 20^th century. It takes a while to wrap your head around the fact that this process has remained largely unchanged for hundreds and hundreds of years. I doubt anything in our world today will be this lasting.

We started the project by designing our own stationery. Our instructor had set out several giant trays of type – essentially miniscule lead letters arranged in small compartments with an alphabet key to find what you need.

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We then set our type along with graphic elements in a composing stick from left to right, but with the type and elements upside down. To arrange the letters correctly, you felt for small notches in the type. We also had to put spacers between and around words to get the right leading between lines, so we learned about pica and points. Think about miniscule metal slivers that function as shims to make space. Seriously, for hundreds of years, people set type like this, letter by letter and line by line.

Once we had our compositions done, we moved them into the chase, essentially a metal frame that holds the elements in place – a single unit that is then carried to the press without falling apart.

Setting the chase was extremely complex, and our instructor did most of the hands-on work. Even he had to trouble shoot numerous times to measure and find the right spacers and expanders to lock the letters into place. But once the chase is set it’s indestructible and can be moved between presses with abandon.

Next we mixed our own colors for the ink. This was more like kindergarten class, using a spatula to mix reds and blues to get the shade of purple I wanted from the Pantone book.

The printing it turns out is the easy part. We inked the presses, using the spatula to paint an X on the round printing plate then running the rollers across it, watching them absorb the color. With the chase now in place, we took some scratch paper and did a “make-ready,” tweaking the placement until it was right. Finally, the press was ready, and I pulled down on the handle and piece by piece, made 25 copies of my personalized stationery.

When I think back on the experience, I felt instantly calm being in the space and with the antique presses. It is precise work. Human work. Hands are absolutely required. I couldn’t get over the fact that the tiny lead letters and blocks of graphic elements were themselves all created by hand. Perfectly precise. And lasting.

I often feel overwhelmed by the disposable and fleeting ethos of our world today. This shop is a reminder of the joy that comes from touching something that has endured. These presses are here for the ages.

P.S. Here’s my notecard. A custom Irena & Jayme “mark” that was very complicated to space correctly. Our wedding year in roman numerals.

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WEEK 20

One of my favorite things about living in NYC – what endears the city to me when it’s at its best – is that New York is a lived-in city, with life seeping into every available inch of space. With 8 million people and nearly all of us stacked on top of one another, life inevitably spills out of doors: Parks, benches, sidewalks, corner basketball courts, grassy lots, soccer fields on the pier, volleyball and tennis courts, skateboard parks, miniature golf, playgrounds and hundreds of miles of paths for biking, running, strolling.

I have been no other place in the world where the city itself plays such a central role in the rhythm of life. And the pinnacle (of course) are the city’s rooftops. A few online searches revealed the data point that NYC has an astonishing 40,000 acres of rooftop – surpassing its 28,000 acres of parks.

Sadly, I spend very little time on Manhattan rooftops – just the occasional rooftop bar and restaurant in summer – but I romanticize these spaces. I often look skyward when I walk, taking in the tops of buildings, and on every block, I catch glimpses of rooftop gardens, patios, water towers, lights strung across a dining pavilion.

I learned as well that in the late 1800s, Manhattan rooftops became massive and incredibly elegant entertainment spaces, with bars, restaurants, open air theatre, even performances with live animals. When you think about it, before the invention of the elevator, prime real estate filled the lower floors with their high ceilings and tall windows. Then a new world opened up, a chance to escape the chaos of the crushing crowds on the sidewalks below.

Digression aside … one thing I’ve always wanted to do in Manhattan is rooftop cinema. Doesn’t that sound romantic? Watching a giant screen in the dark in the open air? You’d think an activity as simple as going to a movie would not have eluded me for the past five years, but alas, here we are, Irena and I, walking up Fifth Avenue in Midtown at 9:30 p.m. on a muggy night in early October, headed to the Rooftop Cinema Club for the first time …

We took the elevator to the “skylawn,” and given the name, I was expecting a more expansive sky and city views. But the cinema was sandwiched between buildings on all sides, with a slim plot of roof covered in astro-turf. In some ways this made it feel more authentically New York – as I wrote, life filling every inch of available space.

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We got our headphones and settled into the green folding chairs with our bottomless popcorn. We loved that there was a full bar and servers bringing out cocktails in martini glasses. (We went old school and brought our own flask of bourbon.)

We were there to watch Love Jones, a movie we first saw when it was released in 1997, with a slightly goofy and aspirational love story between Darius and Nina that held up remarkably well. But really, it’s all about the killer soundtrack: Dionne Farris, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, Marcus Miller, Cassandra Wilson, even The Brand New Heavies.

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As anticipated, the movie itself played supporting actor to the experience. Every so often, I’d lift off my headphones to take in the sounds around me — sirens, cars honking, garbage trucks, our movie mates cracking up over silly dialogue. It even started sprinkling at one point, and several of us opened umbrellas to form a little fort and got cozier under blankets.

With fall in full swing, rooftop cinema closes for the season next week … but I expect to be back next year when the days get warmer and the nights longer.

WEEK 19

I had my first-ever reading with a clairvoyant this week. Admittedly, this was not on my initial list of 52 new things to do, but it occurred to me that within a few blocks of my apartment are several psychics with street-level storefronts. As shocking as that sounds given Manhattan real estate prices (evidenced by the shuttering of our beloved Dean and Deluca at the corner of Prince and Broadway after more than 30 years), fortune tellers seem to be thriving. The first place I stopped for a reading even had a line of three people in front of me!

In researching spiritual mediums in NYC, I came across the fact that there is state law banning fortune telling, effectively prohibiting anyone from “claiming to tell fortunes or exorcise curses except as part of a show solely for the purpose of entertainment.” I wish my experience had been more entertaining…

I’ll start at the end. I did not have much fun. As I handed over $40 for my two-palm reading, despite this being entirely consensual, I felt a bit exposed and taken advantage of. Which I suppose I was.

I rang the buzzer at the storefront on Houston Street and out stepped a young woman in red glasses, her hair in a pony tail, wearing a white sundress with skinny straps. Yes, I was really hoping for an older woman with a weathered, exotic look dressed in flowy printed fabrics, a head scarf, heavy gold-coin necklace and lots of bangles. Wouldn’t you?

My psychic pointed to a list of her readings and fees. One palm focuses on personality. Two palms gives some past, present and future. A Tarot reading would draw in others in my life (my palm apparently is only about me). Amazingly there was a crystal ball option for $200. I made my selection.

We sat down. She said her first name, and I did the same. That was all the personal information I shared. She began by asking me to make a silent wish to get positive energy flowing between us. I then rested my palms on the arm of the chair. Never once did she touch them.

She barely glanced at my outstretched palms before telling me she would be completely honest then launched into a 5-minute monologue that was tough to follow. My lines are deep. I’m an old soul and wise beyond my years. (Not one person ever has called me an old soul.) I’m a positive person who others rely on, but I don’t often take time for myself. (Actually, I mostly do what I want.) I’m not sleeping well, perhaps having strange dreams and waking up tired. (Aside from two nights this past week with early wake-up calls, I am an indulgent sleeper. I must just look tired.) I’m disconnected from myself spiritually which is causing tension in my relationships and holding me back from living my best life. (This one we’ll call modern day self-help mantra 101.) Am I in a relationship, she asked? I answered a simple yes, with no other details. You’re in the right relationship she said (thank goodness), but the disconnect with my spiritual self is putting a lot of tension between us. I really hadn’t counted on the overall depressing tone. Perhaps that’s what people crave? A spotlight on would-be problems so they can take action and feel better about themselves?

