As we walked into McCarren towards the track, the air shifted. The park pulsed with the rumblings of cheers, people put a pause on their work-outs to look down at their phones in awe. Claps grew louder, and you could feel a sense of relief in the air.

Ryan looked over at me. "Did he just win?"
Thoughts raced through my head: Did it really happen? Can we actually celebrate?

The week before was filled with a collective anxiety unlike any other. Watching the news 24/7. Waking up in the middle of the night at 4am, unable to go back to sleep without first checking Twitter to see who was leading Georgia or if Pennsylvania had any chance of flipping blue. The stress could be felt by all, and the words "this is looking like 2016" felt like a heavy weight to carry all week. It was hard to focus on work until we simply had an answer. But we had no idea when an answer would come: Would it be days? Weeks? Months?

But in the park, we got our answer.
"Oh my god. Biden won."

My eyes couldn't help but tear up from the pure relief of it all. My cheeks couldn't help but smile from the joyous energy that could be shared by all that day. It was a victory unlike any other.

Almost immediately, people started coming together with Biden flags. Speakers were blasted repeating the lyrics, "Fuck Donald Trump." Everyone became a "woo" girl, and the cheers echoed from person to person. Champagne bottles were popped. People took over the streets with confetti and masks. Text messages were exchanged exclaiming "WE DID IT," to both friends and even strangers. The fights, the protests, the calls - it was worth it. And showed that our efforts weren't for nothing. That a glimmer of hope could exist in 2020.

Watching Kamala Harris and Biden take the stage flooded the world with a sense of normalcy again. It showed progress towards a better future, one that's more diverse, and shows possibility for every American. But despite all the good in this moment, we still know the nation is extremely divided, and that this was only the beginning of a slightly easier up-hill battle.

But my god, for that one day, that single moment: we all shared a sign of relief in the park.
We danced. We celebrated. And we won.

The world sometimes move a bit too fast for us. We generate schedules for ourselves that grow too familiar, and slip into cycles of monotonous habits that somehow rule our daily lives. The construction of time has perhaps limited us to how often we focus on ourselves – the moments spent searching for epiphanies that bend our minds towards enlightenment, and the moments spent acknowledging the world’s beauty that fills us with so much life. All in all, I value the moments in which time ceases to exist. I thrive off conversations in which you areable to see a person’s thoughts unfold, or songs in which the lyrics gently remind you of how wonderful life is. I hike mountains to reach places that entice all my senses, and I act on stages to explore mindsets that differ from my own. I temporarily escape the constraints of time, and find myself only focusing on the present. We need to devote our energy towards embracing the things that bring our world to a giant hult.

Remember in second grade when everyone had to draw out their family tree and bring it to class? Well, I never had much of a family. Growing up, it was always just my mother and I. Rosemary and Spice – the mother daughter pair that, despite our herb-related names, could not have been any more opposite. We were the Virgo and the Aquarius. The yin and the yang.
    My mom dyed her hair pink, told me to skip school at least once a week, and owned a cookie company on the Sunset Strip. I hid my face in embarrassment as she would flaunt her latest tattoos, or blast Nina Hagen in the car as we drove down Hollywood Blvd. (Deep down, I always knew she was the “cool” mom.)
    When I would come home after school with the instructions for my family tree assignment, I had many questions to ask: What is my great-aunt’s name? Who is married to who? Is my cousin’s name Jessica or Jenna?
    “Spice, just make it up,” she insisted. “Be creative.”
    And with those words, I froze. She tore down all barriers that I strictly obeyed in school and shined light on a new set of rules for me. I had the power to do things a bit differently. I learnt at a young age to never limit myself to the same box as everyone else. If everyone did exactly what they were told, the world would grow lifeless and dull. Variety is the spice of life, isn’t it?

"Surrealism runs through the streets. Surrealism comes from the reality of Latin America."
Colombia, February 2016

"You should make something. You should bring something into the world that wasn't in the world before. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if it's a table or a film or gardening - everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, 'I did that.'"

Yesterday I was just itching to create something, so I did. This little video is the result.


There's always a soundtrack to your life here. Street performers playing their tunes. Subways disrupting conversations. Bands being heard in the distance at Central Park. Each sound wave impacts how you recall that moment in time. 

This city is beginning to take shape. When you visit New York for a few days or even a week at a time, a sense of direction never exists; your mind blurs east and west and south and north into one entity. You let the city take control of where you go. But I think it's moments when you know when what subway line to take, or times when you know when to turn left on Spring St., it's those moments that make you feel like you truly belong, and take ownership of where you go - what you do with each new day.

You were kind. You were a friend. You were a complete stranger.