Do you remember the game hot and cold growing up?

Essentially, someone would hide a decidedly special object while the rest of the group closed their eyes and prepared to find it. Once said item was safely stowed in a spot of the designated hider’s choosing, everyone would break out and do their best to locate it first.

The leader would then watch as each person scattered about the space looking for the object, voicing over “You’re getting warmer” when you were on the right track; “Hot – really hot!” when you almost had it; and something along the lines of “Cold. So cold you’re in the freezer” when you were way off the mark.

In recent conversations with friends, former colleagues, new acquaintances, etc., there seems to be a collective feeling of “Is this it?” among many of us. I’ve had more than a half-dozen people share with me that they currently find themselves in the in-between. Ready for a shakeup, just not exactly sure what that looks like.

That place of uncertainty I’ve written about before is one I seldom enjoy visiting but have found myself relentlessly existing in for the past year or so. The little patience I do have, in waiting for the comfort of certainty, has been wavering, as the doors I desperately dream of being open are instead shut, locked, and boarded up.

The powers that be and I have had many an angry chat about this.

My attempt to kick down familiar doors has been met with what feels like “You’re getting colder,” time and time again. I shake my fist in the sky and rattle off profanities in my mind, silently begging the universe for signs that I’m “Getting warmer.” That I’m on the right track, even if I can’t see it in this moment.

And thankfully, the universe has been responding in-kind, usually when I need it most.

I have mentioned The Alchemist ad nauseum (you really should read it), because for me, it is a reminder that there is a far grander plan for our lives than what we could possibly imagine. And additionally, if there is an idea or desire planted in your heart, it is likely there for a reason.

In the book, the main character Santiago speaks frequently of omens, using them to guide his journey, understanding that every experience carries a lesson. Even the moments when we feel we are victims of circumstance are indeed important to understanding and unraveling our purpose, or what he calls our “Personal Legend.” His approach is one that trusts the universe first, then acts in accordance with it, always keeping in mind the dream that ignited the journey in the first place.

Later in the book, we are introduced to The Englishman, who has for years tried to master the art of alchemy to be formally heralded as an alchemist. His chosen path to achievement is one of logic and rationality, spending all his time reading books, testing metals and chemicals, and doing anything possible to turn them into gold.

Santiago, in keeping his head up and eyes open for omens/signs, sees them, and they, in turn, guide him in the direction of his dreams. The Englishman doesn’t really subscribe to omens. If he hasn’t studied it, tested it, or worked for it, in his mind – it won’t come to him.

Perhaps this is an Irish thing? Or just a “my family” thing? But growing up, my parents, relatives, and so on, would always be pointing out signs to me.

My mother would point at a lone deer through the window to our backyard, saying to seven-year-old me, “Look, it’s your grandfather.” I would think to myself, someone should feel her forehead and maybe call a doctor because that’s surely a deer.

When sitting around the dining room table and telling family stories, occasionally the chandelier would flicker – this is a chandelier sourced from 1600s France, mind you – but my grandmother would say, “It’s our ancestors speaking to us.”

Great, so we’re all crazy, I thought.

I’d always found it a bit kooky and far-reaching to imagine animals as people who’ve passed on, gusts of wind as the universe reminding us we are safe, or numbers on a clock meaning “something good’s coming,” but my goodness have I been clutching to those lately.

When greeted with a series of “no’s” and “no thanks,” defeated and frustrated and ready to play victim like a fiddle, I’m met with the angel number “111” on a flat door on my walk.

Or the name “Michael Graham,” my father’s name, adorning the real estate shop around the corner from my flat.

The old woman who smiled a toothy grin and danced across the street, just as my grandmother would have to get a laugh out of me, as I tearfully biked to Pilates after bidding my sisters adieu.

The street name a block away matching that of my parents’ address back home.

A receipt that reads “32.32”

An overheard conversation in the park related to a dream I’d nearly convinced myself of being too outlandish to pursue.

You’d think I fantasize about being an accountant the way I respond to a matching series of numbers. Or a naturalist the way I react to a bird bopping around near my table at the coffee shop: “IS THAT YOU GRANDDAD??”

Perhaps I’m grasping at straws — but that’s a bit what hope is, is it not?

Hope is wanting something to happen and believing that it’s possible. That despite the roadblocks or uncertainty that lies ahead, there’s something good coming, even if we can’t see it in this moment.

However, when you find yourself in a place where your hope is running on E, as we all do from time to time, I encourage you to look for signs as your own personal refueling station. The signs, when recognized, are a lovely reminder that “You’re getting warmer,” even when it feels like that object in your mind is nowhere in sight.

It also feels a bit like an adult treasure hunt, which is rather fun.

Humans are quite stubborn and impatient creatures, and I am certainly no exception. Once I have an idea of how something should be/look/feel, I am immovable in my pursuit of that result. However, I have been learning lately, like the Englishman, that the dreams I envision rarely appear in the exact form I’ve imagined they would.

Sometimes all we can do is collect the signs like bits of a 10,000-piece puzzle and put the picture together one by one. And while that might sound arduous, alternatively, if someone handed me a completed puzzle, I’d be quite miffed.

Where’s the fun in that?

Beyond the signs and beyond the hope, what’s most important is the faith. I don’t necessarily mean religiously – but also, why not. If hope is our nail-biting, wholehearted desire for a particular result, faith is the concrete trust in knowing that whatever the result, all will be well.

We rarely shake hands with hope or faith when everything goes right. Instead, we’re reintroduced to them in moments where we realize we don’t have all the answers, moments that require complete surrender.

So, as summer winds down, if you find yourself in a state of in-between, wondering if you’re “getting warmer” to a reality different from your current one, I encourage you to keep your eyes out for the omens attempting to reach you. And most importantly, keep the faith that it’s all unfolding exactly as it should be.

After all, if you don’t believe the universe has the power to send you signs, why would it?

A playlist for your omen searching pleasure:

I have officially touched down in London after what feels like months – nay, years – and I’ve spent the last few days of my downtime wandering parks, popping into cozy coffee shops, and familiarizing myself with my neighborhood haunts.

Many a work visit has brought me over here for the last five years so I am certainly no stranger to the city, but there’s something about being in a place different than your own that causes you to marvel, is there not?

There’s a rare kind of awe for menial things that you mightn’t notice in your usual environment.

It’s everything from the slightly slower pace of walking, eating, etc. to their inability to say Tuesday without making a “ch” sound. The well worn pub chairs and cobblestone streets. The interior design shops encouraging mixed patterns and rich hues. The packed morning parks filled with people running through the dirt paths or swimming in the ponds (New Yorkers wouldn’t dare take a dip in the Hudson – nor should they!)

I can safely say many a local onlooker might think I’m lost the way I stop and observe an old stone building for a minute too-long.

This certain fascination I’ve been experiencing I suppose can be best described as wonder. And it had me thinking…why did it take a one-way ticket and 3,500 miles to regain that feeling that I haven’t felt in quite some time.

For me, wonder is a delicate blend of awe, reverence, and curiosity. Giving way to it allows us to be more present and more engaged in our everyday surroundings.

It’s in the art that stirs something deep within you.

In flowers, plants, and creatures unlike any you’ve ever encountered.

In flavors and aromas that feel almost otherworldly.

In places of such breathtaking beauty, they scarcely seem real.

And perhaps most importantly, humans that are so beautifully complex that you know they couldn’t possibly have been the simple result of a couple of planets bumping into each other millions of years ago.

We use the term “childlike wonder” as if it is a feeling reserved for the ten-year-old and below demographic. But wonder doesn’t have an age limit and certainly it isn’t a passport-required feeling.

If and when we allow ourselves to wonder, life feels lighter and we in turn feel more grateful. We walk through the world differently when we believe there is awe to be experienced around every corner.

This braintrust is likely already quite familiar with my thoughts on phones and social media. And I, like everyone else, use it more than I’d care to admit for the purposes of connecting and staying in touch and telling myself that I’m educating myself. But regardless of your screen time or social media usage – which I couldn’t care less to know – I’m more concerned about what it’s doing to us. How it’s breaking us down, rewiring the pieces of us that make us human, and making us passive participants in our own lives.

We are increasingly more inclined to be interesting to others, than we are interested in the life around us.

Knowledge has become but an excuse to show off what you know. How we look, what we wear, how much we make, and where we vacation has somehow conquered the nine rounds against the simple magic of existing. It’s as if there’s this illusion that showcasing all of those things is more important than just simply enjoying them.

I suppose it might even be easier to look at it like this: life without wonder is like listening to a song with one AirPod in.

You’re hearing the song and sure, you probably get the gist. But you’re completely missing what brings it to life. It’s not only that the music has gotten 50% louder. It’s the variation of instruments bouncing from ear to ear. The harmonious vocals. The two combined creating a magical end result that is a gift for the eardrums. In music this is called stereo panning – a technique used to create the feeling that you are listening to the music live.

If you’re having trouble visualizing this, I recommend turning on Turn that Heartbeat Over Again by Steely Dan and listening once through with one AirPod and again with both. Completely different experience.

Perhaps it’s my inherent dislike of not having all the answers that has made me somewhat averse to wondering aloud. As if wonder’s more eloquent brother, competency, is around the corner waiting to tell me how foolish it is to be awestruck by something as trivial as the color of a flower or age of a building.