Then it got weird. From a career standpoint, she said I am meant to have my name in print. About two and a half years ago, there was an opportunity in my work life that I didn’t pursue and that was a mistake. In November she sees a change of address for me. Also, I will travel overseas before the end of the calendar year and that will be very good for me to cross water. She sees a person with the initial M (a person I don’t yet know) coming into my life early in 2020 who will lead me to a career change. Also early in the new year, there will be a big transaction or purchase of some kind, and she sees me signing an important document, although that isn’t necessarily connected to the November change of address.

The predictions were sort of entertaining (I mean, why not go with it). I realized after I left that I could have asked “why” more often to keep the conversation going and see what details she’d pull out of her cold-read arsenal. But it was hard to process all of this in real-time, and I felt like a novice in how to “speak” with a psychic. Sort of like going to the doctor for a diagnosis and needing a second pair of ears to keep things on track in a non-linear conversation.

As we wrapped up, I asked how people use her services. She said some people stop by when they have a question, other clients she sees regularly for readings and other poor souls need full chakra rebalancing – which she said I did not. Finally, we end on truth.

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WEEK 18

I heard the term “sound bath” for the first time in late August. A friend of a friend who is a meditation specialist had recently been trained to guide these types of sessions, which are described as part meditation and part relaxation, with a teacher playing “instruments” like crystal bowls, gongs, chimes, tuning forks, even their own voice. As you experience the harmonic vibrations, the goal is to achieve a deep and peaceful state that calms your body and mind.

I’ve since come across pictures of divine-looking meditation studios with people blissed out – lying shoulder to shoulder on cushions, barefoot, in comfy clothing, eyes closed – and a sound guide sitting in the center brushing crystal bowls of various sizes. I’ve never gravitated to group rest and relaxation events – nor do I meditate. But given a particularly challenging period at work, I decided a “sound bath” would be the perfect next new thing for my 52×52 project.

So, on a warm Wednesday evening, I arrived at MNDFL in Greenwich Village for my first session. The studio itself is a calming space with white-washed brick walls and wonderfully smelling candles. A group of about 20 of us — mostly women of all ages, shapes and sizes — put our shoes and devices in little cubby holes then made our way to the main room which had been set with gray floor cushions, each with a light wool blanket, soft head pillow and gold eye pillow. An adult slumber party with strangers.

Our teacher spoke in a lovely, accented voice, and as we took our places, she asked us to consider our intention for the next hour. For those of us first-timers, she especially encouraged us to use the session to be good to ourselves, be present and get whatever we needed individually in this moment. She explained that the sounds are designed to transport us to a deeply restful and meditative state, and from this might come thoughts of self, or things that need to heal.

We donned our little eye pillows so we could be fully focused on the sounds and took a few minutes for deep breathing. And then I heard the first tones. The sound hit right at my brow between my eyes. It was intense, but I let myself be supported by the vibration and kept breathing deeply. A bit later, I experienced a new sound that connected only to my belly, like somehow the vibration from the bowl the teacher was playing had jumped across the room to land in my core. At one point, the chimes she sounded were in my toes.

The teacher introduced so many different sounds. Sounds I’d never heard before and couldn’t place. I wanted so badly to remove my eye pillow, sit up and watch her (I resisted the urge!). To know how she was producing these tones, the mastery it took to build a crescendo of other-worldly sound that filled every inch of the space around me and all of us.

I felt fully present throughout the experience, but the sounds and frequencies and vibrations themselves often were not pleasant – at least for me. It’s not that they were unpleasant, but I was expecting more soothing sounds given the focus of this type of practice on relaxation. I found many of the sounds low and dissonant, like a magnetic resonant hum, if that makes any sense. And dare I say it, I felt a tiny bit anxious in some moments. Yet near what turned out to be the end of the session (I’d lost all sense of time), there were some brighter sounds like a xylophone or dulcimer (honestly, I have no idea) that warmed me. The teacher walked the room with these instruments – at least I think she was walking between us, because the sounds would envelop me in a consistent ebb and flow. But who knows, it could have been how the vibrations traveled. This part I loved.

There was also something about the combined personal and collective experience that intrigued me. Although I had no interaction with my fellow “bathers,” I can envision a different type of sound practice with people you know, or people who are at least familiar, where the togetherness of the experience could be profound.

Will I do another sound bath? Yes. I will give it one more try with a different teacher and studio. Just to know. But as I’ve been reflecting on the experience, I wonder if it’s silence that invites the most restful state for my introverted self.

WEEK 17

Looking out the airplane window on the descent into Portland, Maine, I saw green. So much green. The tree canopy dense as a weighted blanket. And so much blue — that deep-water shade of blue. Lakes and inlets and watery fingers of all shapes and sizes. It was a spectacular mosaic of unpopulated earth, with ridges of camelback mountains lining the west and glimpses of ocean to the east.

I was headed to Popham Beach to celebrate the marriage of two friends. A perfect “first” for me along the rugged coast of this vast state.

On my drive north from Portland up US1, I had expected to hug the shoreline (much like on California SR1), but during the 50-mile drive, I saw only quick flashes of water. Maine’s coastline, certainly in this central part of the state, is defined by numerous tentacle-like slivers of land reaching into the sea. Did you know that Maine has the fourth-longest coastline after Alaska, Florida and Louisiana – and if stretched out, would easily cover the entire length of the Atlantic coast and then some? Nor did I. The shoreline-to-people ratio in Maine must go to infinity.

Making up for the lack of water on the drive were trees. Stunning trees in all directions. Riots of green from pines, spruce, fir and hemlock with an occasional leafy tree showing a hint of fall red. And when I did happen upon a watery inlet, the trees were right at the water’s edge.

I arrived in Popham on Friday the 13^th, under a full moon no less, adding to the already abundant natural beauty. I met the group for dinner at a lobster shack and peppered the locals with questions about the region, summers on the beach, the tides, their favorite spot for oysters. I even learned some fun Maine trivia: The length of coastline fact I shared above … that Maine is the only state bordered by only one other state (it’s New Hampshire) … that 90% of the nation’s lobster supply is caught off the Maine coast. And get this: Maine produces 99% of blueberries in the US.

It was quite late when we made our way back to the beach cottage that would be our home for the weekend, and I promptly ran barefoot to the shore, delighted to find such soft, powdery sand. In the light of the moon, one of the locals pointed to a rocky island off shore and explained that at low tide you can walk there. When is low tide, I asked? 5:00 pm Saturday was the reply—and so the plan was hatched for all in the party to have a bit of adventure after the ceremony.

Saturday we woke to an overcast sky and a rather relentless wind from the Atlantic. I took a long walk south along the beach and found myself directly across from Fox Island, our low-tide target, a bit skeptical that we’d be able to walk out there this evening. But always trust the locals, right?

The early afternoon ceremony was lovely and moving, despite less than ideal weather, but it was a setting fit for Maine and, as the couple exclaimed, “We like the gnarly.” Later at the cottage, we got warm and dry and filled up on lobster, champagne and blueberry pie.

Around 5:00 pm, a couple dozen of us shook off our food coma and set off for Fox Island, including our celebrants still attired: a black Celtic kilt and lace-up boots for him, and for her, a beach-length cream lace dress with sneakers.

