First of all, what it is about music that trig­gers in one’s soul, down to the deep­est core of your being? To this day I ask myself that very ques­tion and still search to find how some­thing we can’t phys­i­cally see (given we’re just lis­ten­ing through our ipods while sweat­ing our butts off run­ning down the streets of NYC for what­ever crazy rea­son) or can feel the melody stir up so many phys­i­cal emo­tions and reac­tions from a human being. Really ironic.…However, the glory of it all, as I sit and write out­side in the midst of on upcom­ing hur­ri­cane (and com­pletely obliv­i­ous due to the fact that I’m try­ing to make a point…) , I’m reminded of how very spe­cial the lit­tle things in our lives make the biggest dif­fer­ence. Cliche as it may sound, when it comes to fash­ion and music, it’s the lit­tle things we find that are spe­cial, mean­in­ful and touch a por­tion of our heart that sinks so deeply within that we cant ignore it ot deny it.

I watched Ellie Gould­ing on stage for the first time dur­ing Satru­day Night Live and fell totally and com­pletely in love. It end­lessly enam­ors me. First round, I thought, ok love this song. Sec­ond time around, I read the lyrics, Third time around, I research the effort that went­be­hind this band even get­ting it’s start.…but the big story behind how they got started is not my topic of con­ver­sa­tion at this point.…its the sim­ple fact that they were able to pro­duce a song that meant some­thing to me. A few lit­tle words, an amaz­ing voice, and all that goes with it.…transported me out of wher­ever I’ve been and puts me immiedi­ately where I need to be.

Same with small fash­ion finds that you know are com­pletely unique and yours all your own. What a won­der­ful feel­ing to add to the per­son whos per­manantly seek­ing iden­tity within them­selves and yet seems to find those snip­pets in every day life through ran­dom obsta­bles. I just love them all!!

I assume, there comes a time when there are no words to be said about tim­ing, exis­tence, mean­ing, and life in gen­eral. And some­times, there are those split sec­onds when time, exis­tence, and mean­ing make sense. Aside from the indi­vid­u­al­ity we all seek, there is a con­stant strug­gle between how we per­ceive our­selves to be and how we actu­ally are? For­give me, but the answer still eludes me. I pon­der in mind. these very ques­tions. But what makes life worth­while is the lit­tle, but very sub­tle indif­fer­ences that throw you off beat and make  you real­ize that obvi­ously life is worth the effort of mov­ing for­ward. It’s not the spo­radic hel­los, nor the com­mon cliche’s…sometimes it’s as small as a smile from some­one you’ve never met before or the per­son along side the street that you see, and the look in their eyes says it all. Indi­vid­u­al­ity is achiev­able on many dif­fer­ent lev­els, but con­tent­ment in that indi­vid­u­al­ity con­sumes a whole other side of me that I don’t under­stand even to this day.

Con­stantly clouded and unin­hib­ited at the same time is a dis­tance set so far apart but yet so near that you real­ize the close­ness but you don’t nec­es­sar­ily under­stand how to bring the two into one. And I don’t believe it takes a per­son, but your own mind, energy, spir­i­tu­al­ity, and state of being that cre­ates the path which bridges between the two.

Yet, another open ended ques­tion left to linger into the void, with no nec­es­sary answer in mind or no nec­es­sary answer needed.…merely, a thought which leaves me con­stantly won­der­ing what is the real mean­ing behind what we have gone through as individuals…and will there ever be a time when we can com­pletely under­stand the mean­ing of true self.

So many times, we get caught up in our own lives of what, to us, seems most impor­tant. But some­times, just some­times, there’s that moment of  com­plete seren­ity that comes over you.…maybe it’s some­one who just took the time to stop by and say hello, or crossed your path after years gone by, or maybe it’s just sit­ting on your back porch enjoy­ing the night time air. But there’s inevitably some­thing about that moment that brings us back to real­ity. The real­ity, not as we know it to be right now, but that inan­i­mate, unex­plain­able real­ity that shows us why things matter.

Recently, I cov­ered an an extrav­a­gant event in NYC that cel­e­brated a year of accom­plish­ments across the world, where chil­dren all over were granted the wish of a life­time. They were given smiles. Not just smiles (this par­tic­u­lar non-​​profit pro­vides surg­eries for chil­dren with cleft palates or cleft lips), but self-​​esteem, encour­age­ment, and oppor­tu­nity. But even still, with all the glitz and glam­our of a grand event that show­cases all the accom­plish­ments, the celebrity endorse­ments, the mas­sive amounts of money raised through suc­cess­ful businessmen/​business women, I still can’t help but stop and real­ize just how grate­ful I am for the life I have. There’s some­thing to be said for great friends, great fam­ily, and a sup­port sys­tem that give the ulti­mate sacrifice.…their time, their love, their life­long commitment.

What is most impor­tant in life? That’s the $64 mil­lion ques­tion. How often, I pon­der, con­tem­plate and even argue with my own inner heart strug­gling over that very thing. At at the end of my romp and rage, sat­is­fac­tion and dis­con­tent, I real­ize that, ulti­mately, I come back to the same con­clu­sion. Life just seems to be a jour­ney. We live, we love, we move on, we find new expe­ri­ences, and we learn from them. But in the end, it’s those that care about you the most that seem to make the most dif­fer­ence in our lives. Those that invest in us and make us feel like we really are worth­while. There’s no amount of money that can com­pare to the ones that take the time to make us feel.….well, real.

In a world where movies, tv, mag­a­zines, not to men­tion just our sphere of influ­ences make us feel like we have to be some­one or some­thing else, you have to ulti­mately under­stand that it’s peo­ple that make the world go round. And not just peo­ple, but those that know you inside and out. Those that have that uncanny sense when some­things wrong even though they are miles away, or those that believe in you no mat­ter what cir­cum­stances make you feel like there’s noth­ing left ahead. I call them my “angels on earth”.  Put sim­ply, they make me feel like life is worth liv­ing after all. It’s because they see some­thing in you that’s sub­stan­tial and they adamantly and fer­vently want to see you suc­ceed, whether it’s life, love, or career. Ulti­mately, they want to see you happy.…You can’t put it on paper, you can’t cash it in the bank. Sim­ply an amaz­ing, irre­place­able feel­ing that can only be filled by those cer­tain “angels” that show up in life and give you a gift that’s all yours. Care­fully crafted to the per­son you are and given with care, pas­sion, love and wis­dom. Words say some, actions speak vol­umes. And I’m so thank­ful that despite what goes on around me, I have all of these things in my life and the know­ing that every­thing will always turn out alright in the end.