End of Week Clarity

By: Gabriela Yareliz

The close of another week. Friday feels like a giant exhale when Sabbath awaits. I am leaving the week feeling like this man lying down on the floor talking on the phone.

The weather still feels sticky hot. I’m still dreaming of fall.

What didn’t I do this week? It feels like I churned out contracts like a machine, I ran through lightning and rain, and updated a countdown that is close to its prize.

While I appreciate this present moment, I think that excitement for the future is my fuel in this season. How is it mid-August already?

The thought that stayed with me this week was: “Clarity only comes from accountability and consequences.” -Erwin McManus

Where do we need more clarity?

Everything

By: Gabriela Yareliz

“I always have everything I need.” Edie Wadsworth

I heard this thought during coaching, and it made me think— what if we said this to ourselves every day?

It’s a statement of faith and gratitude.

Even the Unexpected

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I was reading Cara Says It All, by Cara Alwill. She was talking about her upcoming marriage (and she is becoming a stepmom!). Her post was all about “ghosting” your old life. She is leaving NYC and starting a new chapter in Florida.

Life often offers us turning points, and we can either go in completely and free-fall into something new, letting go of the old, or you can take bits and pieces of your life with you.

We often frame change as loss. But the truth is it isn’t always loss. It’s not truly a loss when it’s good.

Sometimes, we get more than we even knew we wanted. Sometimes, others don’t understand it, but they don’t have to.

“But now I know. I’m not giving up anything. I’m getting everything I ever wanted. Even the things I didn’t know I did,” Cara Alwill writes.

I know I have experienced that, too. We get even the unexpected. Life presents us with bonus gifts. Sometimes, life can be that sweet.

Interference

“I had 35 analog years to develop my taste without interference. I carried quarters for payphones. I wrote directions on napkins. I discovered music through borrowed CDs and late-night television, not through playlists that knew what I wanted before I did. I fell in love with movies before they became content, with art before it became posts, with personalities before they became brands.” Kelly Oxford

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Do kids these days actually like what they like? Or are they brainwashed into their preferences by Netflix, Spotify, and the algorithm? Have these streaming services and social media replaced the magazine/tv ads of yesteryears? Except before, one spent an hour with a magazine, and then, closed it. We shut off the television. Now, everything is in your face, 24/7, through the iPhone.

Kelly Oxford makes reference to the “analog years”. If you are 30 or 40 (or older), you know what this means. It was the last era of originality. Now, “originality” is anything dealing with sexualization or sexual identity. It really doesn’t go past that. There is such a lack of originality that everything is a sequel or remake. We are stunted.

We wandered the closing Claire’s and looked at the adorable tiaras, little dinosaur earrings and Squishmallows (I had to look this word up). A little girl wandered from sparse stand to sparse stand with her purple mesh basket. Claire’s is closing due to their bankruptcy filing. It made me feel a pang of sadness. I feel that with it goes a certain death of quirkiness and innocence. It also made me wonder if that death had been happening for a while.

A flood of memories came rushing back. The fuzzy purple picture frames, the Eiffel Tower diary, the “cute by psycho” lime green wrist band with the bunny, the fake bun of hair that fell out of my friend’s head as we jumped on her bed one Sabbath afternoon throwing Beanie Babies up on a ceiling fan we were about to turn on, Jessica Simpson’s Dessert line, the bandanas we bought and wore at camp meeting, my friends going there to get their ears pierced as rite of passage, friendship keychains, the chokers everyone wanted, the lipglosses that smelled like Dr. Pepper— so. many. memories. So many birthday gifts. So many hours wandering the store with a friend at the mall.

I am not sure what the next generation will do without Claire’s. It’s the end of an era. This Claire’s will add to the tally of defunct stores with no one who can afford their rent to replace them.

I would argue that the moment Claire’s started catering to everything that has worked to destroy innocence in the next generation of children (certain TV show and movie licensed goods, cell phones, etc.), it started to die. Claire’s used to be about quirky things. Creative things. There was a wall of diaries and photo accessories. This was replaced by iPhone and iPad accessories. We went from pens to cellphone charms. Glitter on your face to piercings on your face.

In its last iteration, it was less about quirk, and more about recognizable and or neutral merch they hoped would sell with a dash of nostalgia (hair clips that look like you could get them at Walgreens, animal squishies you can also get at a pharmacy). You see, Claire’s ran so Kate Spade could walk. It used to be fur and glitter overload. There were youthful fragrances. It was magical.

I don’t think kids today understand how weird we were back then. Today’s idea of being subversive is dressing like your favorite Netflix character. Back in the day, “not fitting in might actually be the point,” Kelly Oxford argues about the past. It was taken very seriously. Maybe it came out of the fact that we had time to be bored. We made a statement when we walked in a room, not online. We sat around tables and ate ice cream and talked for hours. Now with technology, no one is bored. No one sits in silence. No one is actually connected.