As we approached the island, I was astonished how far the tide had receded. The beach had tripled in size, the retreating waves revealing a crescent-shaped sandbar with perfectly firm grains of sand for walking. Just five hours earlier, the waves were crashing helter-skelter into this then-hidden sandbar.

We climbed the rocky island and stared out at the angry waves of the Atlantic crashing below, the water being sucked down like a flushing toilet. At the island’s summit was a plaque dedicated to a high schooler who had drowned here in the late 1960s. It’s no surprise that nature owns this place.

When we arrived back at the beach house, I studied the tidal map on the wall and found the spot we crossed. It was so miniscule that I had to blink a few times to process. Water and land so vast it seems lifeless, though I know it’s not. It’s trying to figure out where our human size fits into this rhythm. The moon and the tides gift us a sandbar, then take it away. And they’ll do it again tomorrow.

WEEK 16

[I am cheating and posting a third blog with a playa first.]

Dancing has been a central part of my Burning Man experience since Irena and I discovered seven years ago — to our surprise — the volume and variety of music venues in a city of 75,000 people, with the best DJs pumping out deep house and techno on the best sound systems in the world (that is not hyperbole). And if you’ve read my last two posts, you know that Black Rock City sits atop an unforgiving desert prone to 50-mph dust storms … there is no electricity … and all of it is temporary.

Music and dance are always on in BRC. Different “sound camps” in the city are known for daytime dancing. Others, along the “sound zones” at the 2:00 and 10:00 streets, start up after sunset and go straight until the following noon. There are music venues along Esplanade on the inner ring of the city that start spinning at sunrise, serving champagne. And just like clubs in New York, San Francisco, Berlin and so on, all genres and sub-genres of electronic music are represented. (You’ll find the occasional live rock or jazz band performing on the playa, but the dust wreaks havoc with instruments.)

If that’s not enough to get you dancing during all waking hours, there are the most fun and pinch-me-is-this-real dance venues: the mobile art cars or Mutant Vehicles in burner-speak. The most famous (and subject of nasty Reddit threads by haters spewing about all they believe is wrong with Burning Man) are Robot Heart and Mayan Warrior, each with custom 70,000 plus watt sound systems, which head out of the city every night after dark for deep playa (the expanse of land that extends several miles from the city to the perimeter flag fence) and stake a spot — often next to an important piece of art — with the DJ deck always facing sunrise. Mutant Vehicles can only travel 5 mph, so picture giant, tricked-out former buses covered in speakers blasting big grooves and shooting lasers into the sky being followed by a trail of hundreds of burners on bikes.

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Deep playa sunrises are legendary dance parties, and we have many favorites.

[Quick digression. On Wednesday before the event starts, the Rock Star Librarian is published online, a gift of love produced by a woman I’ve never met but adore in the abstract, who curates a music guide of set lists submitted by sound camps and art cars for DJs who have every intention of showing up at a specific time on a specific day but likely will not because, well, that’s Burning Man.]

Along the edges of the city – 2:00 and 10:00 as I noted – are the stationary sound camps, many massively well-funded, with sound systems and lasers and video projections to rival the best clubs in Berlin. But unlike anywhere else on earth, there are no lines, no doors, no ropes, no bouncers, no tickets, no anything. You hop on your bike, use your ears, pedal in the direction of great sound and arrive to find anywhere from 1 to 100 to 500 burners grooving along with you and the DJ. When Irena and I dance at clubs in Brooklyn or San Francisco, which are nearly the same mileage (or less) from home as the sound camps are on the playa to our RV, we often/always long for the option to jump on our bikes — if the music changes or the crowd isn’t great — and follow our ears to somewhere magical.

With all that context (I know, I know), let me tell you what we did this year that was new for us dancing.  

Because our camp is within a few BRC blocks of the 10:00 side, we love our nightly circuit with stops at Kazbah, a nearly 50-foot tall, slim pyramid on the edge of the city with Funktion-One sound pulsating out to the desert … and Daydream (fka PlayaSkool) with its massive open-air dome, 4-point sound and “incendia” metal ceiling which lights on fire … and Ashram Galactica inside a Berber tent decorated with Moroccan day beds and carpets, found objects, lanterns and the gilded lily bar at the center. These camps typically attract DJs playing the danceable genres we love … and a fabulous crowd. The people are amazing at every turn at Burning Man, but these venues pack in a dusty crowd of gorgeous humans who groove big and smile big and make us happy to be.

This year we decided before we got on playa that we were going to venture across the city and dance on the 2:00 side. Shocking, right? With our fantastic and favorite 10:00 and vicinity venues just a speedy bike ride from camp, it’s tough to make an effort to go elsewhere. Plus, the 2:00 side has a reputation for being a bit more gritty and dusty, with a music sound and crowd that skews to a more aggressive and dark style.

But 2019 is Metamorphoses, and I’m looking for new adventure. So, Friday around 11:00 pm, the sky was clear and the air calm – perfect weather to bike the three miles to 2:00 and Cupid.

We got ourselves ready in costumes of course, but also assembled to carry in our bike baskets the overwhelming paraphernalia required to leave camp: water bottles (several to get us past sunrise), lip balm, lipstick, ear plugs, flask, goggles and face masks in case of dust, sunglasses, toilet paper and head lamps for the porta-potties, scarves, hand warmers and jackets. Principle #4 Radical Self-Reliance. Not taken: house keys, car keys, driver’s license, cell phone, money.

Our destination was a new 2019 venue called Playground. We had biked by during build week as their set-up crew was on scissor lifts installing trusses to hang an obscene number of speakers. It looked promising.

We arrived around midnight to a packed crowd and great grooves as we snaked by smiling, dusty faces and bodies to claim our spot: center DJ about mid-way back. Playground had gone all out with fire effects (clearly not an option at an indoor club), and it’s one of those astonishing moments on the playa when the beat drops and hidden propane tanks ignite a dozen or so flag-pole high flame throwers. The heat is intense, of course, and everyone turns a rosy glow. But something I had not expected: you hear the fire too, the punch of the propane as the flames shoot into the air.

We danced for hours. Met beautiful people including a couple from Amsterdam on their first burn celebrating 35 years together (like us!). It was hard to pull ourselves away, but we had an important date at Robot Heart to make our burn complete: Lee Burridge Saturday morning sunrise.

[I’ll link to the set when it gets posted, in the meantime, you can find his prior year sunrises here.]

WEEK 15

There will never be enough hours to do all there is to do at Burning Man. You have to accept that and move beyond the fear-of-missing-out.

After my first couple of years, I’d read articles post-Burn on the 12 best art pieces, none of which I saw, or hear about so and so DJ’s epic sunrise set, which we missed because we were dancing at another venue. Or there was the year we couldn’t find the full 747 art car that taxied around the playa after dark with people dancing on the wings.

With 75,000 people contributing and more than 400 art projects and 1,200 theme camps it’s a lifetime of immersive adventure in a week. Which makes it all the more amazing that I had to really work hard this week at doing one entirely new thing I’d never done before on the playa.

On some level, everything feels new each year. But just as I think about skiing my favorite run from last season or returning to my favorite restaurant in Paris, when I get back to Burning Man there’s a lot of “let’s go dance again at Pink Mammoth this afternoon … “let’s do our annual morning bike tour while the sun is low and the air crisp” … “let’s go to Center Camp and read the BRC Weekly” … “let’s watch sunrise from Bubbles and Bass” … “let’s try to find that camp from last year with the pitch-black, air-conditioned meditation dome” (shockingly we did).

