This has been the first time that I’ve taken a self-induced hiatus from my weekly newsletter. And that’s only because it’s felt hard to be a voice amid silence. In a city of millions and thus constant, human-induced noise, we now are met daily with muffled greetings. It’s hard to know what to say when perhaps saying anything that could be heard is seemingly profound. An outreach may feel like a spatial breakthrough. Every word I wrote felt like it simply wasn’t enough to hang on to.

Walking around with all these words in my head and love in my heart and no seemingly appropriate way to communicate it,. I can’t tell you how badly I try to make my eyes say, “I’m smiling behind this.” I’ve tried the slow, double blink, the way apparently cats communicate “I love you”. I’ve attempted the slow and rather fatherly nod of discerning approval, wordlessly telling neighbors, grocery store cashiers, and the man who owns the liquor store, “I approve of you.” Nothing seems to feel right, other than me squeezing my smile up into the tops of my cheeks and through my eyes as much as I can and hoping that the designated recipient doesn’t cower away from what might be an oncoming sneeze.

But as much as my hesitance felt valid, so did a few other things. The man at the pizza shop knocking on the window and handing me a plastic bag to help with my groceries-and-bike struggle. The community coming together to feed a cat left behind in a bodega that had been burglarized. And the ‘7pm clap’ going from a few hands hesitantly outstretched on a stoop to a block-wide nightly celebration of connection. The cacophony has become unity, as the rather ambivalence to the 7pm clap has become an endearing connection between neighbors we never knew were neighbors (who all, somehow, have tambourines?).

I felt perhaps, a place for myself, if you’ll still have me. The relative mindlessness with which I began to approach my ‘weekend guides’ became a stalwart fight for small businesses and the community we must maintain. It is so important to have a voice in all of this, to have a response, to make an outreach.

And my outreach here, while normally it is to help you get out and explore, really is just to help you find joy- in activities, in opportunities, in connections, in so many words.

Brooklyn, I’m just trying to make you feel better.

So I’ll still be here trying to figure out what to say. But just know that if the words on this screen feel hard to connect through, or if you see me masked up while walking around town, I’m smiling behind this.

With light and through panes

She couldn’t help but wonder

Of the lives within.

A transportive #haikuesday bringing you to the streets of Lagos, Portugal where I found myself, taking this photo, 6 years ago today. And yeah, I know it’s “Wednesday” but I think that’s all kind of out the window now, right?

Magnetic; she felt

pulled toward this place, his face

as she walked away.

A pleasant little #haikuesday about the things that draw us and keep us here in this city. Which, I suppose what is keeping us here at the moment is an invisible enemy and dangerous virus that not only keeps us here, but keeps us away from each other as well.

Hang in there Brooklyn. We’re all still here with each other and for each other.

I received a phone call from a number in Seattle on Friday afternoon. Given that I had been officially ‘jobless’ since that past Monday, my normal propensity to ignore any calls from unfamiliar numbers had dissipated- anything could be a potential moneymaking opportunity, or at least an interruption from the day’s monotony. 

“Hello?” I said, not wanting to give to much away- as in, “Hello, you’ve reached writer/bartender/wedding officiant/travel advisor Liz Norment, how might I be of service?”

“Hi, is this Liz, with Have Lover, Will Travel?” a voice, from the other side, said.

“Have Lover, Will Travel” was the wedding officiant/honeymoon travel planner arm of my most recent ventures, and the one I was most excited about building at the present moment, despite the fact that every potential block built within the industry was falling apart. If I was to have the words to unite bride and groom, forever, I presently needed to have just the right words to comfort those brides who were realizing that their dream weddings were indefinitely postponed.

“Hi! Yes, hi, this is Liz,” I said. 

“Hi, my name is Dan. I was wondering if you’re available to officiate a wedding tomorrow,” he told me.

Knowing that the city would be officially under quarantine by Sunday night, or at least some American version of what we’d seen happening in China and Italy, I understood his urgency. “Yes, I’m available,” I told him.

