Frieze Art Fair New York

May 7, 2012 by marichi | Leave a comment

This weekend was the first time that the Frieze Art Fair, the art fair which originated in 2003 and occurs every October in London, came to New York. The fair took over Randall’s Island over the course of 4 days, and featured 180 of the top galleries of contemporary art from around the world. It was a unique opportunity to see some of today’s best artists in one place, sample food from some of NYC’s trendiest eateries, and see a lot of familiar, old faces. With the location of Randall’s Island, which provided beautiful views of the East River and the east side of Manhattan, a Sunday in New York doesn’t get much better than this.

 

Posted in culture, New York City Tagged , , , |

Travel Thursdays – Turkey

May 3, 2012 by marichi | Leave a comment

This is most of the Turkey I missed when there this past November, the Turkey that I have yet to see.  It was very cold then, there were earthquakes and travel warnings, and well…Lulu’s and my discovery of the best Turkey had to offer was really meant for another time.

Thank you to Kyoto Studio for this video…and it seems they were pregnant at the time, so yet another young traveler will join the world!

Posted in Inspirational, Travel, Turkey, Videos Tagged , |

A Tourist in Brooklyn

May 2, 2012 by marichi | Leave a comment

Ladies at the Sakura Matsuri Festival

Over the past 3 weekends, Lulu and I have spent some time in different parts of Brooklyn.  This past weekend we went to see the Keith Haring exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, to stop in at the Sakura Festival at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (celebrating Japanese culture amidst the cherry blossoms), and to visit some old friends.  For this Manhattanite, Brooklyn often seems another world.  I actually felt as if I was traveling again alone with Lulu, the moments we were on our own, walking around with my camera.  There are some extremely beautiful spots, lush greenery, and tree-lined streets with architecturally gorgeous brownstones.  Not to mention a creative, eclectic energy which I feel less and less in Manhattan. But I am curious to hear if the images I’ve attached of Brooklyn would even come to the minds of friends abroad, when they think of New York.

In the late 90s, I was in love with Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and vowed I would never live anywhere else in New York. For the past decade, I’ve vowed I would never live in New York unless it was in Manhattan.  Although today my dream is to live all over the world for months at a time, with the option to come home when we do to New York City, down the road it may just end up being Brooklyn once again.

If travel, and my own experiences, taught me anything at all, it is that life is often very unpredictable.

 

Posted in culture, New York City

Travel Thursdays – Cuba

April 12, 2012 by marichi | 1 Comment

There is a treasure trove of traveling inspiration on-line these days via videos posted from millions around the world. I thought I would start posting one video a week to keep my passion alive– and to influence readers to travel.  Maybe it would even encourage you to join Lulu on our next trip to….?

While Australia and New Zealand, along with the whole continent of Asia, are currently on my mind, today I get my fix from Havana, Cuba, courtesy of Juan Leguizamon.

Posted in Inspirational, Travel Tagged , , , |

Forgiveness is OVERRATED

April 10, 2012 by marichi | Leave a comment

Maybe I don’t really think that, but perhaps that got your attention. I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately, as I have been lost in continuing to write my memoir of the last 2 years. Someone mentioned to me that perhaps I am writing it too soon. I’ve been asked– Have you forgiven your ex? My response was– Do I actually have to?  It is a travel memoir, after all.

After being told that any memoir is all the more richer when there is forgiveness, a cloud has hovered over my head as I struggle with the quality and message of what I write in this book. Forgiveness has not even been a possibility, as dealing with Lulu’s father still is a challenge, the times when he is hours late to his visitations, when he screws up my schedule, when he refuses to pay his share of the responsibility of parenthood. Forgiveness of someone who has previously hurt or wronged me is so much more possible when they disappear and become a distant memory for years. (This has happened in my life, with friends and even with exes, and forgiveness eventually entered our lives and resulted in stronger friendships.) But when I have to see this person several times a week…I don’t know if it is possible to forgive, without distance.

And then another incident happened last Thursday. He was over 2 hours late to pick her up and was unreachable via phone, text, email– and I heard nothing from him. I missed an appointment. I sat boiling in my apartment as Lulu innocently watched Sesame Street, waiting. By the time he showed up, I was ready to release my frustration with unnecessary words that only made me hate myself afterwards. I was drained for the rest of the day.