Burning Man is founded on 10 principles which are lovely to consider in all our days, no matter where we are and live. When I am there, the principles I feel most deeply are Participation, Radical Self-Expression and Immediacy. These guide my rhythm and movements, along with equal parts spontaneity and zany ideas.

Irena and I also live by a few of our own tenets: eat when we’re hungry and sleep when we’re tired. On that last point, if possible, sleep six hours in every 24—we are not prescriptive on how that goes down, but achieving 6 in 24 gives us the stamina to dance from midnight through sunrise on several occasions and bike all over the place to both admire and climb a lot of art and spend lazy mornings / afternoons in our camp or any camp with new friends or old friends and run across the street when someone declares it’s time for a pickleback.

Now for my two new things:

I went to a lecture. Some context: after an interminable wait to go through the Gate where your ticket is scanned and your car checked for stow-aways, you arrive at the Greeter station and are met by fabulously-clad Burners (all of these jobs are volunteer by the way) who offer hugs and hand you this year’s city map and What Where When guide, which a friend calls “a beautiful work of fiction.” This year’s guide is 190 tiny pages of events listed by day then hour that our fellow Burners aspire to pull off. But things never go as planned here. No one wears a watch, and the concept of time is completely fluid — and aside from sunrise and sunset which are unequivocal (right?), you have no idea what time it is.

Nevertheless, at 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday, I headed to 3:00 and Echo to find the Academy of Arts and Sciences for my lecture on the geology of the Black Rock Desert. Here’s the page from What Where When so you can see the events competing for my attention at that hour:

Thoughts going through my head as I biked into a wind storm:

• The camp address will be wrong, and I’ll find a roller disco instead.
• I will be the only one there because no one reads What Where When.
• The lecture happened yesterday, just because.

Get this. I biked up to a crowd of about 200 Burners crammed together under a shade structure, standing room only, and the geologist had started early! It was Tutu Tuesday so we had a good complement of students in uniform, including the speaker, whose name I never learned, but delivered on “geologist” wearing dark blue toile around his waist, black shirt, thick-framed glasses and a mad scientist fop of playa-dust-crusted hair. Of course there was the token naked guy, too.

Now, 3:00 is a major radial street as far as BRC streets go, double-width and non-stop activity. As our geologist was trying to project over the crowd (he forgot until about 30 minutes in that he had a microphone, which I am sure took some ambitious campmate a very long time to wire up seeing that the playa eats electronics), a giant art car the size of a city bus but shaped like a red rooster came rolling by with its own carnival barker who got on his megaphone, interrupted the lecture and told all of us at the count of three to say cock-a-doodle-do, which of course we did to hoots and hollers. But we were there to learn (duh), and I did in fact get smarter going deep on cool things like fault lines and hot springs and the mostly basalt mountains surrounding us and massive geothermal activity under the lake bed which dried up 10,000 years ago and is now our playa.

I went to the ballet. If the words “ballet” and “Burning Man” in the same sentence leave you scratching your head, throw in “live orchestra” for more amazement. Remember, this is a place for dreaming big and creating audacious, ephemeral acts.

The performing arts collective Art Haus had chosen to perform Stravinsky’s Firebird in honor of the Metamorphoses theme. Two years ago, they performed Rite of Spring, which I desperately wanted to attend. But in classic playa fashion, just as the group finished its dress rehearsal, a massive dust storm obliterated all hope of another performance at the scheduled time, so sure enough, I biked up just as the dancers were taking their bows.

This year the sky was pristine, and Irena and I rode out to Wing Portal at sunset. I later learned that this spectacular sculpture had been built from recycled metal found in the ruins of the 2018 fires that burned in California, as a metaphor for transcendence and metamorphosis. You really couldn’t imagine a better backdrop for a story like Firebird.

We waited patiently in the dust for a very, very long time as the two art cars flanking the stage/art got their systems calibrated to amplify the orchestra.

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And then the orchestra played their first notes, triggering thousands of LED lights on the sculpture, the dancers came on stage and we were mesmerized.

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These are the experiences I cherish the most. You are exactly where you need to be in that moment, sharing with those lucky souls around you, the beauty and the majesty of a vision before you. It is a gift.

WEEK 14

Burning Man is so many things: discovery, art, music, dancing, hilarity, challenge, dust, exhaustion, beauty, revelation, openness, energy, connection, creativity, love, friendship, smiles, hugs. Not a surprise that it’s my favorite place to be.

Irena and I came late to Burning Man, with our first burn in 2013. The original guard has of course been claiming the end of the real Burning Man for years. More room for the rest of us, I say. We are now seven years in, our campmates are family, and we count the days until we come home.

I am fascinated by the building of Black Rock City, where Burning Man takes place, and have played my own small part in its creation for several years.

Three weeks before the gates officially open, Burning Man is brought to life by a dedicated crew of workers. It’s a remarkable feat on any level.

Picture this: 100 miles northeast of Reno, Nevada is the Black Rock Desert, sparse and beautiful in its expansiveness. Our city – Black Rock City – is built from nothing on an arid, dusty lake bed 4,000 feet above sea level called the playa. It’s as flat as a book cover and stretches beyond sight, surrounded by jagged mountain peaks. Nothing grows on the playa. Nothing lives on the playa. Yet it is here that 75,000 citizens of Black Rock City make their home for eight days.

Each year, the building of BRC begins with the Spike Ceremony to mark the placement of The Man – the center of all things. I learned that the exact location of the spike shifts slightly each year so we Burners do not trample the playa in exactly the same position. This is protected land, and we are the largest Leave No Trace event on the planet.

Our city is built on a series of concentric and radial streets organized along clock coordinates (from 2:00 on the eastern edge to 10:00 on the western edge). The Man sits at 6:00 in the center of the open playa which houses the art. The innermost “street”, Esplanade, rings the interior of the city, and then approximately every 150-200 feet, the streets fan out – from A to L each named to match the year’s theme (Metamorphoses in 2019). To give a sense of scale, to bike from 2:00 and Esplanade to 10:00 and Esplanade is three miles, and to bike from the city to the outermost perimeter is nearly five miles.

Once the many crews set the event perimeter flags and cones for what will be Gate Road (on which will travel all Burners for arrival and exodus) and the city streets and thousands of little flags to mark Theme Camps in the city … then The Man is built and the big art crews arrive to install hundreds of pieces of art including the Temple. Finally, on Wednesday before the Gate opens, Theme Camps are given a supply of Work Access Passes to get a jump on set up.

Did I mention that all of this happens in a span of three weeks? And it’s hot and dusty, and a single wind storm can reduce visibility to the hand in front of you.

This is whole lot of context to get to my new thing for this week, and I haven’t even described our camp, Altitude Lounge.

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For the past five years, Irena and I have had early arrival passes to help build the tower you see here and set up camp. This year I wanted to learn one new thing during “build” and contribute in a new way with our camp.

