Arizona Healing

I've wanted to ride out west since I was 12. Today I went on a three-hour trail ride and then hung around making friends with beautiful horses and funny looking burros with my guide / Arizona cowboy dad Terry. One of the best days I have ever had. 

Solo Hiking in Flip Flops

Today I went vortex-visiting, to two of Sedona’s famous vortexes (note: not vortices, as my Lonely Planet helpfully informed me. Just in case I might accidentally be grammatically correct.) I figured I wouldn’t end up hiking far, and those who know me will know I hate socks and the shoes that require them… so I just stayed in the flip flops I was wearing for my after-breakfast nap in the sun. I went to Boynton Canyon and to Airport “Table Mesa” (uh hello, redundant). I didn’t feel much in the way of electromagnetic energy – and none of the pull-over-on-the-side-of-the-road awe I’d felt yesterday on Upper Red Rock Loop Road, where I took pictures of the cloud-covered rocks and texted J + E, “God exists.” But I did feel peace, and sunshined serenity, and that’s maybe better than inspiration or magnetic jolts or whatever it is you’re supposed to feel.

The flip flops though were a little treacherous. “Nice shoes,” said one of twenty-five middle-aged ladies in Lululemon and hiking sneakers I passed along the trail. I laughed, embarrassed, said something about not going far, thought haughtily to myself, “I hiked a mountain in Ethiopia in flip flops”… and then nearly stepped on a snake, which hissed snakelily as it slithered under a dry bush. Lesson learned, I thought.

vortex selfie

Sedona is a strange place, not my “scene,” really. But I’ve come across all kinds of people, including the taxi man who prepped me on the town’s history and told me his grandfather was a prominent movie-man, who’d come to Sedona when it was founded, less than half a century ago. He told me his grandfather’s name, helpfully, in case I want to look him up. Now I’m sitting by the fire pit across from a friendly lesbian couple in jeans, sharing a bag of chips and a mimosa in a water bottle. The chattier one complimented my suede purple oxfords. :) It smells good here, the air is cold and clean, the food is decent, and there’s plenty of booze.  

For more on Sedona's vortexes, see "John and Micki's Metaphysical Site." This is not a joke. 

10 years in the city

This summer it’s ten years since I started college in the city (and also ten years I’ve been best friends with my college friends). Aside from my year in London and Uganda, I’ve lived in New York the whole time. The apartment I just moved out of was my third New York apartment - my second in Brooklyn.

Last night I was chatting with a bartender at the airport, who charged my laptop for me and talked me into opting for the better Pinot Grigio (worth it). He asked where I was from (because I said I hate Boston) and when I said New York he asked, “Born and raised?” I said yes and he was skeptical, so I clarified: “Suburbs. But I’ve been in the city for ten years.”

I didn’t even realize I was lying! I guess I don’t have an obligation to tell everyone I talk to that I’ve moved back in with my parents, but I took the 7:01 Metro North train into the city yesterday morning with my dad (I was the only woman amongst all the suits in my train car, by the way)… I’m officially a resident of the suburbs. I changed my address and my voting registration and I’m almost all settled into the garage (a lightbulb and picture frame pending). “10 years in the city” is, for the time being, over.

#peacepost2015

Today was both my first event as an independent consultant and the end of my last tie to my old job. Our Reflection and Strategy Meeting on Peaceful Societies - the culmination of months of planning and what felt like thousands of emails - was held this afternoon, and I am proud of how it turned out. The room was full - with more peace/security/disarmament people than development people! - and the mood was dynamic and honest and thought-provoking. Peggy Kerry (sister to John, NGO liaison at the US Mission) was there, and the DPR of Liberia had the final word. There might be an appetite to continue this convening with an informal listserv and hashtag and, we hope, some follow up meetings. We will see how people react after they've had a chance to process. 

I'm happy I got to work with this pretty amazing group of people and organizations, on an issue I really care about and want to work on, and that the event happened (and I chaired it) even though I lack an "institutional affiliation."

Also got a good piece of advice from an experienced UN media hand: "An independent consultant should always have a business card. You never know who might want to hire you!" So I'll add business-card-making to my weekend plans, along with yoga, running, hiking, and (I hope) lying in the sun.

Photos via Twitter: @Peace_Women & @Shafferan

The packing-up-my-apartment playlist

For years I had a tradition of listening to Hootie and the Blowfish - Cracked Rear View as I packed up. This worked a little better for dorm rooms than for one-bedrooms... and I can't listen to that album on repeat anymore. This time I've diversified, East Africa style.

Radio and Weasel - Breath Away

Kigoma All Stars - Leka Dutigite

Diamond ft. Davido - Number One (Remix

Radio and Weasel ft. East African Rebels - No Goodbye

UN Pride

I was proud to work at the United Nations. Proud when I got offered the job, proud when my first consultant contract got renewed, proud most of all when after 20 months of hard work, I was hired as a staff member. I bought UN bumper stickers (for my non-existent car) and a UN peace mousepad. I sailed through the staff entrance (no more security check-in!) proud and thrilled to work there, to be part of something so important, to dedicate my time to an organization that represented all of my most closely held ideals: universality, peace, diplomacy. I marveled at the many languages and cultures I witnessed and how each block between UN HQ and Grand Central brought me back to a more New York New York, from this hybrid and multiple territory. I loved everything I got to learn – it was like school, I said! – and I showed up on time to events for a full year, clutching my notebook and looking around expectantly, waiting for the work to start.

Within this giant and overwhelming behemoth, as I learned and re-learned its never-ending acronyms, navigated around its renovations and shuttered entrances, there was one tiny piece of it I loved the most: my own organization. A difficult mouthful of a name, a confusing (lack of) mandate, a semi-autonomous structure meant it took me six months to figure out what we did, exactly; staff turnover and two offices separated by the Atlantic Ocean and half of Europe meant my responsibilities were constantly shifting and my title never quite a good descriptor of what my actual job was. We were externally facing, tasked with information and communications, with planning events and building relationships and swimming through different pieces of the UN structure depending on what we were asked or who we tried to help. We were flexible, nearly always about to run out of money, all of us on one or two month contracts, with technology that never wanted to function and mountains of work that would never be finished. I loved it. 

And I was proud of my office, too, proud that we straddled one of the most progressive edges of the UN, that we worked on innovative finance and rights-based development and renewable energy. Proud of myself, that when the New York boss left I kept it afloat, along with a colleague I never agreed with who was only a few years older than I.

Most of all I was proud of the relationships I made, of the people I got to know in and around the UN, whose trust I earned and whom I learned from. My work community included all kinds of people, of all ages and from all corners of the world. They were smart people, good people, complicated people, with egos and dysfunctions just like anywhere else. I was proud to be one of them. 

Karibu, etc.

Three weeks ago I left my job after almost three years at the UN. Tuesday I'm moving back in with my parents, at the age of almost-27. I'll be spending the next few months consulting, traveling, and (I hope) writing. The writing part will happen here. 

On the agenda for tonight: finishing my report of a one-day workshop on Shared Prosperity in Emerging Economies, for which I was the rapporteur last Friday in DC. Oh, and packing up my apartment.