working winters and fruitful springs.

i’ve been a central park girl for almost 25 years now. more from afar as a teenager despite attending high school on the upper east side and working a part-time job on the exact same street directly across the park on the upper west side. central park seemed more like a natural wonder for me to behold, to know of and know about, but not experience for myself or feel like it was truly my own.

since moving back to new york and turning 30 in 2018, i made an intentional decision  to start treating central park like my backyard – nature i can turn to again and again to provide solace and stillness. to feel closer to the city or to myself. last year, i decided to spend even more time in the park, incorporating almost daily long walks. what draws me to the park over and over again is the ability to truly see the seasons pass. to notice the trees and the flowers, the changing colors and different breezes. when you’re a park regular, you can feel the changes, spot small signs before the seasons have officially arrived, recognize the impact of a day of rain even if the plants haven’t visibly changed in a massive way. you’re face to face with the constant cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

spring is finally here and it’s of course made me think about the park even more. the magnolias and cherry blossoms getting ready to bloom – flowers we wait all year to see with overwhelming joy and excitement. despite how brief a time we have with them, their arrival is a triumph and their departure is a sign of more and more abundant growth to come with the promise of summer. life sometimes feels like that – waiting for an unknown period of time hoping that the work you’re doing will come to fruition in ways you’re not yet able to glean. crossing your fingers that the sunshine and water and soil you’ve contributed will bear you fruit.

throughout most of the year, those same magnolia and cherry blossom trees will change and die and go about the silent work of being reborn in beautiful new ways. like the silent work we human beings do with projects or pieces of ourselves we’re working on that we’re excited to reveal at the right time. those projects and pieces that have to publicly die for us to grow and change as well as those that we don’t get to talk about or share in preparation for a rebirth. the quiet work we’re doing to bring things to fruition in their own spring. the deep winters of work and delayed gratification for those springtime blooms.

shout out to those of us that have been putting in that winter work (whenever it happens throughout the year). and this does not mean working without community or hustling in silence because i vehemently believe that people need people, but working in a way where everyone won’t be able to see or know what you’re doing. you know what you’re doing, and that’s paramount. you know when it will be time to share, even if that time hasn’t yet been revealed to you.

and shout out to the people whose working winters include advocating for and creating opportunities for the people you care about and believe in. right now, there may be some things happening for you that you won’t even know about until your cherry blossoms appear. there may be people making sure that your name is spoken and considered. people taking chances to build something for you.

tyler james williams has spoken about the creation of his role on abbott elementary in many different interviews – during the early days of the pandemic, while he was working and wondering where his next role would come from, quinta (brunson) was thinking about him, bringing his name up, creating an opportunity specifically for him, before ultimately reaching out to him in a DM. he was doing his winter work and so was quinta. a frighteningly similar non-tv (haha!) experience has popped up for me over the past few weeks. while i’ve been writing my manuscript and creating posts for my blog and wondering what tf i’m doing as this layoff crawls along, someone was thinking about me, knowing they wanted to work with me. i was doing my winter work and so were they.

at what feels like an absolutely insane time to be a human being, i hope we believe more firmly in our own ability to get things done and the seemingly magical machinations happening in the background, totally outside of our control. in our ability to work on and create wholly unexpected experiences for ourselves and others.  your work can be someone’s magic, and someone’s work can be yours.