I recognize that what he (and I) needs is not my forgiveness, but my understanding, acceptance, and resignation instead. Acceptance that he is who he is, it’s exactly how he was when we were together, I cannot expect him to change, to be responsible and thoughtful just because he fathered a child.

In the immortal words of Iyanla Vanzant:

“It is unloving to ask someone, or to expect someone, to do something that you know they cannot do.”

AND

“Every nail you hammer in your brother’s hand keeps you on the cross.”

Despite the religious overtones, following this Easter weekend at that, these words spoke to me. I understood them.

I may not be there yet. And forgiveness may not be what it’s about. I think instead for me (and I wrote the same thing almost one year ago in this same blog), it may just be about ACCEPTANCE.

Posted in Relationships, single parenthood, writing Tagged , |

To Move Is To Live

March 28, 2012 by marichi | 2 Comments

Being in one place for more than 3 months is proving to be a challenge for me.  Who knew after all these years in New York, and after staying in the same apartment for 11 of them (as much as I love my apartment!), I would equate true living with moving.  I feel most alive when I am traveling, and especially when traveling with Lulu.

I stumbled upon this video from Rick Mereki that was posted 7 months ago (and commissioned by STA Travel Australia), but it was exactly what I needed today to keep me inspired that there are greater days ahead, with more places around the world to see.

Wishing this video inspires your wanderlust too…!

Posted in Inspirational, Travel Tagged , |

On Love and Loss (of the feline kind)

March 22, 2012 by marichi | 2 Comments

Lulu, 6 Days Old, and Mommy Cat

This morning Lulu’s father called to say that he would not be able to pick up Lulu at the usual time. He was crying. His cat was unresponsive, he had to take her immediately to the vet, and believed this was the moment that he would have to put her down. Could you keep Lulu for a few more hours? he asked. I said fine, to just call me, and then hung up the phone.

Mommy Cat was given to Lulu’s father by his then-girlfriend when he was 19 years old.  When she came into my life 11 years later, I adopted her and loved her as if she were my own baby.  In the 4-5 years we lived together, I took 2 different pills to fight the allergies to cats I’ve had all my life, until eventually I became immune to her.  I took over her feeding schedule, washed out our sheets when she had accidents, cleaned up her vomit and cat hair like any other devoted mother would do.  When I was pregnant with Lulu, I used to plead with Mommy Cat, in her old age, to stay alive in time to meet the baby, in time for them to get to know each other.  I treated her as if she were about to have a new sibling come home.

She left our home, along with Lulu’s dad, when Lulu was 2 weeks old.  On his way out I had asked, What about the cat?, and he looked at me and said, You want me to take her too?  He knew how much I loved her. But he was leaving me alone to care for a newborn.  The new responsibility, along with a heavy, broken heart, was too much for me to bear.  I had to say goodbye to two loves in order to manage one.

I have not thought much about her since, except for moments that I swore I saw her in the apt from the corner of my eye or a flash of memory would remind me of lying on the couch against her soft fur. There is a special love saved for pets. I think back to that time, my love for her then, and cannot believe I can even write this with a dry eye– but the arrival of Lulu, and the loss of Mommy Cat along with my idea of a nuclear family– changed everything.

Lulu’s dad just came by to pick her up.  It was done, he was a visible mess.  Although I am sad and sorry that she is gone, even though she is in a more comfortable place, I couldn’t help but think…

He never cried like this when we left his life.  He never mourned with such sorrow, once Lulu and I were gone.

Posted in Relationships, single parenthood

I LUST for WANDERLUST

March 6, 2012 by marichi | 1 Comment

This photo is a film still from the 1985 movie, Room With A View.  As a teenager it was my favorite movie– and I admit it was pivotal in sending me to seek a life in Florence, Italy.  I was obsessed with the characters, the scenery, the period costumes, everything.  It is based on a book by E.M. Forster which I had also read and loved, and I was determined to arrive in Italy and have a similar out-of-body experience with Florence and Tuscany, just as Lucy Honeychurch had.

I first arrived in Florence when I was 19 years old, while on a 2 week tour of the country in the middle of January. While there, I traced the steps of Ms. Honeychurch in a dream-like state, imagining every scene in the Santa Croce church, imagining her and George while they (and I) stared over the parapet along the Arno River, or taking the carriage ride up to Fiesole to see a view of the city (when of course I took a bus instead.)  It was not quite like it was in the movie, but no matter–I was too far gone in romanticizing the city and its magic before I even arrived. My wanderlust got the best of me and I felt like Florence was where I belonged.