But somehow when experienced by someone else, I find wonder quite charming. In conversations with my father about niche US or world history, in watching friends experience a place you already love, or in the British barista charmed (or perturbed it’s anyone’s guess) by my uniquely American quirks.

Wonder is not incompetence. Far from it.

It is an active search for that which we don’t know, that which we appreciate, and that which we want to discover about this world during the days and hours we’ve been given to occupy it.

Wonder allows us to embrace life fully with questions and awe and an excitement for even the most mundane.

But it requires listening to the music with both metaphorical AirPods. And ironically, requires you to physically remove your real life AirPods so as to experience life to its fullest extent.

It is indeed a wonder to see how much our world opens up — the people we meet, the sights and sounds we might usually miss, and the experiences we’re meant to have, once we remove the public barrier that is our AirPods. But more on that another day…

I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I’m not sure I have any of them.

But I have to imagine that one of the uniquely human experiences we are encouraged to experience in this world is to tug on the thread of wonder as frequently as possible. Not in search of more dinner table fun facts or opportunities to be interesting, per se. But given wonder walks the same park as gratitude, only good can come from nerding out on the simple things.

Wonder is an active verb — let’s use it as such!

So anyway…here’s Wonderwall:

Just weeks before I arrived, it was announced that Barcelona’s Sagrada Família—the gorgeously ornate basilica designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí—had finally reached a major milestone after more than 140 years of construction. The final structural piece of the central Tower of Jesus Christ was installed, officially making it the world’s tallest church at 172.5 meters.

Construction began in 1882 under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar before Gaudí assumed leadership of the project a year later. He devoted the rest of his life to it and when he died in 1926, less than a quarter of the basilica had been completed. Gaudí knew from the beginning that he would never see his masterpiece finished, but nevertheless, was committed to the vision.

When questioned about the extraordinarily arduous timeline, he famously replied, “My client is not in a hurry.”

Admittedly, I’ve never been to Barcelona. But wandering the winding streets of Marbella’s Old Town—past churches, courtyards and buildings that have stood for centuries—I found myself thinking less about the basilica itself and more about the mindset and selflessness required to create something you know will outlive you.

It also made me wonder why somewhere along the way, we traded cathedrals for quarterly results.

I’ve always been drawn to work that feels enduring. Maybe that’s why storytelling has always fascinated me. Stories, much like cathedrals, are never really finished. We inherit them, shape them with our own experiences, and leave them for someone else to continue crafting long after we are gone. None of us builds the whole thing. We simply lay another stone.

For me, it’s never been about being a name in a history book, but I’m fascinated by the pieces of ourselves that outlast our existence on earth. The ideas we pass on, the people we influence, the institutions we strengthen, and the stories that continue to be told long after we’re gone.

Perhaps that’s why I also struggle with our culture’s growing obsession with immediate gratification.

We increasingly reward what arrives quickly, spreads rapidly and disappears just as soon as it comes. Success is measured by virality instead of durability. We celebrate overnight wealth more readily than decades of craftsmanship, and visibility more than stewardship. Somewhere along the way, “building to last” quietly became less aspirational than “getting there first.”

Tomorrow marks America’s 250th birthday.

By historical standards, that puts us roughly in our angsty teen years. Walking through southern Spain, where centuries-old churches and public squares remain central to everyday life, it was impossible not to feel the difference in perspective. Their history is tangible.

Institutions are made up of humans—all of which are imperfect. America, just like every other country is amidst that imperfect, unfinished, experiment. There is plenty to debate about where we stand today, and there are no shortages of voices eager to tell us what’s broken.

That conversation matters. But on a milestone like this, I’m more interested in a different question: what are we building for the next 250 years?

There is a Greek proverb I love: “Great societies are built when good men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never enjoy.” It is a quote I find myself reaching for when I’m impatient about progress or need a reminder that the value of work should come in the shade we can offer others.

Somewhere along the way, the “American Dream” became more synonymous with making money quickly rather than creating something that endures. Yet the most meaningful things we’ve inherited—our institutions, our freedoms, our communities, our families—weren’t built overnight. They are the product of generations willing to do work whose benefits they would not live to see.

Gaudí understood that.

He wasn’t simply constructing the world’s tallest church. He was practicing a philosophy that feels increasingly rare: the belief that some work is worth doing even if someone else receives the credit. Even if someone else cuts the ribbon. Even if someone else enjoys the shade.

Cathedrals aren’t built by people chasing immediate gratification. Neither are strong families, enduring businesses, thriving communities or great nations.

Perhaps that’s our invitation on America’s 250th birthday.

Not to ask whether the work is finished, but whether we’re willing to become good ancestors. Whether we’re willing to plant trees whose shade we’ll never sit beneath. Or if we’re willing to lay stones for a cathedral we’ll never see finished.

Each day, from the second we open our eyes to the second they close, we’re asked to make choices.

But before the first sip of coffee in the Graham household, the only important choices you need to make are how you take your coffee and which mug it’s going in.

Whenever I return to my parents’ house, I can expect a light knock on my door every morning around 6am, just before my dad pokes his head in and asks the inevitable question he already knows the answer to:

“Coffee Time?”

Despite the exhaustion, jet lag or rainy days that might be calling my mom, siblings and I to remain in our beds, the answer is always the same: “Be right there!”

Down the stairs I saunter, either ready for the day in my workout clothes or groggily in my pajamas from the night before. The coffee station is copy and paste every day — the old white carafe that hasn’t been replaced in likely two decades (how vintage!) is filled to the brim with piping hot coffee, the various creamers and nut milks are laid out, a stirring spoon sits atop a singular fresh napkin and the foamer is plugged in and ready for business.

My dad, ever-the-ready conversationalist and early riser, who has already fed our two large labradors and gone for his morning walk, is sitting in “his chair” either in the living room, or in the case of a nice day, out on the porch, coffee in hand, ready to go. His choice of beverage container is a rotation of the exact same mug everyday — a once white but now a faded gray mug with slight scratches and chips that reflect 12 years of ownership and many a dance with the dishwasher. On one side is a sketch of his late father, “William H. Graham” and the words “Give Yourself Permission” on the other.

The phrase, “Give Yourself Permission” adorns dozens of coffee cups that were created in his memoriam, now used daily by my family and my father’s six siblings at their respective residences.

The saying has become somewhat of a familial proverb repeated throughout our groupings of cousins, aunts and uncles and so on. It acts as a reminder that when we feel unsure of something, only we have the power to make a change or speak up. Other times, it’s said with jovial gusto between cousins – maybe we are slightly overserved – when deciding whether we should buy another round of orange crushes at The Starboard (the answer is always yes).

Coffee Time is not limited to my immediate family. For as long as I can remember it was, and remains, an experience shared with my grandparents, extended family, and anyone brave enough to insert themselves into that very chatty equation.

There are only three rules to Coffee Time:

1. This is a no phone zone. You have the rest of your day to let the world consume you, let work take over your thoughts, let people test your patience and be chased by the feeling that you have to keep up with the rat race. That time is not now — be here.

2. There’s no script. Coffee time isn’t a heated debate or a game of right vs. wrong. This is an opportunity to sit down for an uninterrupted moment with the people you love and chat about everything from that weird dream you had last night to your real-life dreams, what’s sparked your interests lately to what you think you’ll want for dinner, the funny thing that happened on your last night out and more. It’s off-the-cuff, not rehearsed — that’s what makes it special.

3. Come as you are. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, as mentioned before, Coffee Time isn’t a performance or a planned conversation. It requires no makeup, business suits or fully baked ideas. What you are and what you bring to the (coffee) table in that moment is enough. Let that be a constant reminder to you throughout your day.

To my recollection, the origin of Coffee Time began with my grandparents at the beach in the summer, before I was even old enough to be drinking coffee. Sitting on the porch at our beach house we would chat about whatever came to mind. Sometimes we would sit in peaceful silence as my grandfather counted all of the red cars that passed by. Other times, as we got older, we would exchange shared shock in how our generations moved about the world and what one another’s social norms looked like.

I hadn’t realized what a blessing this simple routine is or how rare it was until “Coffee Time” became a term that extended beyond the walls of our house, into my daily nomenclature with friends, family and even colleagues.

In college, Coffee Time convened immediately following lacrosse practice at the dining hall Dunkin’ where a pack of exhausted lacrosse girls — anywhere from 4 to 15 of us — would sit around a table sipping coffee, passively watching the Price is Right on the tiny, old TV screens, as we laughed about our weekends, the hellish run we were put through that morning, and perhaps occasionally skipping the next class so we could extend that moment just a bit longer.

In New York, Coffee Time could be a mid-week morning stroll with my best friends or our standing Friday morning date at Blackstone Coffee Roasters. While there were no classes to skip, I would find myself once again pushing calls or to just be in that place a bit longer.

I firmly believe that Coffee Time has a bit of magic in it — that you can sit down with someone from a completely different walk of life over a cup of coffee and by the end of it you’ll leave feeling a bit lighter, softer, and remember that we all really are more alike than we are different. There’s a disarming nature about Coffee Time that asks you to show up just as you are, and allow your counterparts to do the same.