Most of our campmates are from Boise, Idaho, and are seriously badass. Our 50-foot scaffolding tower has couches on four levels, a DJ booth and plenty of room to dance and take in the view from one of the highest places in the city. We have the most adorable “art car” (registered by the Burning Man Department of Mutant Vehicles as all art cars are to drive on the playa and city streets) called the Playapus, with an articulated tail that seats 24 people. We have a diesel generator to run a distributed power grid. We have a double outdoor shower with an evaporation pond and water ladder to aerate the runoff (no grey water can hit the playa surface). We have a 40-foot shade structure. We have a make-shift kitchen and fully stocked bar in one of the shipping containers that hold all the tower supplies when we pack up camp. And we, Altitude Lounge, build all of this – including everyone’s own tents and living quarters – in a span of about three days.

When our campmates arrive on Wednesday night from Boise, they pull up to our street address (8:45 and Cupid in 2019) — marked with placement flags — and find the containers (stored near Reno in the off-season as I mentioned), which have been dropped to an exact GPS address. It looks like this:

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When Irena and I arrive 36 hours later, camp looks like this, with a nearly fully functioning tower, tents and a shower. Still lots to do but wow.

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She and I get to work on setting up the kitchen and then cooking dinner for 16 of our campmates, neither of which is a new experience for us, but in the moment feels entirely unfamiliar.

My first new thing on playa was this: I learned how to fill the camp generator with gasoline. This doesn’t sound like much but required three people, giant rubber gloves that came to my armpits, jumper cables connected to a battery to run the pump which was attached to the hose that I put into the fuel container which sat on the back of the flat bed that was hauled in from Boise, all while Irena held the other end of the hose in the generator gas tank and our third person watched the fuel gauge on the generator and made wild hand motions for me to turn off the pump because we couldn’t hear a thing over the sound of the generator. Oh and did I mention we were wearing costumes? And it was dusk so we needed headlamps? Job done and we didn’t blow the place up.

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The second new thing of build week was surprisingly satisfying. Our camp leader, Greg, is a phenomenal human with mad skills in so many areas, a huge heart and a love for shenanigans.

On Saturday evening, we were nearly done with camp set-up, yet we knew many, many art projects out on the open playa were struggling – as they do every year – to finish before the event started the next day. It was an especially hot and dusty day, with temps hitting 100 degrees.

Greg came up with an idea he dubbed 15 by 15: he’d rally 15 campmates, we’d all bike out together to find a group working on their art project and offer 15 minutes of help (that’s 225 minutes or roughly half a day of work) – doing anything they needed. (To be clear, I mean anything. In our camp we have electricians, welders, EMTs, contractors, firemen, sound engineers, DJs, among other I-didn’t-know-I-needed-it talents). Greg brings treats too, because sometimes the best gesture is a shot of whisky and salty snacks (this is called “fluffing” in Burner parlance).

Our merry group rolled out of our camp around 9:00 pm, and Greg was at the helm scanning for the right projects. They couldn’t be too big or famous (those crews were hand-picked and already staffed). He’d find a project and give his spiel, and sometimes people would erupt in a massive cheer of “f**k yeah!” Other times, the artists were so beleaguered they didn’t know how to respond.

We stopped at three art projects:

• OPUS which became a giant playable, multi-sensory instrument on the playa. When we arrived, the team was installing very delicate LED tubes and didn’t want us to touch anything. But they loved the whisky, and we did a giant MOOP line to help clean the build site. [Side note: MOOP stands for Matter Out of Place and is Burning Man-speak for trash which can be as small and seemingly innocuous as a sliver of wood, but alas must be plucked from the playa floor and thrown away.]
• Circus Fabulae which became a two-story swing set of brightly colored porch swings. Their team was thrilled to have our help: we hauled all the swings up to the second level in about 10 seconds, and then set up a giant human chain to load tons of extra lumber and supplies back into their truck for them to get off the playa.
• Still Alive which was created by a Chilean artist with a very small, mostly South American crew (many first-time Burners). When we arrived, it looked like a wooden cocoon in the early stages of development, but would eventually be covered with mirrored acrylic sheets. Half our camp helped hang large lantern-looking pieces inside the structure while the rest of us climbed the structure to duct-tape seams. I am quite sure we saved them hours of mundane labor that evening.

So…here we are, only 30 hours on playa, and this experience was an absolute highlight. It was a bonding moment with camp for sure, but even more, these short stops that very likely extended beyond 15 minutes embodied the ethos of Burning Man: showing up and participating in whatever way makes sense for you and the moment.

And best of all, it was a chance for us to meet a few artists who are playa gods in my mind. Their visions are beyond anything you can imagine in the default world. The mere act of bringing and installing art in this completely absurd desert environment is audacious … requiring ingenuity and patience and creativity and perseverance. It’s the best of humanity.

For more on the art read this and this.

Tomorrow, Irena and I leave for our annual pilgrimage (seventh in a row) to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for Burning Man. While the playa greets us each year with beautiful, familiar dusty hugs (Burners call it “coming home”), it’s a bastion of new adventure. I’ll be back with double posts the first week of September.

Before I go …

Fun fact that the first Google Doodle was created in 1998 when the company’s founders went to Burning Man. What a great “out of office” message.

I’m not a doodler … but to mark the next two weeks of intermission while I’m on the playa, here’s a collage of some favorite moments of the last six burns.

WEEK 13

It’s a funny thing to be a tourist at home. But quite common, right? We let so much pass by that others travel thousands of miles to experience and taste.

This week I’m on a mission to The Mission in San Francisco to learn about — and be in the presence of — our great mural art.

Two primary locations house the majority of the mural art – Clarion Alley and Balmy Alley. The murals in Balmy Alley started in the early 1970s with primarily female artists (!) … so I made this my first stop.

The Mission district, as most know, is the Latin cultural heart of the city, and exiting the 24^th Street and Mission BART station, I was greeted by a salsa band no less. I walked east and saw murals everywhere, so bright and colorful. How have I missed this? Everything was a canvas: garages, store fronts, wooden fences, building exteriors completely covered in paint.

I turned into Balmy Alley, a one-lane street paved with bricks down the middle, and was immediately struck by the fact that people live here among the art. Here and there were flowering trees and succulents, and while it wasn’t a beautiful street, it had power and presence. The art was a mish-mash of colors and styles and themes, but it all worked. I saw images of death, birth, love, immigration, civil unrest, police brutality, anarchy, religion, love. Some favorites:

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I walked north on Harrison, a mostly residential street of Victorians, small houses and newer loft buildings, to 19^th Street where I had read about a block-long mural. It was super-impressive and tough to capture, but again had elements of whimsy and fantasy with giant acrobats and musicians, people of all colors, shapes and sizes, faces with wild eyes and green noses.

As I was making my way to Clarion Alley, my last stop, I found this mural at 19^th and Mission, which I later learned is of legendary guitarist Carlos Santana and was painted in 2014:

Clarion Alley, which cuts between Valencia and Mission, is more on the tourist circuit and indeed was filled with all types, ages, nationalities. It’s a newer expression of murals from the last 15-20 years, and the art here was more locally political focusing on themes like affordable housing, evictions, heroin addiction. And a new to me word “demoncracy” which the Urban Dictionary defines as “government by an evil ruing elite though with a façade of apparent democracy.”  

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In all, I found the street art to be wonderfully human, painted in a real city on real walls by real people expressing their fears and desires and beliefs. Like all art, it asks you to stop, consider, question. To me, these murals are the eyes of the city, seeing us as we see through them.