“This would be an elopement?” I inquired.

“Yeah, our wedding has been postponed… so we were hoping just to do something small now while we still can,” he explained.

“I love this idea,” I told him, suddenly filled with more hope than I had been in the past bleak week. “Let me send you an email with my general ceremony ouline and a few questions for you and your partner, and we can go from there,” I told him. “What time are you thinking, for tomorrow?” I asked him.

“I don’t know, how about 2:30?” he asked.

“That sounds great,” knowing that really, I would make any time work.

I sent him and his partner an email with my ceremony outline and also the specific questions I liked to ask couples to help recite their love story, create the personalization of their vows, and offer suggested readings. This exchange usually took at least 3 weeks, allowing an in-person meeting with the couple so I could come to understand how best to deliver what would become their union, forever, unto those who they deemed most loved ones.

I would have less than 24 hours, no formal meeting, and was told that their most ‘loved ones’ would be present via FaceTime… I imagined myself as the nightly talk-show hosts who somehow necessarily gleaned energy from a now crowd-less audience. Would my lines hit with the same impact, given the very apparent lack of a grandmother’s trembling hands, a bridesmaid’s audible sob, a father’s hesitant tear?

While I worked to adjust the set of questions and preferences I sent to couples, altered given the current, urgent, and fragile landscape, I received another phone call from Dan, who I now understood lived in Brooklyn, via Seattle. “Hey. Sorry. Are you still interested in making this happen? We just don’t want to miss our chance to get an appointment at the courthouse…” he told me. 

“I’m just finishing up the email. I’ll send it to you in a few minutes and we’ll go from there,” I told him. “Trust me, there’s nothing I want more than to make this happen tomorrow.”

After I received each partner’s responses around 9pm, I went to work writing what I hoped would be a ceremony that would bring hope amid despair, and closeness amid apparent distance. 

Given my emailed proposal, the couple let me know that they preferred not to read or approve of the ceremony I would create. This was an ideal approach so that we could experience the most natural reactions from those physically, or virtually, present. This made my interpretation of their every typed word all the more prescient.

 I first met Dan and his fiancee Sam after at the edge of the park, as I, along with my boyfriend, exited a cab. He had been recruited as the on-site photographer, videographer, and the one who would help keep me calm. At this point, he knew nearly every word of their ceremony, after at least 30 ‘rehearsals’ in our apartment the night before.

Sam and Dan were bright-eyed and young and contained all the hope I myself needed at the moment. I wanted to hug them both, of course, but couldn’t. We walked over to what had been designated as “the altar” of sorts and went over a few basic questions before their two designated witnesses arrived. 

“You must be James,” I said, to a curly-haired bow-tied man. 

“Hey! Yes! Hi!” he said, before measuring his relative distance to me, to Sam, to Dan. As Sam bent down to try to change into her bridal shoes, a young girl in a pink fur coat came walking up, waving excitedly. 

Oh my god, I’m already crying,” she said. 

“Olivia?” I asked the other witness. 

“Yes, hi!” she confirmed. 

And that was all of us, physically.

We briefly went over when the witnesses’ readings would take place, while we used all the iPhones present to connect with 36 family members and friends from all over the country. There was a father doing dialysis in Ohio. A sister in Boston- “I just put my dress on over my pajamas!” she told the group. A mother and son who looked exactly alike, with their faces squeezed together within the 3×5″ screen. 

When we were ready to start, the two witnesses and my boyfriend all stood 6 feet from each other, and a safe enough distance from the couple so that the family could still hear their ceremony over the early March wind.

I began. 

We were brought here today even knowing, that perhaps, we shouldn’t be here. The entire city has been shut down in an unprecedented mandate to avoid the very prevalent invasion of an unfamiliar virus. Yet we were brought here, despite this warning, in the name of a very coveted, yet familiar, feeling- we were brought here for love.

I looked out, beyond the couple, at the cherry blossoms just bursting to life, for what would be a temporary moment of perhaps unnoticed beauty. The Spring would go on, it seemed, without our bearing witness to it.