While the act of getting a coffee is a universal ritual, our family-specific model is one that has gotten us through both times of good and bad, in-person and occasionally virtual as needed. Like a church service or hot yoga class that doesn’t allow phones, Coffee Time is a unique window where we get to pause whatever is going on outside our windows and just be where our feet are.

Even having participated in this ritual for years, it wasn’t until COVID when my three siblings and I were all forced back into our parents house, that Coffee Time started to mean something different. That specific moment in time begged us to listen, be there for each other, to grow through differences of opinion, and to help each other put one foot in front of the other when days felt impossible. I got a chance to see up close that parents are just kids who grew up and face problems that I will too, one day face.

As I noted at the kick off to summer, it feels like with every passing year our moments of true escape continue to diminish. Jobs, families, duties, and dreams are constantly pulling us away from the here and now. Summers feel shorter and shorter as we jet from one event or location to the next, and all of a sudden you look up and it’s September.

It is a rather unfortunate realization that I likely won’t have three months of uninterrupted bliss like I used to — perhaps until I retire. But we can lengthen our days by doing our best to be where our feet are, even if only for that one beautiful hour of coffee time each morning.

Coffee Time is special because of its scared uninterrupted nature, yes. But what makes it most special is the company that joins you. I’ve maneuvered some of my biggest hurdles, developed some of my best ideas, and have established a closeness with so many people I love during Coffee Time. So I was thinking…is the written manifestation of Coffee Time — the conversations, ideas, laughs, and moments that come with allowing yourself the ability to speak freely with the people around you.

So perhaps next time you’re feeling stuck or like you need to get something off your chest, may I suggest…Coffee Time?

"I think coffee is the most important part of a human's life. When you get to the end of this life and you are about to move on, I think your last thought may be, 'That was some great coffee!' Everything after my morning coffee was pretty much a pain in the ass, but the coffee was fantastic. Because it's the only thing in your life that's 100% on your side. Every day. Every cup." - Jerry Seinfeld

It feels like just yesterday I was sitting anxiously in a hotter-than-comfortable classroom – knee bobbing, eyes glued to the analog clock above the door, half-seated with my empty backpack on in my stiff polypropylene desk chair as I waited for the clock to strike 3pm. The only thing between me and the end-of-year freedom I so desperately craved was a matter of minutes and my teacher’s just-as-eager dismissal.

To me, the kickoff to summer has always felt like taking a deep breath after holding it in longer than desired.

While the end of the school year came with ample moments of celebration and anticipation, I particularly remember the euphoric feeling of tossing out my tattered folders overpacked with that year’s lessons. There were some lessons and subjects that really sat with me and other particularly frustrating ones that I, for the life of me, did not know if I was going to get through.

Math. Those were almost always the math lessons.

However, at the end of the year it didn’t matter what was in those folders because they all met in the very same location – my homeroom trashcan.

Anything I was particularly proud of, like well-written papers with encouraging notes in the margins or aced tests, may have made it into the Graham family box of fame, but for the most part, I bid them adieu and didn’t look back. I took away exactly what I needed and accepted that maybe not everything stuck with me and that was just fine.

Because I was beach-bound.

For my East Coast friends reading this, you perhaps know the hyper-specific thrill of the first beach escape of the summer. The sweet accomplishment of, “We worked our tails off for this moment.” We survived the 20 degree days, the seemingly never-ending weeks of spring rain, and that pesky snowstorm that always somehow manages to sneak up on us in March. We deserve this.

All thoughts of last year’s lessons were quickly emptied from my mind the second I felt the beach air on my skin and smelled the bay for the first time that summer.

While in many ways January 1 is our token societal reset date, I’ve always felt that blank slate feeling arrive with the first drive of the summer. With it came a celebration and acknowledgement that I’d made it through all of the frustration that the year’s lessons provided.

In middle school, this post-school-year freedom drive looked like a windows-down, packed car as my mother (just as excitedly) drove us to our beach house where we would spend the next three months doing our best to do absolutely nothing.

In high school, this looked like me at the wheel of our family’s cherry red 1995, AC-less Jeep, windows down, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours Album CD turned up to max volume, and the anticipation of summer adventures with my fellow beach friends who planned on doing the same thing as me all summer: absolutely nothing.

After college when real life arrived, that feeling of bliss endured with each inaugural journey to the beach, but the duration of doing-nothingness has naturally been shortened as jobs and obligations have called us away from the endless stretch of just being.

Like school subjects I thought I had successfully escaped, this year I have been reminded time and time again that in life, lessons always have a way of returning – just in slightly different forms. Just as geometry became algebra II, which then became pre-calculus, etc., lessons I loathed and struggled through weasled their way back into my life.

Back in high school, there may have even been a passionate speech or two to my teachers about not needing to know geometry or pre-calculus as I was positive they would be of no use to me in my future career. Even if I had not the slightest clue what that career would be.

Lately, I’ve found myself bargaining with the universe on said real life lessons in similar fashion, saying, “I thought we covered this – must I really do it again?”

And in return, the universe has essentially laughed and said, “Write this down.”

My lessons now are delivered less so in the form of numbers and symbols, but rather in people and situations that, like those algebraic equations, arrive in a rather vexing package. It’s felt a bit like the life lessons I thought I survived have popped back in like an unwanted visitor before I’ve even had a chance to take that big breath of fresh beach air that I so desperately want.

However, unlike my college calculus class that required a second go, I now don’t believe these lessons to be a sign of failure, but rather a chance to handle this time differently. To move confidently knowing we’ve been here before. To acknowledge that I’m in a different place than I was when the lesson first met me and that despite what I may have thought to be impossible at the time – I made it through in one piece.

At the time, I thought the goal was simply to get through the lessons so I could arrive at the beach. But like the 20 degree days that made 60 feel all the more glorious, maybe those tough lessons were what made the drive feel electric in the first place.

Without the struggle, it’s just a car ride. With it, it becomes release.

The papers, tests, and folders weren’t the lessons, they were just the proof of experience. And maybe the drive afterward was proof too – that surviving something difficult changes the way freedom feels when it finally arrives.

This week’s required listening, inspired by 30 years of beach drives: Coast Drive 3.0.

Not the kind delicately packaged in tastefully patterned, handmade bamboo-fiber wrapping paper from Paper Source with a big chiffon bow on top (although I love those gifts as well). I’m talking about the gifts we’re given at birth – talents, quirks, and abilities completely unique to us.

I’m not great at opening gifts. I’ll admit that to this collective.

Even when I love the gift – which is always – I’m just…not quite sure what to do with my face. It’s like I overthink how I should be reacting and end up delivering the awkward combo of a giggle and an unconvincing “oh my gosh, it’s great!” which makes the gifter think I don’t like it. I do, I swear!

It’s just that, as a chronic overthinker, it takes me time to absorb what I have been given, think about how it will look on my shelf, what I’ll wear it with, or even how it will exist in my world.

Since starting this Substack, I’ve received quite a few kind notes from close friends and family telling me they had no idea I could write. I mean, they knew I wasn’t illiterate (I think), but the underutilization of said gift — aka none at all — for 29 years could have fooled anyone.

What’s funny is that I’ve kept Notes upon Notes of stories and ideas in my phone for years. I’ve written full-on articles that have been sitting in the archives of my Word documents collecting digital dust while I wait. Wait for what?

Great question.

Maybe someone to give me permission? Approval? Applause? I’m not sure who I thought was coming to deliver this feedback, but they never came. It was one of those inner audience members who finally threw a fit and asked, “What on earth are you waiting for?”

My waiting is probably attributed to a number of factors, one simply being that I’ve kept myself in that perpetual state of wondering, “What do I do with this gift?” and “Is it any good?”

It’s interesting how easily we recognize the value of other people’s gifts while simultaneously questioning our own.

Back in the day, at the height of her singing career, I used to say, “What a gift it is to live in a world where Adele’s voice exists.” (I still say this.) Can you imagine if she had decided to never use that talent? If all that incredible sound stayed locked inside her?

Or if Viola Davis never brought those layered, human stories to life on screen?

If C. S. Lewis never shared the kind of wisdom that makes you feel simultaneously comforted and exposed?

If Martha Stewart never transformed hosting from obligation into an art form?

If Jean-Michel Basquiat had ignored the instinct that kept pulling him back to a canvas?

If Robin Williams never reminded us that humor and heartbreak can exist in the very same breath?

If Mother Teresa had looked at suffering and thought, “There’s too much to fix, so why even try?”

Granted, we wouldn’t know exactly what we were missing. But I can assure you, the world would feel far less vivid without people willing to use the gifts they were given.

The initial feeling I had in creating this little bi-weekly brain dump was fear — an emotion not unfamiliar to those who put themselves out there.

I will say that, for me, it’s different from the slightly anxious feeling I get when posting a picture of myself on Instagram, which, even after a decade of use, I still find uncomfortable. Yes, perhaps that action comes with a layer of vulnerability — although, personally, I can hardly imagine that the just-over 1,200 followers I have spend, a ton of time thinking about my social presence.

Sharing pictures of yourself or your life might feel unnatural at first, but it’s generally met with the reward of likes or comments, or perhaps even texts from that guy you had a crush on a couple of years back who suddenly remembers you exist again. But sharing a piece of your mind? Your heart? That, to me, feels a lot scarier.