END NOTE. I hit a speed bump this week (my thirteenth of the project). I found it difficult to motivate myself to pursue a new activity and make time for the experience. Each day I had an expectation that I would do one of several things I want to do on my San Francisco list … and each day got away from me. When I look back, it wasn’t any more profound than life happened: overnight to my mom’s and a favorite, lovely mountain hike with her new dachshund Slink; birthday dinner with my brother; time with friends; appointments; birthday dinner for my wife; work—both planned and unplanned; and any extra moments devoted to Burning Man prep (more on that in a future post). All good in fact. I put this observation out there as a reminder of the discipline and stamina needed to overcome the push/pull that inspired this project in the first place.

WEEK 12

I’m an exercise monogamist. The familiar workout always wins out. I lace up my running shoes and head out on the same loop … or go for a Monday night walk along the waterfront … or sign up for Thursday spin with Fla … or follow the same floor routine at home. You get the picture.

This week, with the help of a trial ClassPlass membership, I’m breaking out of my fitness monotony/monogamy to play the field. Witness my descent into exercise class promiscuity:

Flywheel. Yes, I’ve taken spin classes for years. Yes, I’ve tried Soul Cycle. Flywheel was a different lover. The display on the bike greeted me by name (so sweet!), as did the perky instructor sporting two pigtails on top of her head. I quickly got into the competitive vibe as my cycle-mates maxed out total power, a combo of torq (their spelling) and speed, our stats visible on the stadium monitors. I left a puddle of sweat under the bike, but the music was average and the instructor talked the entire time, making it impossible to float in my own rhythm. Not sexy. I did appreciate the love-note post class (“You crushed it!”) with congrats for “bringing my A game.”

Form Boxing. This was a surprisingly anxious decision, and I toggled back and forth between class pictures and instructor profiles for a very long time before submitting. The space was awesome industrial-chic S&M — dimly lit all-black interior with blue LED rope light accents and a wall painted with a knock-off Goyard chevron pattern. About 30 tear-drop shaped, water-filled Aqua punching bags hung from a massively high ceiling, attached to chains with giant carabiners. I introduced myself as a boxing virgin, and the next 40 minutes were a chaotic blur. I couldn’t find the right stance or correctly use my hips for power. But I did indeed do the following (with boxing gloves on!): jab / cross / hook / uppercut and all manner of combinations as our petite instructor belted out commands and spun around the room like a Tasmanian Devil. We took “intermissions” from punching by doing squats, planks, squat jumps and crab walks. I left pumped, smiling and sweaty, but in desperate need of some baseline technique.

Cyc45. This class was nuts. First-generation stationary bikes with a single tension knob and no display. I’ve come to expect bad music (at least to me), but this class was a flashback to bad 80’s night club, nearly every beat triggering a light show of multi-colored strobes and neon spots and all of us glowing in black light. The only upside: the instructor was ripped (best fitness class body ever) wearing a camo bra and matching bike shorts. But she pedaled like a maniac, and every few songs she’d hop off her little stage and come dancing down the rows of bikes in front of us. Not my taste.

Orangetheory. Now for the real deal. Simple, repetitive, ruthless. Friends have been raving about high-intensity interval training workouts, with Orangetheory top of the list. I checked in for my first class, and the young staff were adorable in their earnestness. They wanted to know my goals (um, experimentation?), gave me a heart-rate monitor and proceeded to punish me with the Everest Challenge. As the only virgin, once again, I took a deep breath and bounced between treadmill incline intervals, rowing machine sprints and floor exercises. It felt like being in a custom-curated gym with fab equipment and an attentive coach who drove me to find my “orange effect” … basically very heavy breathing and a maxed-out heart rate. Let’s just say with 20 “Splat” points, the workout flattened me, awoke long-dormant body parts and had me seeing double.  

Bodyrok. This was a cool concept: high-intensity Pilates on a custom reformer. The space was crisp, modern and completely mirrored, a fun-house of a dozen twenty-somethings in leggings and me in running shorts (oops). I felt like an uncoordinated ditz, not quite tracking with how to do planks, leg lifts, squats and crunches on this padded, black machine. But we did what felt like 1,000 repetitions of each movement so I was sufficiently spent. My one gripe: the instructor was distant and disengaged, and sure enough, the moment class ended, she grabbed her phone and started scrolling. If Orangetheory was about after-burn, I’ll dub this “after-melt” as it took 48 hours for my gumby legs to feel stable enough for a run.

Verdict? I may have over-extended myself on the new. As hard as my body worked, my brain was mush forming all these neural pathways to parse essentially foreign language, equipment, instructions, positions. At the end of the day, I enjoyed the variety and experimentation, but there’s something to be said for rhythm and technique and a deep relationship with what’s familiar.

WEEK 11

Looking east from the San Francisco waterfront along the Embarcadero, it’s easy to see the nearly 300-foot-tall shipping container cranes at the Port of Oakland (which, urban legend has it, inspired the giant snow walkers in the Empire Strikes Back). Sitting just across the very narrow estuary from the Port is Alameda island – this week’s new discovery.

About a year ago, my good friend Vera bought a cute mid-century bungalow on Alameda, and it was time to visit.

Irena and I hopped a late afternoon ferry from San Francisco, and – get this – there’s a full bar on board. Twenty minutes later, after passing under the Bay Bridge and near Yerba Buena Island, we entered the estuary right alongside those mythical cranes.

We disembarked in Alameda, and as we began walking along the shore, I noticed one of the container ships was moving! We were mesmerized. Irena quickly calculated that the ship was about four-tenths of a mile long carrying over 2,000 containers. I loved the tiny tug boats, eyes and ears for the bridge more than 100 feet above. We kept pace with the ship for about 15 minutes, delighted with our good fortune.

Our first stop was St. George Spirits, part of the newly christened “Spirits Alley” in the decommissioned Naval Air Station at Alameda Point on the western edge of the island. I learned that Alameda was an incredibly important naval base until it closed 20 years ago, housing a massive number of aircraft, ships, two runways and row upon row of aircraft hangars (now home to distilleries, breweries and wineries). I was unprepared for the scale of this place … 2.5 square miles of (mostly) abandoned buildings, empty concrete parcels that could fit a city of big box stores, roads leading nowhere. A perfect spot for any number of movie chase scenes and drag races.

St. George has an enviable location facing the Bay, and during our tasting of craft gin, vodka, rye and absinthe, we watched a wall of fog quickly gobble up the city.

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Before dinner, Vera toured us around this mostly residential island (25 mph speed limit!) with miles of shoreline and sandy beaches. She explained that in the early 1900s, Alameda was a destination for wealthy San Franciscans who frequented its swimming baths and a giant amusement park once known as the Coney Island of the West. There were some lovely tree-lined streets (“Alameda” in Spanish), restored Victorians, a neat deco movie theatre, postage-stamp homes with red tile roofs, beach shacks and boxy 70’s apartment complexes. But it all sort of worked together in a comfortable time warp, with a slower pace of life and less fog.

P.S. Although this was my first trip to the island, when I was a young teen, my father had a friend with a power boat who took my brother and me water skiing of all things in the estuary at the eastern edge of Alameda. Picture a narrow slit of water by a major highway in an industrial area of Oakland with zero natural beauty. The experience must have been so unpleasant because I never water skied again.

WEEK 10

The day we moved into our San Francisco loft 20 years ago, our neighbor showed up at the front door wearing a smoking jacket and flip flops and holding a martini. Rich was our age but idolized Nick from The Thin Man. He introduced us to the bespoke home cocktail – so ahead of his time – and gave us the cocktail shaker we use today. Wait, “we” is not correct. Irena is the house mixologist, and, until last night, I’d only touched the shaker to wash it.

