I must be a mermaid. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. - Anais Nin
photo source: photo by Brad Miersma, design by studiowonder.org
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September 2012
09/23/2012
New York: I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends
"Live it all through, every inch of it - out of it something valuable will come." - Henry James
Recently, I visited Hillsong NYC at Gramercy Theater. The sermon was a challenge for the audience to step out of their comfort zones... I kept thinking to myself "He sure is speaking to the choir" we live in New York for crying out loud?! But then what came to mind was a conversation I had with my mom a couple of days prior about some of my new friends here in New York. You know many of us upon moving to a new job, city, etc. start looking for our "community" or "tribe" as Godin says. We want to find those people we will be "comfortable" around. Now that I am a little over a month into my stay here in New York I can say I have definitely started to discover some of my "community". If you follow me on Facebook you may have glimpsed them in photos, but let me take this opportunity to introduce you to two of them:
When I first met Victoria I kept thinking to myself "Gosh! She sure does look like someone.." it took me a little while to figure it out and then I realized "Amber Tamblyn". If you are around Victoria for long you will get to know a couple of very important things about her: she is deathly allergic to eggs (upon hearing this, I immediately asked where she keeps her EpiPen - a good friend needs to know this), she is super passionate about social justice and ethical supply chains (We recently discovered that we both attended The Justice Conference in Portland earlier this year) and Victoria is ALWAYS up for an adventure whether it's snapping photos of subway fashion, exploring coffee shops, taking in Fashion's Night Out, and facing the most intense Trader Joes ever in Brooklyn Heights (27 cash registers, hardly any food left on the shelves, packed full of people). Did I mention we even have a list for all of the places we want to visit, and it just happens to include finding a spot with great oysters, because she likes them too! It's a little thing that makes my heart happy.
This is Dan, he is deep, has a great fashion sense and as you can see from this photo he makes me laugh! Dan is a fellow student at The King's College and we have bonded over long subway rides, Mr. Softee, and never ending searches for late night snacks (actually much of our relationship has consisted of looking for food...). Dan also gets the credit for introducing me to the Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery, a little hole in the wall place, known for their cupcakes and pudding.. just imagine chocolate chip cookie layered pudding or banana with nilla wafer pudding. if you ever find yourself near Delancey you have got to visit this quaint little bakery.
126 Rivington St (between Essex St & Norfolk St)
Neighborhood: Lower East Side
(212) 995-1960
Now you may be asking yourself how does this tie into "comfort zone"? Friends can be important in aiding you when you are out of your comfort zone (i.e - new city, new job, new school) and the good ones encourage you to take more steps on the path of your destiny. But if you get too clingy, or content to bunker down with just the few friends that you have let into your "inner circle", then you may miss out on a lot. So keep your eyes open there are always new friends waiting to be made and who knows what new facets of yourself they will show you (and vice versa).