How long have we been so programmed? Maybe Claire’s won’t even be missed. We’ll have Kitsch for collab hair accessories and Amazon for everything else.

A part of me hopes we see a return to the strangeness of the past. You know, wearing glitter at the tops of your cheeks when you’re twelve, not because your favorite singer did it but because you love the shimmer and blueberry smell of the gel. Stores offer us this experience. Online will never. You can’t smell it on Amazon.com. You can’t leave Amazon feeling like you are made of pure stardust. For the adults— will we keep shopping from Revolve and off influencer links or will we return to buying a sequined hot pink poncho because it makes us look like a disco ball, and we love it? I am rooting for the latter.

I hope we see a return of quirk and originality. We are dying without it. We need less ads and more trying. We will need less screens, less noise, and less images. We will need more boredom and more physical stores where we can smell and feel textures. We will need more connection and laughter. Without this, I fear our magic will vanish completely. We need less interference and more whimsy.

Goodbye, Tired Braid

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I had my oiled dirty hair in a tired braid. I decided I had had enough and wanted to get my hair done before the official end of summer schedule at work. I wandered into this beautiful Chelsea salon, and a petite Asian lady greeted me. The place was empty. I asked her if they accepted walk-ins. She said they could see me in an hour. I booked my appointment and wandered around Chelsea Market furiously answering moronic work emails as they came in. 

When I returned to the salon, it felt different. It was brighter and louder. Ninety percent of the seats were taken. Everyone in there was dressed up in linens and silk. They all looked like influencers. The petite Asian receptionist was now masked. Her eyes smiled at me as I stood there in my shorts and t-shirt with a cute Asian cartoon bunny. I sat patiently, semi-wishing I was wearing a white crisp button down shirt. But who wears that to get hair color? I thought to myself. Apparently, these people. I watched a blonde woman’s perfect highlights tumble down her back, and I was startled when my stylist, Ms. N we will call her, appeared. She took my breath away. She was probably the most immaculately polished woman in all of Manhattan.

“Gabriela, how are you?” She said in her deep sultry raspy accented voice. She sounded like she had just smoked a pack of cigarettes, but not in a cough-up-your-lung way but in a chic, sensual way. Her voice was very alluring and dripped like honey. She spoke to me like she knew me.

I explained to her that I don’t dye my hair, but love a gloss. I had only gotten about three since my wedding. During my penultimate gloss, an idiot had glossed my hair dark, and my ends were still really dark. “My hair isn’t black,” I explained to her the way I used to explain to kids on the playground when I was a kid. 

Ms. N had perfect skin; her skin was super tan; darker than a cardboard box. Not a tan line or uneven splotch in sight. Her hair was curly and immaculate. No hint of frizz. She had bright gold bracelets that clinked on her wrists. She was thin and muscular and wearing a white tank top. But it looked— expensive. Like something they would sell on Goop for $500, you know? I looked up at her helplessly almost begging for her to teach me her ways. I probably looked like a high school student to her. Her nails were perfect. She started using her nails to part my hair and hold the ends up to the top of my head. She was nodding and humming. 

“Very dark. I can’t promise you I can restore your color, but we will try,” she said slowly with the musical cadence to her voice. 

“The ends of the hair are very porous. They take color differently,” Ms N explained. I told her that usually the gloss is slapped onto me uniformly, and I sit there while it soaks in. 

Ms. N cringed, and then, compassionately looked at me and said, “not good technique.” 

I had just met the woman, but I trusted her. She was so polished. Also, I was wearing the little cape. There was no escaping now. 

As she continued to part my dirty hair which revealed traces of my workaholism and work-week self-abandonment, I wanted to melt into the chair and disappear. She was kind, though. She would smile at me with her very overfilled lips (her only flaw, if you want to call it that), and her eyes would squint when she smiled revealing her shimmery eyeshadow. 

She sat me down in the washing station where the cold thick sink touched the back of my neck. In front of me was a wall of Oribe products packaged in their beautiful beige boxes. Ms. N asked me if my neck was ok, and said she was going to wash my hair twice with clarifying shampoo, focusing on the ends to wash out some of the old gloss. She would use her nails to part the hair, and the woman scrubbed hard. I was determined that no matter how this turned out, the woman had earned a good tip already at the wash step. Her bracelets clunk together as she scrubbed. The water she was using was cold. There was a lot of pulling, and I have a sensitive scalp (an hour with a ponytail makes my head hurt), so it was everything but relaxing— but beauty is pain, right?

She scrubbed both cycles, and then, lathered me up like a shampoo commercial. I had a helmet of foam. While my helmet foamed, the petite Asian woman rushed in with a package. Ms. N walked over and picked it up with her elbows and took it to a back room. During that time, I reflected back on those color lifters and how they can turn your hair a burnt orange and prayed none of that was happening on my sore head that had started to go numb.