Enter this week’s activity: Mix and shake my first cocktail.

I did my pre-work on YouTube, watching cheesy videos on how to measure and shake with a Boston shaker. We were craving savory and had olive brine on hand so I lined up all my elements for a dirty martini:

Irena talked me through the pours. I filled the glass part of the shaker with ice to cool the liquids as I poured them: St. George gin (a local, Alameda distillery), Vermouth and a couple tablespoons of brine. Put the stainless lid over the shaker, flipped it upside down, wrapped my hands around the middle and shook for about 10 seconds over my right shoulder. The videos suggested shaking until the metal starts to frost, and that was about all my hands could take before they got too cold.

Strained into our chilled glasses, added a couple olives for garnish and cheers!

WEEK 9

It’s a Saturday in July. The sky is clear, and it’s a comfortable 85 degrees as evening falls. We make our way north on Fifth Avenue to 14^th Street, arriving just after 8:00 pm EDT, ready to witness the epic Manhattanhenge sunset — this week’s new-for-me activity.

Each May and July, there is a night when the setting sun aligns perfectly with the New York City street grid (actually I learned it happens over two nights with a “half sun” and a “full sun”). A giant red-orange ball appears at the horizon along the east/west streets of the grid, bathing the adjacent buildings in a lovely glow.

We all know that Manhattan (from Houston Street north to 155^th Street) is constructed as a grid. What I didn’t know, until researching Manhattanhenge, is that the grid is rotated 30 degrees east of True North … otherwise (duh), Manhattanhenge would fall on the equinox. Classic New York, a bit off center.

Here is the unfolding sequence from 8:05 to 8:16 pm viewed from 14^th Street (there are much, much better pictures on a Google image search):

WEEK 8

Atlanta is not a new destination, but I decided one new adventure would be blog worthy.

On Thursday night, after a work dinner to celebrate an important company announcement, two colleagues and I made a fast break for cocktails in the Botanic Garden. The walk to get there was hotter and longer than expected, but we arrived at 9:00 pm, bought wine in plastic cups and set out to discover.

It was surreal. We first encountered the Dragon which, according to the website, is 20 feet tall by 25 feet wide and features more than 24,000 plants! We walked by camels. Pegasus. A giant woolly mammoth. I’d never stood before topiaries of this scale or majesty.

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Then, rounding a corner, what we had so wanted to see: Alice in Wonderland topiaries! Welcome to Atlanta Wonderland.

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WEEK 7

After last week’s success pulling my first-ever shot of espresso, I fantasize that steaming milk will bring me to another level of independence: cappuccinos, cortados, iced latte on a hot day.

Irena and I wake up Saturday morning after an impressive 9+ hour sleep. We’re rested and have a fresh gallon of milk, she says. No better time to start.

I have always been intimidated by milk steaming. It’s incredibly easy to f**k it up (read: Starbucks cappuccino). Mastery is smooth, no-air-bubble milk that pours like paint and blends perfectly with the espresso. Italians are clearly born with this gene.

First, I watch and listen. We are quiet as she puts the wand into the steel pitcher of milk, opens the steam valve swiftly and brings the tip of the wand right to the surface—just enough to form small whirlpools. It’s a pleasant whirring sound. If the tip of the wand is too high it screeches, drawing in too much air that whips up bubbles. If the wand is too low, it rumbles, pumping hot steam into the milk and burning it.

Irena has the wand dancing along the surface, moves it around the pitcher slowly, then at the moment the milk has expanded, she pushes the wand down for a couple seconds to heat the milk and quickly closes the steam valve.

She taps the pitcher with authority on the counter to distribute her work and there it is—inky white milk poured into the espresso shots, which by the way I pulled and are a deep chocolaty brown that makes for a picture-perfect cappuccino.

Later in the day, I give it a try.

The first thing I do wrong is open the steam valve too slowly and not fully. This needs to be a swift, on/off motion, she says. Then I have the wand too low and it’s gurgling. Then the wand is too high, and I get big milk bubbles. I finally find a spot right at the surface and steam for a bit, then drop the wand back down to finish. Close the valve. Tap my pitcher (need to be more deliberate, she says) and take a look. To me it looks ok, but my teacher is not impressed. I’ve ended up with a foamy, bubbly head on the milk that will not pour and integrate well. I fail and we toss my work.

She takes over, and I watch again.

This is going to take some time.

WEEK 6

Irena, my wife, is a coffeegeek with Italian sensibility. In the division of labor that defines our household, she owns coffee. I’m the beneficiary of a daily cappuccino. Maybe an afternoon espresso with beautiful crema. Hers is an extensive operation with industrial machinery, beans sourced from Italy and daily practice. There is no incentive for me to learn the trade.

But this week as part of my 52 new things project, I want to pull my first shot of espresso.

We set up in front of the very sexy Rocket Milano. Espresso cups out. Saucers on the counter. Biscotti ready.

I slide the portafilter into the E61 group head and do the first cooling shot. In New York City, we have a double boiler, and I’m told this step is needed to warm the group head. I lift the lever and count 20 seconds as hot water flows into the cups.

Rest assured, I am supervised at every step.

Next, I release the portafilter, shake off the excess water and move to the grinder, a Mahlkonig. The first rule of good coffee is the grinder. Espresso must be made with just-ground beans. As Irena explains the grinder, I know I’ve got it easy. She has already dialed in the perfect grind and, as I learn, it’s an electronic dosing grinder, so I cannot screw this up.

I do a first tamp to get all the grounds into the portafilter, and then evenly (key word) apply 30 pounds of pressure for the tamp.

I slide the portafilter back into the group head and position the espresso cups underneath. Next is pre-infusion—raising the lever to a 45-degree angle for about five seconds—to moisten the grounds. Then I pull the lever completely vertical to force the water through the grounds at the magical “nine bars of pressure” to brew espresso.

At this point it gets very exciting. The shot is coming out perfectly. My guide and mentor says this is called “rat-tails” (Really? No one could have improved on this?) as the inky black espresso slowly fills the cups then turns a golden brown as crema is forming. As the coffee turns a light blonde, I release the lever.

We sip and enjoy. Not bad for the first time!

WEEK 5

While my last two “firsts” were unplanned and emotional, this week’s activity has left me frustrated and feeling stupid. I massively under-estimated the skill, effort and determination required to set up my blog and site.

I take refuge in research and deliberation. I’m not a natural tinkerer. I follow the slow path: Seek out experts; read articles; take notes; watch tutorials and do it all again. In the case of launching my new site, this has brought me to a grinding halt made worse by the pressure to go live. I’ve been telling people about my 52×52 project with no blog to share!

It’s time to take this on…

The cheery-voiced tutorial said the first step is to select my platform and weigh the pros and cons of self-hosted vs. hosted blogs. If the site is my house, I learned, hosting is the land. There’s more: A self-hosted blog lives on its own server, and you pay a web host to host the site for you (hence the “self” in self-hosted), making you the owner of your site and responsible for keeping it protected and up-to-date. In contrast, with a hosted blog (could be free or paid), you show up with your goods and move in.

I chew up most of Saturday obsessing over the gravity of this decision and touring the major platforms. My head hurts.