The second feeling I had was anticipated embarrassment. I’m not ashamed to write or share the ideas that live within my brain. But there was a tiny voice, most likely doubt, whispering to me, what if everyone hates this? As if my friends and family (and perhaps even unknown enemies?) would gather around and say, “She thinks she can write, how embarrassing.”

And could those voices exist? Maybe. But they’ve yet to reach me.

Ironically, when I see someone put themselves out there, I feel so inspired by them. I want more of it.

You think anyone has ever said, “I want fewer Olivia Dean songs!” “I wish Robert De Niro made fewer movies!” “I wish Mother Teresa didn’t help so many people!”? I can’t imagine a sane person who would.

Passion is contagious.

One more time for the people in the back!

Passion. Is. Contagious.

Alternatively, I find apathy to be one of the most unappealing characteristics a person can have.

Apathy’s publicist has been doing a real bang-up job over the past decade in making it seem like the most carefree, untroubled emotion around. But you can’t fool me. I believe apathy to be no more than a mask worn by the more complex emotions – fear, embarrassment, grief, doubt, indecision, and so on.

While apathy continues its global tour, we also face the great modern conundrum of consumption vs. creation.

The average person spends vastly more time consuming — watching, reading, scrolling, or listening — than creating. Creation is active. It requires focus, energy, and oftentimes, risk. Consumption, on the other hand, is often low-risk and “comforting,” allowing us to exist in a doomscroll cycle that requires very little energy or output.

At first, it feels benign.

But then a year goes by – or maybe five – and you realize that your dreams, ideas, and interests have taken a backseat because you’re busy watching someone else live their life through a 3x5 screen. In doing so, we’ve confused this constant consumption with a full life. In case you have forgotten, as I have from time to time, you were made for more than just sitting around watching what a stranger “eats in a day,” or what new workout tops that random influencer from LA just linked.

You were built to create, not just consume. You have a gift to give the world – and right now? The world needs it.

If you are a basketball fan – or a fan of film – you’ve perhaps seen one of the greatest modern sports movies, Coach Carter (2005). In its most quoted scene, one of the players, Timo Cruz, addresses Coach Carter, played by Samuel L. Jackson, by reciting a quote from Marianne Williamson’s Return to Love:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us…Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

If you haven’t seen the movie, which is based on a true story, Coach Carter famously locks out his undefeated high school basketball team from the gym, forfeiting games to enforce academic standards. His radical decision rooted in a simple belief: that those young men are worth far more than what their environment led them to believe. In doing so, he gave them something far greater than wins or losses — he gave them hope, and a sense of what they are capable of becoming.

At its core, it’s a reminder that recognizing your worth is only the beginning — the real work is choosing to act on it, to use what you’ve been given rather than let it sit unused.

So I guess this Substack was just as much a gift to myself as it was an expression of any form of talent – proof that perhaps the scariest part of having a gift is allowing yourself to finally put it to use.

I’m inspired by artists, musicians, designers, teachers, philosophers, athletes, writers, chefs, doctors — absolutely. But beyond any title, I’m most moved by people who choose to let their light out into the world in whatever form it takes, wherever they are, for however long they’re here.

That, to me, is what using your gifts really is.

Using our gifts is how we avoid becoming the “Pretender” Jackson Browne sang about. Those dreams, desires, and instincts exist inside us for a reason — they’re meant to be expressed.

Putting yourself out there is hard. I won’t pretend otherwise. But when the intention is to use what you’ve been given to make someone else’s load a bit lighter or their day a bit brighter, it becomes worth it. And when that expression is rooted not in ego, but in service, it starts to feel less like performance and more like purpose.

Sometimes our gifts are hard to open — and even harder to convince ourselves to use. But if even one person is changed by what you give, the form it came in stops mattering altogether.

*And as we approach Mother’s Day this Sunday, I’d be remiss not to thank my beautiful mother for the greatest gift she could have given me and my three siblings — the gift of life. A woman of endless gifts and talents, three (!!!) degrees, and my goodness — the biggest heart you’ll ever know. She, alongside my father, has given us the strongest foundation. She’s given us her love of the ocean, a propensity for travel, impeccable style, a gift for connection, and an incredible catalog of music knowledge — picture four blonde toe-headed kids with unruly hair, all under age eight singing Elton John’s “Levon” in unison at the top of their lungs, en route to the beach.

You’ve gifted us so much of yourself, but perhaps most importantly, you’ve provided us with a faith that overcomes all doubt and love that reminds us we are never alone. Thank you for choosing to be a mom. I’m the luckiest that you’re mine.

And for your gift to me? Perhaps you share this with someone who’s been keeping their light hidden.

As Simon & Garfunkel once sang, “April come she will,” and April has, indeed, arrived.

With it comes the end of my New York City lease. I say lease, not experience, because (1) I’m not ready for that emotional spiral, and (2) who knows—perhaps I’ll be back. But for now, London is calling (in June).

I mentioned in my inaugural Substack post that Paolo Coehlo’s The Alchemist is a book I find myself returning to specifically when I’m feeling rather untethered on my own journey. For the past ten years, it has offered a steady kind of comfort—finding me exactly when I need it, reminding me that getting lost is, in fact, the point.

Like the protagonist, Santiago, I relate to the weight of possibility – the paths we choose versus those we don’t; the question of whether to stay or go, and how those decisions ripple through life. In relationships, jobs, friendships— and in my current case, cities.

When asked about why I was moving, I got a few: “Are you not happy in New York?” responses from close friends and from those who don’t know me as well: “Are you not close with your family?”

Au contraire.

I love New York and I can’t think of a closer family. The leaving is not reflective of an unhappy state, but a deeply satisfied one.

Upon the release of his most recent album, Harry Styles did an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about his song “Coming Up Roses.” Lowe noted that the song sounds like a love song, but there is an undercurrent of melancholy in its lyrics and melody. Styles poignantly responded that it is a love song, but one about being grateful for all of the loves you experience in your lifetime – that the loves that you don’t end up with are sometimes the most important, and that they often teach you the most.

His realisation in writing it: “Not everything has to last forever in order for it to be special.”

We are conditioned to believe that something has failed if it doesn’t endure indefinitely. But as that director I mentioned a few weeks ago might argue, even the most compelling characters, places, and themes are bound to certain seasons—essential not for permanence, but for progression. Their purpose is not diminished by their impermanence. It simply means the next chapter is ready to begin.

As my sister and I boxed up our apartment this week, we had to remove my grandmother’s beautiful old French chandelier and replace it with the ever-so-elegant IKEA ceiling light the apartment came with. Well—not us, exactly, but a very talented TaskRabbit named Dimitri.

As it was being taken down, I thought to myself how special it was to have a piece of my grandmother, who has passed on from this life, here in New York City with me. While I always carry a piece of her spirit within me, the physical token was another reminder that a sense of home exists beyond the contexts of a physical space.

When you take down the chandelier, the photos off the walls, gather the books, strip the bedding, and stow away the glassware, it returns to the blank canvas it was when you found it.

Home is far less singular than we give the word credit for. You can feel a sense of home in multiple places—in people who were, at one time, strangers; in art, movies, ideas, and dreams. Home is substantially more than where we put our heads to rest each night. It is something we carry, gathering and reshaping it as we move through the world.

This past January, I visited friends in San Diego, where I lived from 2019 to 2021. They were moving out of a house that had become something of an institution within our friend group—over 20 people had lived there across a decade, myself included.

We called it by the street name, “Bayonne.” They hosted backyard concerts and it had an “Open 24/7” policy. It was often that I’d come home after work and find both friends and strangers in the backyard, playing soccer, sipping wine or just chatting and listening to music.

When I moved there, I was fresh out of college and had no plan. I just wanted to be in San Diego because my cousin was there. Despite visiting a total of two times before my move, I had this odd pull to the city and wouldn’t let anyone convince me otherwise – including my DC boss at the time who told me the move didn’t make sense and that it would essentially put my career in reverse.

Even after not having lived there for over 5 years, every time I land in San Diego, I have this overwhelming feeling of being at home.

You know that feeling when an old favorite song comes on and you can immediately name it before a single word has been sung? Even two seconds in, you can tell. There’s an overwhelming sense of familiarity that only comes with having known or experienced something deeply—even if it’s been 10 years since you last heard it.

I have that same sense of familiarity in San Diego; in Bethany Beach, where I’ve spent my summers since I was born; and in my parents’ neighborhood in Maryland.

And it has certainly become the case for New York City, my home for the last five years.

I joke that because God—or the Universe—knows that I’m bad at goodbyes, I’ve seldom felt finality of place.

My high school friends remain some of my closest, and I see them whenever I return to my parents’. When I transferred from Virginia Tech, I never quite had to say goodbye; I was back visiting my sister every other weekend. When the COVID-19 pandemic began while I was in San Diego, I packed a small bag, assuming I’d return in a week. Instead, I stayed with my parents for five months, which eventually led to a month in Delray Beach with friends—and, ultimately, to my move to New York later that summer. Even then, my ties to San Diego never felt severed. I visited often, and pieces of my life remained there, scattered across the walls and rooms of Bayonne – even up until January.

I move out of New York City on Monday—the longest I’ve lived anywhere outside of my childhood house.

