Beauty Within The Frost...

"Beauty Within the Frost" Photo by Elana Kilkenny.

It was a late autumn day all the trees lay barren, a reflection of their current wintry state, alone amidst the fallen landscape stood a tree aglow in vibrant fiery lushness. Radiant, bejeweled with orange leaves and a perfect undercoat of yellow. Harried New Yorkers stopped dead in their tracks spellbound by their rare beauty. Strangers unfolded stream of consciousness utterings to one another..."Wow", "Well isn't that just magical" and "Miraculous." The New York City perpetual ticking clock stopped for a moment and we all paused spellbound to drink in the beauty.

We are now in the heart of winter, I pass by this tree every day as I bring my daughter to school. Its branches are now bare like their companions. But burned into my memory is an overlay of its autumnal incandescent glow. On certain days I could swear I see the halo of burnt sienna leaves adorning its limbs. And I am reminded that there is always beauty within the frost.

As we rush, as we bundle up, as we dream of spring wildflowers in bloom and a whisper of a spring jacket...we are beckoned to remember that change is inevitable and yet so much remains innate. The beauty that resides in you, in each of us, is immutable. It may radiate more in certain seasons of our lives, it may deepen with the bloom of requited desire and fluid moments of grace but even in the days of our winter's darkness the aura of our heart's luminosity is always present.

So today as you roll out of bed, engage in the world, dance with your muse...breathe in beyond your resistance, beyond your slushy winter boots, beyond your old stories that fool you into believing that your finest days are behind you and touch that which the frost protects...that which is your radiant self.

For more of my February Newsletter dedicated to the subject of love click here to read more...

Synchronicities, Letting Go and Nora Ephron

"Rainbows Over Manhattan" Photo by Elana Kilkenny.

I feel somehow that Nora Ephron is woven inexorably into the tapestry of my living in this city that I love so profoundly. When I was a college senior I moved into a tiny, slightly decrepit one bedroom apartment in the boondocks section of the Upper East Side. There was scarcely a thing about that particular neighborhood or apartment that felt like me, but on my second night there I went to see "Sleepless in Seattle" in a local movie theater and it hit me...I was living my childhood dream of calling New York City my home. So my apartment was still just an apartment, but I was now at home in New York City.

Years later when I was in my mid-twenties, I found myself blessed enough to buy a one bedroom apartment in my beloved city. And although I had barely spent a minute in all my years in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, somehow my vision of living in New York City was shaped by my adoration of Woody Allen movies and my hundredth viewing of "When Harry Met Sally". My home for fourteen years was in the West 70's and close to Riverside Park. I spent countless strolls passing by the storied Apthorp building. And when I did, I would always look into the courtyard from the street and daydream of all the magical people I imagined lived there. Never realizing at the time that Ms. Ephron was one of those very people.

Years later, I found through a series of synchronicities Nora Ephron's famous love letter in The New Yorker to her apartment in the Apthorp. Somewhere in this timeline, my dear friend Alex D. invited me to the New York premier of "You've Got Mail" and I found myself living out another childhood dream torn from the pages of "The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" of being inside The Natural History Museum after hour. Underneath the iconic blue whale stood both Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks who I adore, but it was Ms. Ephron that I was longing to speak to but too shy to approach. No small violins are playing here though, as in that inevitable way that life presents us all with our own full-circle story arcs, I had my opportunity years later to speak with her under much more meaningful circumstances.

So at this point in my own story, here is my love letter to Ms. Ephron that I posted in the wake of her recent passing:

"I will always remember Nora Ephron, not just because I loved her humor and her movies, but because she obsessively loved her Upper West Side apartment in the Apthorp and her article in The New Yorker about letting it go helped me to let go of my own apartment on the UPW that I was obsessively attached to. I loved her because when I was pregnant with my second child, and my aforementioned beloved home was in contract to be sold, I found myself sitting behind her in a movie theater and mustered up the courage to thank her for her Apthorp article. I told her of my heartache in moving and she turned around to me and put her hand on my arm and looked me squarely in the eyes as she said, 'You will feel so stupid that you ever worried about leaving...'

And it being Nora Ephron, it was said with the perfect mix of tenderness, tough love, perspective and emphasis. And of course, as I sit here looking out my window of my new home where I am greeted by rainbows, fireworks, and all the phases of the moon...I know she was right."

With deep abiding gratitude and love,
Elana