When Ms. N returned, she got me cleaned up, and disappeared to mix the gloss. As she was mixing, another stylist erupted into dramatic laughter in the next room, and Ms. N dramatically mocked the laugh with her own loud laugh. This woman is off her rocker, I thought as I sat there composing from my mini heart attack. Ms. N continued to maniacally laugh for at least 30 more seconds. “So loud,” she said after rolling her eyes. I tried to not look like she had scared the hell out of me, and nodded and managed a forced smile. Different smells wandered in and out from hair dye to sprays to sweet smelling fragrances that reminded me of Paris in 2006.

Weirdly, even as I felt I was in good (immaculate) hands, I also hoped this experience was almost over. Ms. N roughly combed my hair out. At different intervals, she would hold my ends up to my scalp, sprinkling stuff onto my face. I also had water running down my back. I prayed in both instances it was clean water and that I didn’t have a sprinkle of gloss freckles or a brown line as long as the Nile down my back. She finished rinsing me, and then, she started blow drying my hair. By this point in time, I had no feeling in my scalp.

I found out she lives in Queens and has worked at the salon for 14 years. She loves the beach (which explains the solid and flawless tan). I asked her if she traveled or did something fun over the summer, and she said her job was fun. I nodded and thought, fair enough. Good for you. She asked me what I did. I told her I was an attorney. She seemed disinterested. I mean, given the state of my hair when I walked in, I can’t even blame her. I took zero offense when she steered the conversation elsewhere. I’d had enough of work by then, too.

In case you are wondering, my hair came out quite nicely. It wasn’t dark and giving Morticia Addams. It looked like my normal hair again. The blow dry left my hair a bit frizzy, but the hair was restored. Ms. N was very pleased. She continued to hold my ends up to the top of my head. She lathered me in Kerastase. By the end, we were both exhausted. I wove my way through Eighth and Seventh Avenue, trying to get to an express train that was, unbeknownst to me, out of service (they only tell you this once you have paid and entered the station, in true New York thievery).

I walked away with restored hair and the knowledge that fabulous people still exist in this City. (Shall we make bracelets that say “What Would Ms. N Do?”). With this new knowledge and experience, dripping in sweet smelling creams, it was time to take my brown hair back to Brooklyn. It was time to go to a place where I really relax, and it doesn’t matter what I wear— Jenny— my massage therapist. Bless that woman. (She is magical!!)

Ideas for NYC: Open Letter #5

Dear Eric Adams (NYC Mayor),

I was sitting on the subway and saw an ad for a City hotline that read “Safety is a Human Right.” It was discussing domestic violence and human trafficking. Apparently, safety is only a human right in these contexts because the City releases violent offenders back onto the streets every day. In fact, I would be willing to bet that an offender who has attacked someone calling the hotline wouldn’t be held accountable for his/her actions. You can go to Queens, sir, and see human trafficking in broad daylight. That’s the City m.o. No one except the law-abiding citizen does anything wrong.

For the average citizen out on a NYC street, safety is not a human right. Let’s be real. We have been stripped of that right and the right to defend ourselves. You defend yourself or another these days, and you end up in jail and on the cover of the Post. Your actions and the actions of those in power have shown there is no accountability or justice for innocent victims. It is also laughable that the ad makes it seem like violence is only an issue when it’s behind closed doors and by someone who is not a stranger. If a stranger stabs you on a subway platform— totally acceptable. 

Someone who was recently pushed into the tracks (and miraculously lived to tell the story) was gaslit and asked repeatedly if they were on drugs or if they slipped and fell. This was after he and other witnesses explained clearly that he was attacked and pushed in.

Perhaps, it’s time for someone to hold the City accountable and test the City human right laws. Because so far, they are only used to protect perpetrators. One would think that a former cop mayor would know how to keep his City safe. Sadly, you do not.

Golden Hour Departure

By: Gabriela Yareliz

The golden hour was upon us. Gold rays peeking through the tall city buildings. The evening was beautiful. I saw a radiant pair crossing the street in the opposite direction as me, walking toward me. The tan and smiling man in the white knit short sleeve polo glanced over at her. She was tall, tan and smiling big. She was wearing a black jumpsuit, and her long hair was blowing in the wind. She looked jovial and very pretty. Their fragrances mingle and hit me as we brush past each other.

“It was nice to meet you,” she said in what sounded like a Brazilian accent. Her voice was warm, and she meant it. “I hope I see you again,” he said. I realize then that they are missing a moment. They look like they belong together, and yet, there, they part.

The Anatomy of a Summer Fiction Book

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Sometimes, when it’s summer, I venture away from my typical nonfiction read to a fictional book. They are starting to feel the same, though. If I had a dollar for every book I have read that starts in Boston. Then, the protagonist ends up in Nantucket, Cape Cod, etc. She is always a writer. Sometimes, she gets fired, and other times, she circles back to it.

There is always a snarky character. A fashionista. A bookstore somehow always makes it into the story. There is always a cottage. There is a local hotel. Often, something is being filmed or there is a celebrity element. There is a dramatic scene involving water, a ferry, bridge or short plane ride back to Boston. It’s a recipe. What can I say?