On that trip I had met a Florentine boy when we were passing through Rome.  We kept in touch for months and sure enough, I returned to Florence in the fall to study abroad for a year.  I was in love with an Italian man, in love with an Italian city, an Italian way of life, and did not leave when my time was up despite the absolute objection of my parents. I ended up staying for almost 2 years.

This may be an extreme story to tell, but it is the best example of how my life has been affected by wanderlust. I get swept up in it and dream of faraway places and this picture-perfect beautiful life I can live, as if straight out of a movie. This head of mine, clouded in dreams, is what causes me to travel.  Wanderlust for me has always been sparked by movies, books, and photographs.  I love the notions of beauty and exoticism and glamour that these forms of art evoke when it comes to travel.  They are what cause me to dream.

Which brings me to the reason I am writing this post.  I spent the past weekend at the New York Times Travel Show at the Javitz Center here in NYC.  I went in hopes of being inspired, to find our next destination, and to experience the same passion for travel that thousands of others had who would be attending.  I didn’t realize though that it was of course a mostly commercial event, with booths and booths of tours, large amounts of travel agents, and some tourism boards. Absent was the spirit and soul and emotion of travel, the dreamy aspect of voyage to foreign lands, the ideal form of journeys that many travelers aspire to in their minds.  After all, how easy can it be to transport all these people to a state of mind?  I was desperate for this however– the feeling of other worldliness I experience when a new destination comes to mind, to which I dream of traveling.  I suppose I should stick to reading books, and watching movies for inspiration.

If only I could bottle up this transcendent state of wanderlust and sell it!  Yet this is what I hope to deliver one day, whether through my writing or through any future business I may launch.  Travel, to me, deserves nothing less.

Posted in Inspirational, Travel Tagged , , , , , |

It’s Carnaval Time in Salvador da Bahia

February 21, 2012 by marichi | Leave a comment

As I write this, the extravagant festival known as Carnaval is playing itself out on the streets of Brazil, most notably in the cities of Rio De Janeiro and Salvador. Salvador, in particular, the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia, is known for being the wilder celebration of the two.  I fell in love with this city last year, when I first stumbled upon its cobblestone streets and gawked at its baroque architecture and colorful colonial facades.  It is a magical place, where a visitor is so keenly aware of the centuries of history that haunt its corners via lingering reminders of slavery– to its present-day culture filled with the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion, the music of Olodum drummers, the taste of acarajé and capoeira found on its city streets.

A few weeks ago however, crime and violence broke out in Salvador leading up to the start of Carnaval.  Certain groups of police had gone on strike, then murder rates doubled, there was rioting on the streets and looting, troublemakers were killed execution style– still handcuffed or with hands behind their backs. It sounded like complete chaos. People were concerned about even more increased crime surrounding Carnaval with less police protection.  The American embassy issued a warning to travelers not to visit. I couldn’t believe this was the city I adored in peace, when basking firsthand in its energy not even one year ago.  Since then fortunately, just in time for the extravaganza (and massive economic boon for the city) that is Carnaval, it seems things are back in order.

This of course is putting things mildly.  You can read of the recent developments here, and my blog post from last year touches on my thoughts in regards to the blatant violence that exists as one travels through this area of Brazil.  There is no getting around it if one looks just beneath the surface.  It affected me deeply, at the same time I was enchanted by Salvador’s beauty and its culture.

Despite its dark demons, I intend to return one day to experience Salvador in full during Carnaval– perhaps next year.  These may have been negative reports as of late, but still not enough to deter me from a future week of hedonism in a city as spectacular as Salvador.

Posted in Brazil, Travel Tagged , , , |

I Heart Grey Dog

February 17, 2012 by marichi | Leave a comment

Another New York favorite I must write about, because they just opened a post on Mulberry & Prince Streets, and it’s huge!  Yet another perfect place to go with a toddler, and Lulu loves coming here to eat after playtime at the Bowery Street Y.  Will have to add it to the list for “Baby-Friendly NYC”….

Lulu's Favorite - The Grey Dog Breakfast...

...but she still thinks pancakes are eaten whole.

 

...

Posted in Baby, Food, New York City Tagged , , |