Standing here now, even amidst temporary chaos, we are confident that this moment will undoubtedly withstand the test of time.

As a small crowd gathered beyond the fence that surrounded the six of us, standing there below the towering oak trees, the inability to contain, repress, or quarantine certain feelings was palpable.

I mentioned a quote that the groom he had emailed me the day before. ‘

Dan has said, “Once we met, I just knew that I had found something so unexpected and special. There was never a thought that anything could be better than this.”

The air between them seemed to stand still as it was so apparent that they couldn’t wait to embrace each other.

Irrepressible. It’s what brought these two together, a feeling that they could neither deny nor contain, and what brings us here now, despite all odds, and current circumstances. Some things are too strong to hold back, or to wait for what can be thought of as a sensible amount of time. It’s simply, and quite knowingly, irrepressible.

Their witnesses were called individually to ‘walk up’ and stand, while still maintaining a 6-foot distance from the couple. There were tears and laughs and more than a few admittances of “this is just so you guys…” all meant to solidify the bond that these two would share forever, upon the rooted, gnarly soil and uncertain earth of a park in transition. Winter to Spring, social gathering area to legally enforced distance, tranquil greenspace to quarantined chaos. There, with a few words, two would be transformed from engaged, to married.

And now, feeling this foundation beneath us, within us, and the future of these two before you, I ask you, present loved ones and those with whom we are virtually connected, to join hands with the person beside you. Dan and Sam, look out and feel all of the love that surrounds you now, this moment, within the historic landscape that we find ourselves. I now ask all of you, do you give your support for this union?”

I heard enough clapping, cheers, tears, and muffled affirmations to confidently proceed. 

They exchanged rings. They exchanged vows. They solidified their love in a bond, forever, amid two witnesses, through the authority of one stranger, with the virtual blessing of 36 faces trying to transcend the miles of separation, before a haphazard congregation that had been stopped in their tracks, less than 24 hours before the city would be ordered to stop completely.

Dan and Sam, having been present here to witness your vows of marriage with all who are assembled here in support of you, and by the authority vested in me, it is with great joy that I can now pronounce you husband and wife. Dan, you may kiss your bride.

As the words hung in the air, the world seemingly stopped. The moment felt untouchable, irrepressible, eternal.

The two newlyweds waved to the assembled crowd, all who had appeared to cheer for and congratulate them, these two strangers who were now one. Most of the faces on the other sides of the collected phones were wet with tears.

Champagne was popped. The marriage license was signed. Elbows were tapped. We said goodbye and then went on with our lives for the next day until we were told that we no longer could go on. And now, we wait.

So, hi.

Hi, coming from a mission of connecting people by bringing them outside of their shoebox apartments and into the wild, wondrous concrete jungle we’ve chosen to inhabit. 

So now what do I do? We are supposed to stay inside. To keep our distance from each other. To buy canned food and packaged goods that we wouldn’t normally eat because, who knows- everything’s changed now. You just might be a Spam person. 

My mission of city and human connection, mano a mano, is now officially, nationally, discouraged. And don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure I agree that we should stay indoors. 

But while we’re here, let’s talk, from a distance. I was recently mentioned on an amazing and very informative Instagram account called YesWilliamsburg as part of a Locally Famous feature. To be considered for such a feature, I had to answer the following questions:

1. What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen in NYC? 
2. What’s the best advice for someone wanting to move to New York?
3. What’s something really cool someone can do for under $30 in Williamsburg? 
4. What’s your go-to coffee shop order/where do you usually drink coffee?
5. What’s your favorite brunch spot in Williamsburg and why?

And while I’ll keep my responses to myself and to whoever the hell is listening on social media, I want to hear from you, here, now. Tell me your answers to the questions above, and anything else you want to add. Because after all, while we’re inside, we might as well keep in touch.

New York is an ugly, dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous.

But there is one thing about it – once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.