The ticking of the countdown-to-departure clock has gotten louder and louder with each weekend that’s passed and I’ve found myself actively grieving the wonderfully mundane moments that have made up the most magnificent experience here.

Each Friday morning coffee with friends, served by our favorite neighborhood staff at Blackstone Coffee. Walks on the West Side Highway where I’m left with abs from laughing so hard at my friends’ ridiculousness. Expertly poured cocktails and generously discounted bar tabs at the Crosby Street Hotel Bar (thank you to the sweet kings behind the bar). Central Park Sundays. Bobo dinners and late night happy hours. And each morning, waking up in what was at one point my dream apartment that I got to live in with my younger sister.

Five years ago, my friends were pulling my hair trying to get me here, now I find it quite difficult to bid this place adieu.

Leaving something while you still love it is an odd sensation. I’ve learned you can grieve something while it still exists, and you can also still love something and leave it. But those experiences and moments don’t leave you—and that’s the key.

My boss in D.C. may have been right in thinking my move to San Diego didn’t make sense. He may even have been right that I set a promising career there back. But neither of us could have predicted what that decision would lead to—the people, the experiences, and ultimately, my life in New York.

It is impossible to fail when the goal is experience—and experience I sure have.

Like my grandmother’s chandelier, like the photographs that once lined the walls of Bayonne, we leave small parts of ourselves behind in the places and people we encounter—and they, in turn, leave something in us.

So with that—thank you, New York. You will always be a most special love to me.

*Today’s required listening: Bleecker Street, Simon & Garfunkel

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In Greek mythology, the Muses were nine goddesses of the arts, sciences, and creative pursuits. They were called upon to inspire music, poetry, literature, etc., “whispering” divine truths to poets and artists. The first line of Homer’s Odyssey is: “andra moi ennepe, musa,” loosely translated as: “Tell me, muse...”

Beyond Greek mythology, the term “muse” has been used to describe an outlier – someone who serves as a creative’s awe-inspiring subject.

The distinction being: these are not people who are just nice to look at — these are artists in their own right who have inspired and shaped some of the world’s most impactful works.

Through them, music is made: Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell: “Our House.” Graham Nash wrote Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Our House,” about his Laurel Canyon home & life with Joni Mitchell.

Art is born: Emilie Flöge and Gustav Klimt: The Kiss.

Frida Kahlo: her own muse and to many others including her husband, Diego Rivera: 1937—Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky

Iconic fashion is created: Jane Birkin and Jean-Louis Dumast: Hermès Birkin Bag. The bag was conceived in 1983-1984 on a flight from Paris to London when actress Jane Birkin spilled the contents of her beloved straw tote in front of Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas:

Photographers are cemented: Mario Testino and Kate Moss.

And legendary director-actor duos emerge: Alfred Hitchcock and Grace Kelly.

Sirens, however, were not gifted as flattering a narrative.

They were depicted as dangerous bird-women who lived on rocky cliffs, using enchanting melodies to lure sailors to their deaths, with every tune eerily tailored to the listener’s deepest subconscious desires.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus resists them by having himself tied to the mast of his ship while his crew plugs their ears. He doesn’t pretend the temptation isn’t there; he just refuses to let it take him off course.

If a Muse awakens something meaningful, a Siren tests your ability to stay focused long enough to see it through.

These two collectives have always stood out to me.

I secretly wondered how the Sirens got their lot and if they were as malicious as they were made out to be, or if perhaps they were just misunderstood — lonely even. And as the term “muse” became more commercial, I found myself asking: how does one become a muse? Why is one desired and the other doomed?

However, while their origin stories are fascinating, it’s their modern-day equivalents I’ve found myself thinking about most lately.

A muse, to me, is a true outlier. Someone whose allure comes from not their desire for attention, but from not needing it at all. More than physical attractiveness, their magnetism is defined by their conviction – by creating without the need for approval and being entirely themselves.

Another important distinction is that: a muse isn’t a title you can bestow upon yourself. A muse is recognized, not declared.

Which is why they are increasingly rare.

Sure, there are modern-day examples like Alexa Chung or Laura Harrier, Camille Rowe and Olivia Dean, but even so, I’ve had a hard time thinking of many people who feel completely…singular.

And I don’t believe we are entirely to blame. But the attention economy certainly is.

So I was thinking…

With more voices calling out than ever before, what actually separates a muse from a siren?

Because in a world engineered to pull us off-course – chasing likes, shares, and fleeting virality – it’s worth asking what truly guides us forward, and what simply seeks to pull us in.

What if sirens today present like muses?

We live in an age where algorithms seek to mold us into the same person – identical faces, figures, outfits, routines, etc. It may look aspirational or even inspirational in some cases. But it’s engineered sameness. An algorithm designed to keep you engaged, not unique.

We’ve been sold the idea that attention equals success, or that being seen is the same as being understood. It’s not.

Attention is easy. Originality is a lost art.

And to be fair, I think it’s worth recognizing that we’ve all got a bit of siren in us. That pull toward attention and validation – it’s human. Maybe the Sirens weren’t villains, just voices wanting to be heard.

However, siren songs left unchecked have the power to pull us off-course entirely, away from what truly matters.

Which is why today, the real sirens aren’t individuals – they’re the platforms, algorithms, and doomscrolls that keep us consuming instead of creating. Keeping us comfortable, rather than curious.

Whereas 20 years ago, inspiration came from TV shows, movies or magazines (Cc: Newsstand), today we are inundated with suggestions from so many inescapable voices. Maybe inspiration will strike mid-scroll, but more often than not, we aren’t reaching the depth we seek, we’re just distracted.

A Siren knew exactly the targeted tune to draw you in – the OG algorithm, one could say. And per the global screentime average (nearly seven hours), I’d say modern sirens have a pretty good grasp on that too.

A muse, by contrast, resists replication.

They are so fully themselves that when people try on their metaphorical costume – or literal ones (I’m looking at you CBK girlies) – imitation becomes obvious. You can borrow the look, the tone, the references, but the original stays inimitable.

And while we live in a world that rewards sameness, the core essence of a muse depends on the opposite.

Like all things, there’s a balance. It’s less about ignoring the sirens and more about recognizing them. Because, like Odysseus, the goal isn’t to pretend the noise isn’t there — it’s our ability to stay on course despite it.

Not everything calling for your attention deserves your devotion.

And in a world full of sirens, the real test lies in staying on course long enough to become something original.

Greek mythology, philosophy, and style have always been fascinating to me.

Perhaps it was my childhood crush on Disney’s Hercules. Or Serena Van der Woodson’s Grecian-inspired Oscar de la Renta dress for the “Vitamin Water White Party” in Gossip Girl (you know the one). Or the chokehold gladiator sandals had on me between 2008-2010.

Contributors, absolutely. But the fascination began years before.

Not only was The Iliad on my fifth-grade reading list (a condensed version, of course), but every summer growing up at our family’s beach house, instead of cable TV, our entertainment was delivered via card games, old VHS tapes, and stacks of books. One of those books happened to be an elementary-level rendition of the most famous stories in Greek mythology.

Every day I would bring it to the beach, rereading it over and over between my post-ocean beach nap and afternoon PB&J.

It was a magical time.

While at a young age these stories seemed fantastical and beyond metaphorical comprehension, now with adult eyes I appreciate the many parallels to modern life.

Sisyphus. Icarus. Odysseus. Medusa. Persephone. Poseidon. Pandora. Athena. Aphrodite. Achilles. Zeus. Hermes. Nike. The Fates.

The Muses. The Sirens. (But we’ll get into that tomorrow).

Greek mythology has endured because of its timelessness. These narratives may feel like fantasy, but the themes are innately human: fate, love, ethics, jealousy, mortality, and hubris.

We speak of “Sisyphean pursuits” when facing endless obstacles. Our greatest weakness? Our “Achilles’ heel.” We celebrate “Herculean efforts” when we accomplish the impossible. We say “you’ve opened Pandora’s box” when a simple situation spirals into chaos. And when life takes us on a wild journey, we call it “quite the Odyssey.”

Fashion, art, sport, music, and culture more broadly, have long drawn from Ancient Greece. Nike and Hermès are named after Greek figures. Versace’s logo features Medusa; Starbucks uses a siren. The word “museum” itself comes from the Greek mouseion, meaning a “seat of the Muses.”

So much of modern culture is influenced by Ancient Greece, which is why I could hardly contain myself when I saw The Odyssey was in production.

Since the news broke in late 2024 that Christopher Nolan would be directing an adaptation of The Odyssey for Summer 2026 release, I’ve been patiently waiting to see how the arts and culture world would respond.

The film, based on one of literature’s most foundational epics, is set to be one of the biggest blockbusters of the year.

But I predict its influence will extend far beyond the box office.

This past November, The Met Costume Institute announced the 2026 Met Gala theme “Costume Art,” with the dress code being, “Fashion is Art.” Every year, the theme is ultimately chosen based on societal trends and historical periods tied to modern culture. At a passing glance, the press image used for the announcement looked to simply be an ancient sculpture in a cascading gown.

Fitting enough for what’s deemed as “fashion’s biggest night out.”

