By: Gabriela Yareliz I was in a freezing cold restaurant at a lunch with some acquaintances. The place was like ice and my water was, too. One woman discussed how she loved being able to regularly take her small children to the NYC museums. “Exposure is so important.” Everyone started chiming in with their childhoodContinue reading “Exposure Transforms”
Category Archives: culture
Ideas for NYC: Open Letter #6
Dear Zohran Mamdani (Mayor), We have skated, waded, climbed and slid against our will. And that’s those of us able to do so. Others haven’t been as fortunate and are home and/or bruised due to City failure and negligence. This week solidified my belief that mobility training has never been more needed. In the wordsContinue reading “Ideas for NYC: Open Letter #6”
Regaining the Funny Plot
“Every episode of Seinfeld could have been solved with a cell phone […] We used to have miscommunications that couldn’t be corrected instantly. We lived in that chaos and it was funny and we were happier.” Kelly Oxford By: Gabriela Yareliz The wellness online world is fantasizing about going analog. Back in the day, theContinue reading “Regaining the Funny Plot”
A Strange Teacher
“Relational trauma is a strange kind of teacher. It trains you to read people with forensic accuracy, to sense when something is off before anyone else notices. You mistake that awareness for empathy, but it’s really survival.” Meredith from Where the Girls Go to Feel
Ruling Over the Ashes
“An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.” Sun Tzu Anywhere we see corruption, violence and a disregard for freedom and human life, we see what Sun Tzu was talking about— men who rule over the ashes. It certainly feels like these men have dominated the headlinesContinue reading “Ruling Over the Ashes”
Subtraction and Other Kinds of Math
By: Gabriela Yareliz Words I have heard often tied to 2026: “subtraction”, “restraint”, “frugal”— it’s everywhere. Open a Substack, and play a game of bingo for every time one of these words pops up. #trending Allegedly, we need less so we can run with the horse (year of the horse)— whatever the hell that means.Continue reading “Subtraction and Other Kinds of Math”
Creation
“Bradley Cooper: Don’t you think if we’re doing our jobs properly, everything’s autobiographical? Guillermo Del Toro: People say, ‘Oh, you identify with the creature.’ In the past, yes. Now I identify with the creator. I’m the antagonist of my own story, as well as the protagonist.” On Frankenstein (Source) By: Gabriela Yareliz I heard somewhere that nothingContinue reading “Creation”
A Historic Day
By: Gabriela Yareliz I think we all woke up knowing the world was shifting right beneath our feet. I woke up to the headline below, and clicked into it wondering if this was real. (A sort of déjà vu for Latin America and those who know its history). Mandoka, a Venezuelan cookbook author based outContinue reading “A Historic Day”
Waldorf Glamour
By: Gabriela Yareliz Night fell on the Upper East Side. After a delicious raclette sandwich, we navigated the pockets of sidewalk ice and dark residential buildings. We passed the new JP Morgan Chase building, which is stunning (like a monument to capitalism— it stands there with the biggest Christmas wreaths I have ever seen, ‘HappyContinue reading “Waldorf Glamour”
Wintering Reminder
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. But that’s where the transformation occurs. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winterContinue reading “Wintering Reminder”