I found this quote in the very charming Wildsam Field Guide for Brooklyn that I procured from the window display at my local liquor store (special thanks goes out to the teenage cashier who snagged it for me). This quote, by John Steinbeck, highlights the relatively unpleasant nuances of living in this city that we are constantly influenced by. But living under this influence is what arguably separates “New Yorkers” from the rest of the country. 

The dirt and grime make us realize that we don’t need the pristine sterility modern living may provide. Our small living spaces force us to be considerate minimalists, constantly shedding things that feel unnecessary but leaving them in a “Free!” box outside our apartments. The aggressive weather, from blinding snow to relentless humidity, forces us to push forward instead of hiding in the comfort of our cars, driving around searching for a close enough parking space to not be affected by the elements before running into our big-box destination. The politics that affect the entire country we see and feel playing out right before our eyes, on the street- there can be no closing the curtains to the realities that our government directly affects. The traffic makes us all experts at logistical strategy- choosing the right train car to place us exactly at the staircase at Union Square, or navigating that corridor at Court Square like a goddamn Nascar driver. And the competition… I think New Yorkers coined the phrase, “Sink or swim”.

We are all under the influence of life in this city. We all accept the everyday challenges that come with “New York City Experience”. And the daily victories don’t leave us satisfied and resting on our laurels- it leaves us insatiably wanting more.

New York. My home sweet* home.

*dirty, shameless, aggressive, insufferable, addictive Home

Leap Year, huh? I’ll admit, it put a little pep in my step knowing that Saturday will be a once-in-four-years kinda day. It makes me want to write a check for no reason, just to jot down the date. I might bury some sort of time capsule (read: all my secrets) somewhere in Transmitter Park. Or maybe I’ll just mindlessly buy a bunch of lotto scratchers that I’ll ‘generously’ gift to friends under the pretense that we split the winnings 51-49. I don’t know what I’ll do, but I do know that what I’m doing here, both in this city and via this little project I have going, is trying to help you embrace every single day, in leaps and bounds.

Because who the hell knows what will happen in 4 years. Maybe we’ll realize the Mayan calendar wasn’t the smartest thing to base all of our days off of at all, or that painfully we can’t really believe in all that much because our country as a whole has the ability to put in office the equivalent, physically and mentally, of that Cheeto you found in the couch recently. 

Embrace the weekend. Seize the day. Take the leap. All we have is now. And if you need a bit of direction or way too many words to encourage you to get there, well… I’m here. Just trying to move you, baby.

This is a photo of me and my boyfriend taken in the mirror of a bathroom somewhere in Bushwick and I don’t want you to be too concerned about that. I knew from the moment we met that we were going to cause trouble together, and probably a lot of it. And I liked that prospect. Because trouble alone leaves you with a lot of explaining to do. Trouble together leaves you both in stitches, laughing and running down the sidewalk.

Since we met, we’ve spent an evening committing 40 misdemeanors with the help of a rental car that we drove over 300 miles around the island of Manhattan, with a tarp protecting the evidence in the trunk. We’ve admittedly seen more sunsets as a result of forgotten bedtimes rather than ambitious mornings. We’ve traversed continents, slowly sipping drips of absinthe in seductive bars in Paris and climbing ruins over 6000 years old in Lebanon while simultaneously trying to avoid my ex-boyfriend (it’s a long and very strange story, but mostly, it’s history) We’ve drunk wine from a bota snuck underneath my dress in the middle of summer at the 601st running of a biannual horse race in Italy. We’ve chosen to sleep in a tiny Fiat instead of the Villa it was parked in front of because of what was definitely a ghost. We’ve found our bathing suits just in time to see the fun police prancing up to our lean-to on horseback on a beach in Queens. We’ve laughed and screamed so loudly in our apartment, I feel like I should leave monthly fruit baskets for the neighbors.

I wanted someone to be wild with, and I found him. Wild with passion, in all of its polarizing and tantalizing beauty.

City love, I suppose they call it. I think I’ll hold onto it.