However, upon closer inspection, the photo is a collage of both the 1909 Delphos gown, inspired by ancient Greek statues, and the statuette of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike. While the “Costume Art” exhibit will debut in May 2026 with Greek and Roman works, the Met will also open “Across Wine-Dark Seas: Art and Identity beyond Ancient Greece” later this year, focused on Greek artists, travel, and influence across the Mediterranean.

Sounds familiar, no?

While this could be coincidental, I have a hard time believing this year’s most anticipated film and biggest fashion event aren’t connected – or that Dame Anna Wintour didn’t just deliver an impeccably dressed easter egg.

Many experts in the space, including Puck’s Lauren Sherman, have noted that the upcoming release of The Devil Wears Prada 2 – releasing two days before the Gala – will no doubt be an opportunity for Wintour and the Condé Nast team to further drive brand attention. And Tuesday’s Vogue Cover featuring DWP2’s Meryl Streep and Wintour herself, prove the push has already begun.

However, I suspect a more calculated one-two-punch.

The Gala’s connection to Greek art and fashion goes beyond simply supporting The Odyssey’s cast—it allows the theme to unfold organically, sidestepping overt promotion and honoring the Met Gala’s unspoken no-advertising-on-the-carpet rule.

While audiences may initially visit the “Costume Art” exhibit because of The Devil Wears Prada 2, interest will likely extend well beyond its release, fueled by The Odyssey’s arrival in July.

And where better to explore that curiosity than the largest Greek exhibition in the U.S.?

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

So a movie is releasing, why should we care?

Well for starters, Christopher Nolan movies not only sell out theaters – an impressive feat in the streaming era – they tend to ignite broader cultural shifts.

Nolan’s films ask intellectual questions that engage audiences and spark conversation. Taking to Reddit, TikTok, Substack, etc. fans desperately decode timelines and theories like the story is a puzzle.

His themes are anchored in major philosophical or ethical dilemmas – of which The Odyssey has plenty.

In Oppenheimer he reignited conversations around ethics, and power. Interstellar made us question climate collapse and survival. Inception left us debating dreams vs. reality.

So what can we expect with The Odyssey – other than one of the most star-studded casts of recent years?

Like a Taylor Swift album that has fans passionately sifting through lyrics and excitedly analyzing lines, Christopher Nolan films invite curiosity, hidden clues, and cultural speculation.

More broadly, we’re living in a post-Covid era dominated by speed and disposability. With so much content at our fingertips, we’ve become somewhat disengaged to anything that doesn’t capture our undivided attention. Nolan’s Odyssey has the opportunity to encourage the opposite.

And on a broader societal level?

Impactful discourse happens when storylines are thoughtful, when releases feel strategic, and when the audience is left ruminating.

With The Met Gala and The Odyssey working hand-in-hand to drive cultural rhetoric, we finally have an exciting new project to digest, decode, and converse on.

We’ll also likely see brands—directly connected or not—lean into Greek themes, as seen in Schiaparelli’s SS25 “Icarus” collection.

Just last week I spotted ads for Hermès’ latest campaign “Crossing Horizons,” (very sea-heavy) in Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me Substack. The collection, while still incorporating nods to the French Fashion House’s equestrian roots, includes mentions of “Mediterranean blues,” “liberated style,” and “its own horizon in the summer light.”

Rather Grecian, one could say.

Even Nike and Versace feel poised to benefit from renewed interest in their mythological roots. I’m sure my friend Daniel-Yaw Miller of SportsVerse will keep us posted on the Nike end.

All this to say: whether this convergence was part of one big strategic plan or not, culture rarely moves by accident. It reflects what we’re collectively craving – and right now, that feels like depth, meaning, and stories that endure.

As Christopher Nolan brings The Odyssey back into focus, and The Met Gala frames fashion as art, we have an opportunity to shift away from the disposable and back toward the timeless.

And I, for one, am looking forward to that.

Editor’s Notes:

• *As seen in picture 1, the terracotta Nike statuette once had wings as did the goddess herself. However, symbolizing speed, strength, and swift triumph, often arriving and leaving just as quickly, the people of Athens removed them so that “victory could always remain in their city.”

• This year’s Met Gala features a cast of all-female co-chairs across industries: Nicole Kidman (film/entertainment), Beyonce (music), and Venus Williams (sport). This marks the first time since 2018 that Anna Wintour has chosen a women-only cohort. My guess? This is a subtle nod to The Muses of Greek mythology who represented inspiration across creative disciplines. If it’s not…Vogue, give me a call. I have an idea for you.

• Following the release of Oppenheimer, the fashion world adopted something Vogue deemed “Oppenheimercore” – moody, dark, and scholarly attire with a revival in 1940s tailoring, structured pieces, classic suits, and high-waisted trousers. The Odyssey’s costume designer, Ellen Mirojnick, not only worked on Oppenheimer, but created the costumes for Bridgerton resulting in a 443% month-over-month jump in “Regencycore.”

It’s an odd feeling preparing to leave a place — especially one I still love — because I feel like there’s so much to do that I don’t know where to start.

It’s a bit like the question: If today was your last day on earth, how would you spend it? Which, while nice in theory, I actually loathe. Because there’s a lot I’d like to do that I certainly won’t do in 24 hours. Knowing myself, I won’t be spending nine hours on a plane trying to fly to a bucket list locale, or anxiously calling my entire phone list.

Really all you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. Which is what I’ll do.

The mixture of it all has left me with many thoughts, yet simultaneously, nothing cohesive enough for one unique piece this week. For today’s edition, I fear all I can muster is a lovely little list of recent thoughts, ideas, scenes, and songs that I’ve enjoyed recently.

If you’re in search of a theme, I’m not sure you’ll find one. But let me know if you do?

Xx

I am itching for Spring. Every ounce of color has captured my ADD eyes lately and if the temps don’t get to 60 and stay there, I will soon perish.

If you watched the Oscars, you may have felt a bit disheartened by how many Ozempic figures and unneeded face lifts were on display. Good news: Aerie’s latest campaign that dropped yesterday feels like a breath of fresh air for the industry encouraging “real bodies, moments, and places,” in a world that seems to prioritize the opposite lately. Loved it.

It also reminds me of a favorite quote from The Velveteen Rabbit which my mother would read to my siblings and I around this time every year:

Bleachers have a new album coming out on May 22 called everyone for ten minutes, and I have not stopped listening to their early released single: dirty wedding dress. It’s Bruce Springsteen meets windows down beach drive. Highly recommend.

But there’s also been jussst a bit of this…

As it turns out it was her mother’s. (She had the most impeccable taste).

As a resident of New York City, I’ve found that the probability of walking down the street and seeing multiple women sporting the same Zara jacket in a relatively short time period, is rather high.

There’s nothing wrong with this of course.

But in a world where algorithms are serving us the same answers, thoughts, and things to care about, fashion—at least to me—should be a unique expression of creativity and personality, not a conveyor belt of more of the same.

While I’m certainly not immune to shopping contemporary collections from all the usual places, there’s something about being surprised by pieces I can’t find anywhere else that feels special.

Since I’ve deleted or Bricked most of my social apps, my scrolling has occasionally been replaced with browsing The RealReal. There I find pieces from all sorts of brands, each unique to its era and designer, and each carrying what I like to imagine is an interesting story.

Resale is also better for the environment, which makes me feel slightly more…philanthropic…about my spending habits.

(Sorry dad… but think of all the landfills I’m saving!)

And if I’m being honest, the brands themselves matter too. The quality of pieces I find there far exceeds most fast-fashion alternatives—not necessarily because I care about the name, but because those brands are known for craftsmanship, materials, and attention to detail.

A few months ago, while speaking with a luxury brand I greatly admire, I found myself asking the question:

What is luxury?

It’s something art brokers, hospitality groups, designers from the world’s top fashion houses, marketers of elite social clubs, and private transportation companies sit around boardrooms and ask each other every year.

Perhaps even more frequently.

Despite being an industry projected to reach nearly $490 billion, the word “luxury” itself seems to have lost a universal definition.

And perhaps that’s understandable.

The rules of the game have changed. With so many societal shifts over the past decade, what we define as a luxury has changed too.

What once described something rare and desirable is now, in many cases, just as overproduced and oversaturated as everything else.

Publicly traded conglomerates face constant pressure to deliver quarterly growth, global expansion, new product categories, and higher sales. That pressure has reshaped not only how luxury brands operate—but what they create.

Instead of releasing a few carefully crafted collections each year, many brands now operate on an almost nonstop product calendar.

And over-accessibility is beginning to dilute meaning.

The word luxury comes from the Latin luxuria, describing excess, indulgence, and lack of self-control. In ancient Rome, luxuria was often used critically to describe extravagant living and overindulgence in pleasure. Philosophers like Seneca and Cicero warned that luxury weakened society by encouraging decadence.

For much of early Western history, luxury was viewed with suspicion.

During the Middle Ages, Christian teachings encouraged humility and modesty, seeing extravagant clothing, jewelry, and feasts as forms of vanity. European societies even introduced sumptuary laws, restricting what people could wear based on social class.

By the 17th and 18th centuries, philosophers began arguing that luxury consumption could benefit society. Bernard Mandeville famously suggested in The Fable of the Bees (1714) that private vices could produce public benefits.

But the real branding pivot came in the 19th century, when European luxury houses began forming.

