Hard not to feel the sting of separation this holiday locked away from our families and friends. Usually I’d put out my grandmother’s cut glass olive dish, a tablecloth I stole from Mom and fill GG’s vintage Bacardi trifle dish to make them feel closer. But all of it, like ourselves, is locked away for another time.

We have come to the woods once again to recover, restore and find solace. Nature, that ever healing force, in this place fills us with spectacular light bouncing off of delicate leaves in transition. But once again, or maybe still, Nature Herself needs healing.

Because that's what happens in 2020. You scramble your way to a comfortable seat amongst the slippery rocks, the tide shifts, and you're left treading water and looking for land once again.

We have taken to the woods in search of magic. Or maybe to have magic find us.

But the true gift of my garden isn’t the food but the moments when I connect my loss or my win with the way the world works— experiencing the macrocosm in the microcosm.

When I found myself choking back sobs as Wilson the volleyball floated away on screen, I knew it was time.

Yesterday I watched a man have a mini panic attack in the grocery store. He wandered into this aisle and stopped dead before the lone super pack of toilet paper. Judging by the look on his face he’d just vomited in his mouth a little.

Forest elves, woodland foxes, Nature tribes, branch deer and coffeehouse angels. A magical place.

This place. It forces me to breathe. In my little sea level life I take sips of air, just enough to move forward, get me to my next target. But not this place.

Please reach out to one person in your life this holiday season who is a total pain in the ass.

I try to be gluten, dairy, sugar and most alcohols free. If I’m not, my body beats the crap out of me. But sometimes the beating is worth it. So when the waitress at Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster Harlem asked us if there were any food restrictions, I sweetly looked up into her face and said, “Nope. Not here.”

‘Family’ is most certainly the ‘F’ word. Fierce. Freakish. Fantasmagoric. (Look it up.) Fun. And yes, the word you immediately thought of as well.

In all of my excitement and anticipation at sharing the magic of a night under the stars dancing amidst hundreds of ecstatic people I lost sight of one key factor: my 12 year old can’t do concerts.