As a hobby blogger, I was leaning to “hosted” because it’s less technical and arguably faster to get up and running, and I don’t want to delay further. But if self-hosting is akin to property ownership, that’s the more adult decision, right? I may be a hobby blogger now but what if?

I take the plunge to self-host, and the rest unfolded with minor hiccups. I selected wordpress.org as my platform, registered my domain, paid for hosting and installed wordpress on my account with one click. A few hours later, I had a modest (read: rudimentary) design, posted four weeks of offline blogs to their new pages, hit publish and … hello, world!

I won’t lie: I felt giddy after days of inertia and weeks of delay to have my own land, address and a starter home. No doubt the learning curve will be steep to decorate this place, hang some art on the walls and invite people in. But I’m taking my bow and curtain call for creating my first-ever website and an online home where this project will live.

WEEK 4

Biopsy was furthest from my mind when I came up with my 52×52 project. But with last week’s abnormal mammogram, the day is here, and as I write this post, I’m sober about what could be.

Have I been this nervous before? I remind myself to take deep, calming breaths. All day it’s about breath.

I walk to a work meeting down Beale, across Market Street, through Jackson Square. 90-degree heat already at 11:00am. My breathing is quick, shallow, noticeable. I talk to calm myself.

Later, in the waiting room, I do more deep breathing. Who is this person? I never do this.

The radiologist tells me I need to be a statue on the table during the procedure. A statue who takes mini breaths. So many breaths.

My breast is hanging down through a hole in the table. I feel a hand on it. I am told not to breathe when they take the images. The images are critical to guide the needle. They can’t do this freehand. Of course they can’t. They are looking for grains of sand.

Twenty minutes later it’s over and the samples have been drawn and the nurse has my breast in a vice with her hands to stop the bleeding and help the swelling. We are inches away from each other’s faces talking about what I do next. She is calm. It sounds routine. I say that now as microscopic tissue are on their way to the person who knows how to read them. The person who gives me one of three options.

I am home now. I’ve had dinner and wine and it’s 80 degrees inside the apartment because San Francisco is having a heat wave. My chest is wrapped in an ace bandage.

This is a procedure that is not about the procedure but the information it imparts. Information that could change my life.

Four days later the doctor calls: all benign.

The odds were always on my side—that is what I read. But it was impossible not to consider the downside. Without this test, they cannot rule out cancer. With this test, they can rule in cancer.

I stand in the mirror and speak to my breast again. I know you are still in there, my micro-calcifications as small as sand. Thank you for being gentle and benign.

WEEK 3

No, this was not on my list of 52 new things to try this year. But here I am a week after discovering the labyrinth in new territory.

In the days since I was told I must have a needle biopsy on my left breast, I find my mind wandering to the tiny flecks they found on the mammogram. Calcifications as small as sand. I walked on sand two weeks ago. There wasn’t anything to fear then.

I look at my left breast in the mirror and imagine these visitors, quiet and invisible.

Last Friday’s mammogram was completely routine—the same three images on each side as we’ve done the last 12 years. After, I met my wife and walked for miles as we often do, bought groceries and wine, cooked and watched a movie in that way time unfolds when there is nothing to fear.

On Monday morning, I got the call: “Hi Miss Silverstone this is Rebecca one of the nurses from UCSF. Nothing to panic about. We want you to come in for a diagnostic mammogram. Your right breast is fine, but on the left breast we see calcifications. These can be benign and monitored, but we need closer images to be sure.”

I think to myself, ok they need more pictures.

UCSF breast imaging is a hive of activity when I check in at 8:45am on Wednesday. It’s efficient and pleasant, and there are many of us moving in and out of the waiting area and diagnostic rooms. They take three pictures and a magnification. A special 3D image. Then the radiologist says: We don’t like what we see and want to do a biopsy.

Standing there in my patterned half gown looking at the spots on the screen, I know this is not the right outcome for today’s visit.

It’s all new. The nurse hands me a pamphlet and explains the procedure and after care. Assuming the tissue can be sampled, she said, there are one of three results: benign; atypical / monitor; cancerous. I stare. Ask a few questions. I am one test away from a potentially very bad situation.

Google is my next stop. Incredibly, I found the corner of the Internet where information is factual and clear, written to inform and instruct.

The findings on my report indicate suspicious (BI-RADS 4). I learn about this new-to-me terminology, the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System or BI-RADS, which sorts results into categories 0 through 6. Mine is 4, meaning suspicious abnormality – biopsy should be considered. Findings do not definitely look like cancer but could be cancer. A rating of 4 is usually associated with a wide range of probability for malignancy, around 25% and possibly lower. A 5, on the other hand, is highly suggestive of malignancy.

Just one digit apart. The seriousness of these calcifications the size of sand comes into focus.

I go about the next days as I would normally: work, exercise, evening walks and catching up with Irena, cooking, eating, watching shows, sleeping (fitfully). We hang with friends. Dance. Party. Drink. We hike Montara Mountain with so many shades of green, riots of wildflowers, towering skinny eucalyptus, a distant waterfall and the blue Pacific to the west.

I fall asleep with my hand across my chest, speaking softly and benignly as I hope they are. I don’t know you yet or why you’re here. Next week they will take some of you out. I saw you on the screen and you are so small. Are you here to tell me something?

WEEK 2

For this week’s first, I’m in San Francisco at Grace Cathedral to walk the labyrinth. I’ve lived in San Francisco for most of my adult life, and the labyrinth (there are two I learned) has been on my “should” list for a decade.

I was anxious walking from my apartment to Grace Cathedral, beautifully situated at the top of Nob Hill. I was worried I wouldn’t know what to do or where to find the labyrinth or that I would be a nuisance to others going about their daily practice. But if I don’t try this new thing, I’ll never know.

I enter the church and the labyrinth is directly in front of me! I am alone. 

I step onto the light-colored stone and immediately feel the mystery of the winding pathway. I look at my feet for guidance. The path is marvelous, curving unexpectedly, seeming to double back on itself. Wasn’t I here before? How will I get over there? It takes me nine minutes to walk to the center and back out again.

The pamphlet suggested I walk with an open mind, to quiet my mind and focus on my breath. I tried on my first walk but couldn’t shake the self-consciousness. I was too caught up in this being “new” and avoiding a constant stream of tourists taking photos.

I read there are three stages to walking: At the entrance you shed your thoughts, distractions and let go. When you reach the center, you are encouraged to stand, sit, meditate, reflect, open your heart and take in whatever it is you need or want to take in. When you turn and follow your same path to the entrance, you may feel renewed strength and clarity.

There is only one path. No tricks or dead ends, one way to the center and the same way back out.

On my third walk I had company, four others in the labyrinth, and the experience was noticeably more positive and contemplative.

I heard their footsteps on the stone, was aware of how their position on the path changed in relation to mine—it was all so dynamic. We’d be far apart then in only a few steps right beside each other but on different parts of the path heading different directions. I’d meet one of them coming toward me on the same path, and we’d step around one another. We moved in different rhythms all with space of our own, yet sharing one path. I loved it.

What I loved more was the labyrinth outside in the meditation garden. It felt more human to be outside, with sounds of nature, the city, kids playing, the sun and the air.

I learned that labyrinths have appeared in many cultures since ancient times and the path at Grace Cathedral is a replica of the labyrinth laid in the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France around 1220. For many, walking the labyrinth can be spiritual, it can calm the mind or even be celebratory.

This was a first I will do again.