Louis Vuitton created travel trunks for aristocrats. Hermès crafted saddlery for European nobility. Cartier served royal courts.

Luxury, once viewed as excess, became associated with craftsmanship, refinement, and cultural sophistication.

Then along came marketing.

By the 20th century, luxury had become aspirational. Designers like Coco Chanel and Christian Dior promoted elegance and glamour through magazines, film, and celebrity culture.

Films like The Great Gatsby, Sabrina, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s further romanticized luxury. In the iconic opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Audrey Hepburn stands outside Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue in a black dress, coffee and pastry in hand.

Instead of portraying luxury as distant, the scene made Tiffany’s feel like a place to dream about and emotionally connect with.

Tiffany & Co., who (fun fact) initially hesitated to participate in the film, benefited from decades of cultural association in return. You don’t say.

Fast forward to today.

Many brands are doubling down on scale and buzz. Shows like Succession, Gossip Girl, and The White Lotus often portray luxury as synonymous with wealth. Social media amplifies this, positioning expensive products, travel, and dining as necessities rather than indulgences.

Others are trying to reclaim luxury’s earlier meaning: rarity, craft, and cultural depth. Hence the rise of the phrase quiet luxury.

Which brings me back to the question:

Is luxury about valuable things—or about valuing things differently?

For me, luxury feels like a new cashmere sweater. A slow cup of coffee at Bar Piscellino with friends on Spring morning. Incredible and familiar service at a favorite restaurant or hotel. A well-curated space with impeccable cohesiveness and captivating scents to match. A sunrise. The first drive up Route 1 in the Summer. Rare colors and patterns. Experiencing a new culture for the first time. An artist’s dedication to thoughtful storytelling. A walk around the Cap-Ferrat coast. Time with loved ones. An Aperol Spritz on a European sidewalk. A clear mind. Hand-written letters. A hand to hold when you’re scared or alone. Growing old. The ability to dream up and create something that people appreciate. Sleeping in. Fresh flowers. The feeling of being seen and heard. A shared dialect in a foreign land. Warm sun on your face.

Time. In all its forms.

I won’t pretend I don’t like nice things or places or experiences—I do. Very much, actually.

I just think luxury is perhaps far more subjective than we’ve allowed it to be. And for that matter, far more human.

Some brands understand this shift.

French designer Jacquemus, for example, introduced something called the “summer switch off,” pausing marketing activity through August and encouraging audiences to do the same. Founder Simon Porte Jacquemus has also reduced the brand’s output to just two collections per year, pushing back against the industry’s relentless pace.

Moncler recently launched a campaign featuring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino reflecting on their 50-year friendship. Instead of focusing solely on jackets, the campaign centered on warmth, conversation, and human connection. In one of the campaign’s voiceovers, De Niro and Pacino say: “Warmth comes from the walks and the talks. From pulling up a chair and having a chat.” That warmth “was never about the outside.”

The Ritz-Carlton empowers every employee to spend up to $2,000 per guest to solve a problem or create a memorable moment—no manager approval required. The philosophy is simple: luxury isn’t just the chandelier in the lobby, it’s the feeling that someone noticed what you needed and cared enough to act.

Brunello Cucinelli operates under a philosophy he calls “humanistic capitalism,” emphasizing craftsmanship, sustainability, and meaningful work. His company invests heavily in artisans and community life in Solomeo, Italy, where he has restored cultural spaces and built an academy of craftsmanship.

These brands remind us that luxury isn’t only about products.

It’s about people, craft, time, and care.

Which leads me to this:

Luxury, I believe, is something that feels rare and special.

Sometimes that involves expense. Often it doesn’t.

Most of the luxuries I think about are experiences—or the way I feel within an environment. Luxury might come with a price tag in the case of a stay at the Ritz. But what truly makes it luxurious is the feeling of being cared for, welcomed, and understood.

And that, perhaps, is the kind of luxury worth preserving.

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I absolutely love a “dinner party question.”

You know the ones? Those imaginative little inquiries that feel like a delicate blend of thoughtful introspection and outright absurdity.

My sister shared one with me this past year that I particularly enjoy and return to often:

If your life were a TV show, what would the audience be yelling at the screen right now?

Imagining my life as a TV show is quite fun.

I prefer it to a movie because, for one, the airtime is far more generous. A show allows the characters and plot line much more runway for development. Anything could happen in the episodes to follow. Will there be a surprise in the season finale? Will a handsome new character be introduced? Will it have a Grey’s Anatomy-like run?

I certainly hope so.

I also enjoy picturing that the audience I’ve metaphorically amassed would care enough to tune in and cozy up to my storyline each week. Passionately tracking how my character has developed, how the plot has thickened, if I’ve learned anything since my last dance with destiny or if I keep repeating the same old patterns.

While I do love the excitement of a first watch and experiencing a new world for the first time, I fear I must admit to being a chronic re-watcher.

I’ve seen The OC probably 17 times. Parks and Rec and Friends are easy watches I constantly come back to. We all know how much I love Shrinking (if you haven’t started watching yet — consider this your homework). Gossip Girl, New Girl, Derry Girls, Gilmore Girls, Golden Girls. Lots of girl-named shows, come to think of it.

I find peace in a rewatch because, what can I say — I like knowing what’s going to happen.

Having already dealt with the initial shock or heartbreak that might come with a first watch, I’m able to tune in with a sense of familiarity for a plot line and cast of characters that have come to feel like friends of my own.

You know when you’re watching a show and the next move the main character should make feels so blatantly obvious? Exhibit A: Marissa Cooper in The OC. Didn’t you ever just want to reach through the screen and shake her? Constantly making the same mistakes. Dating the same copy-and-paste problematic guys. Having the same fights with Ryan and yet, every week, you could still find me sitting on the edge of my seat, hoping this is the episode she figures it out.

Even through her headbangingly foolish choices, you wanted to root for her.

This question has a habit of surfacing when I find myself stuck in the in-between. The place where, deep down, I probably know what it is I want but almost need those metaphorical viewers to scream it at me. As if the wind from their resounding voices has the power to push me onto the path that’s been obstructed from my view — or perhaps the path that I’ve been avoiding.

I take things less personally when that opinionated bunch has notes, because for some reason, it feels less like self-criticism and more like the supportive words of a friend.

Sometimes they’ll offer feedback on smaller matters…

“Not him. Anyone but him.”

“Proud of her. She would not have handled it like this in season two.”

“Oh my god, just move to the city already.”

Lately? I suspect they’ve been a little bored of me.

Over the past few months, life has planted some rather large question marks in my “what’s next” category. And in return, I’d been clinging onto what was left of my familiar plotline for the sake of controlling the narrative.

I can sense that the audience in my head thinks this “routine” I’ve created hasn’t led to much character or plot development. That my quest for control has resulted in predictability, and yes, maybe that’s a more comfortable place to exist — but it’s not the same as growth.

And that realization led me to a slightly more uncomfortable plot twist:

We are not the directors of this show.

Yes, yes I know. [Insert string of expletives here].

But how could we be? If I was directing this show, I would certainly have made some very different creative decisions.

Can’t say I’d have scripted my mom and grandmother battling cancer at the same time. Probably wouldn’t have transferred schools in college. I wouldn’t have lost jobs, parted from friends or written in periods of indecision and sadness. I wouldn’t have watched people I love lose loved ones — or lost them myself.

If I was directing this show, I’d be in Lake Como with George Clooney. (Imagine?)

So, while I may be the main character, I’m not the director. Really more of a creative director if anything.

God. The Universe. The Fates. Whoever you credit - they are the ones stringing together our scenes, introducing new characters to our cast, and tossing in plot twists just when it feels like we’ve memorized our lines.

This, as I’m sure you could imagine, is a hard pill to swallow for someone such as I, who – for better or worse – prefers to believe she holds the clipboard.

I used to think that if I steered the character in the “right direction,” I’d be marked safe from a bad storyline. As if the director would reward me for perfect behavior: flawless performance, eight-to-ten hours of sleep, no missed cues. But even if I did all of that under the illusion that I’d never be written off the show, that doesn’t feel like the arc this beloved character deserves.

So what do we – the creative directors – get to control?

We choose where to put our energy. Which characters stay (to an extent). What passions we pursue. How we treat the supporting cast. How we handle the plot twists.

But the director? Still in the background. Casting. Cutting. Rewriting. Always revising the script just when it feels like we’ve memorized our lines.

For a long time I’d felt rather perturbed by these unapproved edits. The audacity! Writing characters out of my cast. Changing romantic leads. Writing in tragedy. Moving me away from cities, jobs and things that I believed my character wanted and deserved.

And yet, while those decisions weren’t in my original draft, a lot of them created some unexpectedly beautiful seasons. Moments I never would have written have led me here. I’m still learning to accept not being the director. But it’s freeing, too.

Because maybe controlling the whole storyline was never the job.

Maybe the job is to play the role fully. To offer creative notes (always do). To evolve when the script demands it. And to love our cast to the fullest extent, in each scene and season we are lucky enough to have with them.

There are still a few creative liberties I’d like to dispute with the director, but I’ve made it through every prior episode with some scars, great stories, and deeper love for my cast. We don’t control when the director calls curtain, but we do control how vibrantly we show up while the show is running.