I truly love when something happens that has every single person in New York experiencing the same thing at the same time. Which is exactly what happened this past Wednesday, when we all received emergency updates on our phones, warning of a “Snow Squall” that would be sweeping over the city, from the West, within 30 minutes. This message was received as we were all looking out at clear blue skies and the city at peace, just before sunset. What is this squall? What is about to happen? What should we do?

I was out shopping for gifts and was positively charged by the excitement of it all. One shop owner told me, “They always make fun of me. I said just this morning, ‘I smell snow today…’ and they all laughed. And now the squall is coming…” she remarked proudly. 

Another told me, “I mean, they must be wrong. It’s beautiful outside. Nothing is going to happen,” as she rung in a pair of novelty socks and asked if I needed a gift receipt. To which, I wondered, is anyone enough of an asshole to return novelty socks? They are both functional and entertaining. I declined.

As I left the shop, I saw it coming. To my right, clear, sunsetting skies. To my left, the disappearing Manhattan skyline and a very unsettling deep, dark grey approaching quickly. The squall. I ducked into a vintage store and browsed through what could have been old or new jewelry as it hit. 

“Whoa, where did that come from?” The shop owner said aloud. “I’d wait it out if I were you…” 

“I want to go out in it,” I told her, as I opened the door and got swept up into the mayhem. 

And what impacted me most wasn’t the blinding snow or piercing wind… it was the feeling that all 8.6 million New Yorkers were feeling and thinking the same thing at the same time. I was swept up in the energy of what it is to live among so many unique people, with their own ideas and beliefs and dreams, and then to feel the impact of us all sharing the same, albeit panicked, mindset, for just a few minutes. 

I was walking back home after it had all settled in and I saw a woman nearly fall on a sneaky patch of sidewalk ice. An older man was approaching me. “Watch out, it’s super slippery right there.” “Right here?” he pointed, before sprinkling some salty mixture from a kid’s beach pail onto the patch. 

He seemed to be the post-squall Sheriff.

There are so many beautiful connections that happen daily in this city. We’re all in it together, even though at times we feel completely isolated. The sun rises and sets upon us each day. And sometimes, we get completely and wholly swept up in it all, together.

See you, or feel you at least, out there, Brooklyn.

I had a rather funny experience yesterday. One of the fashion companies I used to work for held their holiday party at my restaurant, and I was bartending. I was serving people who used to be my corporate colleagues. And while this irony made me nervous and inevitably a bit over-dressed to make sure I didn’t appear as some washed up, brainless bartender, the more I observed the scene the prouder I was of the change I intentionally made in my life. 

The super preppy company, which is kind of like if Brooks Brothers and Lily Pulitzer had a baby, gives employees a $300 monthly store credit, one that I had so much trouble spending, I usually gave half of the stuff to my mom or used the fabric to sew something more fitting for a 20-something Brooklynite. This was unacceptable, of course, at the holiday party. I was pulled into the sample room and forced into a frock that made me look like an over-botoxed Upper West Side socialite who was about to give a thank you speech at a gala. Instead, I was dragged to the on-site photo studio (Wowww! They really overdid themselves with the decor this year!) to have 2 glasses of wine and some finger foods and leave with a framed picture of the company founders. As much as I tried to fit in at that company, I never did. It also didn’t help that on my birthday, a crazy ex-boyfriend sent a midget stripper to my office at 11am (but that’s a whole other story).

As I looked around the dining room yesterday, proudly perched on the other side of my half-moon marble bar and wearing my own clothes, I was so happy to be exactly where I was. One of the former co-workers that I particularly despised smirked when he recognized me. “You look better. Is it because you don’t have to wake up early anymore?” “No, Jack. I’m a writer. I wake up whenever it’s time for me to work on my own craft,” I told him. 

Later, an old friend asked me. “How did you do it? I want to leave the corporate world so bad. It’s killing me.” I leaned in close and told her the secret. “You just go.”

Thank you, whoever is reading this, for being this reason for me to admit I was in the wrong place, and doing the wrong thing, at just the right time. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being the main reason for this lifestyle change, and into this life that fits me just right.