Did I mention?

This show is a live taping. There’s no going back or redoing takes.

So…how are you going to make this season incredible?

So I was thinking…

about the 2016 flashbacks that flooded social media at the top of the year (my goodness, did the ripped-jean lobby stay winning!) which – alongside Gen Z’s renewed interest in analog media and the recent return-to-flip-phone movement – has had me daydreaming about the simpler, sepia-filtered days of yesteryear.

Every once in a while, on my little stomp through Manhattan’s West Village, I pass the famous Casa Magazines store. This 50+ year-old institution has titles from around the globe, stacked waist-high, waiting for print lovers to give them a good home. It remains a rare outlier, thriving while fellow magazine shops have disappeared in the digital boom.

I have always found that there’s something special about picking up a physical magazine, flipping through page by page, absorbing and digesting at my leisure.

While sadly, I did not live in New York during the thrilling height of magazine consumption, as I am but a child (29), growing up I would daydream of stopping by my local newsstand on the way home from my imaginary job and picking up the latest issue of Vogue or The New Yorker as my preferred method of culture-enhanced escape.

Rather, for me, in high school, this looked a lot like befriending the school librarian so I had first dibs on the newest Seventeen Magazine or Teen Vogue before anyone else could crumple the pages and steal the fragrance samples.

Given phones weren’t allowed in school and social media was still a magnificent wasteland of grainy latte pictures and unserious selfies, during my free periods I’d devour the pages of those magazines, reading front to back about everything from upcoming trends and “best workouts to feel your fittest before Summer,” to my monthly horoscope, and “new ways to incorporate French twists in your everyday hairstyles!” There was something immensely comforting about opening a magazine and knowing the type of content — and how much of it — you’d be getting. It felt like visiting the home of an old friend to find everything just as you’d left it.

The 90s and early 2000s certainly had their fair share of pop-culture hysteria, body image obsession and how-to columns that could leave you feeling inadequate. These days however, it feels like whenever I open social media, I’m reminded by the voices of 10,000 perfect strangers how I should be living and how that version of me might contrast with my reality. And yet, while I complain – I watch, I listen, I anxiously spiral about not having enough protein in my diet, and immediately jet to Whole Foods.

Said reaction to online voices has made think about why it is I sit anxiously with these suggestions, different from the peaceful feeling I had reading a physical magazine — despite the topical similarity.

For starters, no one can speak at me when I’m reading an article — in a physical magazine or online. I’m able to digest on my own time and interpret as I please. I also have more agency over what type of content — and how much of it — I’m consuming. My expectations of flipping through Vogue differ from that of The New Yorker, Architectural Digest, and so on. I know that at the end of 100-or-so pages, that’s my cue to return to reality.

Secondly, social media is quite different than it was in 2016 — the original goal of staying in touch with friends and family has been replaced with sensationalist headlines, heightened consumerism, and personal takes often positioned as fact. The euphoric feeling that I had diving into a new magazine as a means of escape has morphed into a compulsive itch to check Instagram and make sure I haven’t “missed anything” in the 20 minutes since my last scroll.

Pre-social media, you could pass a newsstand and keep walking.

Consumption required intention.

I already know what you’re going to say – my internal monologue tells me daily – my passive scrolling is a choice.

And yes, you’re right.

But for many of us, I’d imagine it’s become akin to the subconscious act of passing a mirror – it’s right there, I might as well take a look and make sure nothing’s amiss.

Working in PR and media does perhaps add another layer. Staying aware of what’s swirling around social platforms can feel like part of the job. But rarely do my hourly app check-ins deliver eureka moments. Those come from moments of true immersion, not scrolling. Taking the time to really read an article, not just the photo headline, tracking trends and sentiment, watching thought-provoking films and reading classic literature for inspiration, and most importantly, actually having conversations, in-person, with friends and colleagues and people who have been to the places I’m trying to go.

To be clear: this is not a holier-than-thou speech. I’m not calling for the destruction of social media, nor am I immune to the comforts a mindless scroll. Au contraire — I believe the connectivity is incredible and when used as a tool vs. a lifeline, so much good can come from it. I suppose then it is not the content itself, but the rate at which we are consuming it, that gives me pause.

If you Google “social media + mental health,” the list of side effects reads like a pharmaceutical disclaimer. There are constant studies of the negative effects of incessant scrolling, yet the train keeps moving. In many ways I get it — it’s become the first stop for news updates, a way to check in with friends from afar, a mode of income for many, and a connectivity point for brands. You may have even discovered this article on social media (irony you fickle queen!). And believe me, I hear the Mel Robbins on my shoulder telling me to “Let Them,” but if I may, Mel, who then is responsible for the side effects being delivered by this train?

Inventions like the Brick device (the nicotine patch of phone usage, if you will), Tyler the Creator’s phoneless Don’t Tap the Glass listening party which urged fans to embrace “full embodied presence,” and emerging college courses like Loyola University Maryland’s newly established “digital detox” class hint that as a collective, we recognize the need for something more sustainable.

Recent studies estimate we check our phones 96 to 205 times a day. Compared to any other vice that feels rather absurd, no? 205 sips of wine equates to roughly 9 bottles. 205 cigarette puffs is about 1.5 packs. Unfortunately for us, unlike a bad hangover that alerts our brains to not drink so much next time, the dopamine-designed apps have the opposite effect.

So I was thinking… is it that we must develop an unsatisfactory label for habits to deem them concerning? A cheater, a drinker, a liar, a smoker…a joker, a midnight toker (thank you, Steve Miller Band). Will it take labelling ourselves “incessant scrollers” (a bit clunky, but alas) in order to acknowledge this might be a bit much?

In summation, (as we seldom do conclusions here) I’m not saying to get a flip phone or delete your apps. I’m primarily writing this as a means to both hold myself accountable and find my way back to the feeling of visiting an old friend. I suppose this is rather a call to consciousness? An attempt to visit the metaphorical — or literal — newsstand with active intent rather than passive boredom?

With the glorious sepia-filtered, ripped-jean days of 2016 behind us, I hope that when we look back on 2026 in 2036, we can say that we lived outside of our phones more than inside them, and took the advice of those 10,000 strangers with the grain of salt it deserved (preferably Maldon).

This week’s required listening: The Joker, Steve Miller Band

about why it is I feel stories so deeply — literature, music, art, film, design, sport, and of course, the tales told around the proverbial campfire, born of happenstance and unique human experience.

To this day, I have not been able to make it through Remember the Titans because of the emotional crater it leaves in me (Cc: A Star is Born, Marley & Me, The Notebook, My Dog Skip, etc. etc.). My heart stays lodged in my throat for all 5:51 of Jackson Browne’s “The Pretender,” and Olivia Dean’s “I’ve Seen It” never fails to give me watery eyes and a quivering lip. I reread and drink up The Alchemist every year like a tonic, usually when I’m feeling a bit untethered on my own life journey. If I’m in search of a delicate mix of levity and depth, I turn on Shrinking, finding joy in the perfectly timed quips of Harrison Ford & co. And I mean, the 30 for 30 features on Olympic athletes? Who. Is. Cutting. Onions.

I knew from an early age I wouldn’t be a doctor — I’m absolutely terrified of blood and quite frankly math has never been a friend of mine. But what I did recognize almost just as early, is that stories have the power to heal people in a different, yet equally impactful way. Storytelling is universal — it’s the connective tissue which we relate to and understand one another. It takes many forms, each with its own impact, yet all arriving at the same reminder: we are more alike than we are different.

What, when, why…

I’ve started this Substack because as the title would suggest, I’m always thinking. The phrase “So I was thinking…” can also be interpreted in several ways which makes me feel rather clever.

Perhaps I have an idea worth sharing. Maybe there’s a hard truth, dressed politely as food for thought. Perhaps I’m reminiscing. Or, it could simply be a list of experiences that stopped me in my tracks recently. But ultimately, in a time where it seems we feel inclined to keep strong, unmovable opinions, So I was thinking…is my light-hearted way of sharing thoughts, observations and suggestions — rarely set-in-stone conclusions — offering a forum for connection and conversation. *This is also a selfish attempt to simply get my thoughts down on paper and achieve a good night’s sleep.

Working in the business of PR and media for nearly a decade, having researched and written thoughts on everything from the future of media and trends in consumerism, to sports’ impact on culture and you guessed it — the power of storytelling — I’ve had to keep a finger on the pulse of that which is relevant, entertaining and impactful. So while I may not be as seasoned as some, I feel confident in my ability to produce a perspective on elements of culture that matter most to the modern audience (or at least a portion of it).

What you can expect…

So I was thinking… will be thoughtful, often educational, occasionally sarcastic, never hateful and hopefully, poignant. There will be lots of music references, historical ties, a-ha moments and witty bites for this audience to digest. I won’t attempt a daily cadence, because frankly, there’s plenty trying to capture our attention in the content abyss and also - with what time?? But I will seek to make this little brain dump of mine a bi-weekly or at the very least, monthly occurrence, that welcomes you to sit down with your coffee, pause the doom-scrolling and escape into something that feels like a conversation with friends. I’m thinking every-other Friday at 9am Eastern? Kick off the weekend with a laugh, yes?

Until next time.

xx, Paige

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