Linda Francis Lee in NYC Webisode #6 Getting Stuffed at a Street Fair

When we first moved to Manhattan in 1998 I hadn't spent much time in the city. I remember getting ready to move and talking to my editor, trying to get a handle on what it is like to live in a city that felt like nothing I could understand. It was just before the time of Sex and the City and the new way the show painted life in New York - fun and sexy and glamorous. For the two decades prior to that, New York was mainly portrayed through gritty cop shows and movies. So I couldn't imagine where you bought groceries or went to the cleaners. How did you get around? I had a million questions, but I was also excited about the move. There are so many facets of life in NYC. But one thing that I remember so well is coming out of our apartment the first weekend we were there to find the street closed off and lined with food vendors, craft-makers, musicians, and thousands of people crowding the booths and street. It was like a great big party to welcome me to Manhattan. As it turned out in NYC, there is a street fair just about every weekend throughout the summer and early fall. And for today's Linda Francis Lee in NYC webisode, I am taking you to one. I hope you enjoy!

Golfing with my Father

The first time I took up a golf club I was in elementary school. It wasn't that I was crazy about the sport, but I loved that at the end of the classes we had a father-daughter tournament and for the length of the course it was just me and my dad. We played with another father-daughter team, but I was barely aware of them. My dad talked about my stroke, about playing, about aspects of the game. My father was a very busy man and he was also a great golfer. So for him to take that much time to focus on me in that sport made me feel special. Sure, it sounds like a daughter desperate for her busy father's attention. But what daughter doesn't want to be noticed? What child doesn't want to be noticed? And to this day when I talk to kids, I make a point to set the world aside and focus. Really listen to what they are saying. The same with adults. Because at the end of the day, don't we all want to be seen?

All this to get to the point of this week's Linda Francis Lee in NYC video! There is so much to do in NYC. But given that it's a small, crowded island with so little open space, the thought of golf doesn't come to mind when thinking of NYC. But there is sports complex called Chelsea Piers on the west side that has just about every sport you can imagine. And yes, you can play golf. At least you can sort of play golf. And to this day I can't pick up a golf club without in some way remembering that father-daughter tournament and feeling special.

Champagne Atop The Met

The first time I heard about watching the sun go down while sipping Champagne of the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art I knew I had to do it. When you're down on the city streets, NY is like a live wire. Energized, frenetic, always moving. You get used to it, New Yorkers move through the streets like needle and thread, weaving through people and cars. Or perhaps it's more like a carefully choreographed dance. People pass in front of each other with only inches to spare. The key is to not stop, not block, simply glide and weave. And somehow it works. But when you go up onto a rooftop that has views that stretch on forever, the frenetic pace of NYC falls away, the noise disappears, and you float, you find peace. And there is no better place to do that than in the October when the weather is cooling off, the leaves just starting to change.

Here is a video of my trip to the top of the Met!

Enjoy!

Adventures in Brooklyn

In Webisode #2 I dressed up high heels and fancy clothes and went out on the town. But this week it's all about NYC going country. More specifically, The Crew and I took the train to Brooklyn and ate at the much ballyhooed Pies N Thighs.I hadn't been to Brooklyn since 1991 – and let me just say a lot has changed since then.

During that trip, the mystery cameraman, my younger brother, his fiancé and I were visiting Manhattan. Dressed in our button-downs and flowery summer dresses we got in a car and drove over the Manhattan Bridge with the vague idea of making it to Coney Island. We drove over the bridge with relative ease and were feeling pretty good about the whole endeavor until we hit Flatbush Avenue. As it turned out Brooklyn back in '91 was not the perfect place for button-downed, flowery dressed Texans just off the turnip truck.Given the war zone look of the place - cars on blocks missing pretty much everything except their metal shells - we figured out our mistake pretty quickly. We made a hard right in hopes of getting turned around only to end up on a dead end street hemmed in on either side by parked cars. We sat there stunned for half a second until several fellows appeared out of nowhere and started sauntering our way – and they didn't look like members of AAA intent on giving us directions. The mystery cameraman has always been a good driver in precarious situations (I've been in the car with him when he managed narrowly to avoid another car pinballing against concrete barriers on an icy interstate) and he was at his best when he threw the car into reverse and drove backwards at a high rate of speed and as straight as any line drawn with a ruler.

We made it back over the bridge and I hadn't even considered Brooklyn since. But all these years later, now living in Manhattan, Pies N Thighs in Brooklyn beckoned. Brooklyn has changed dramatically over the years, and this time I found a perfectly nice neighborhood no different from a lot in Manhattan . . . and some serious pies and thighs.

I hope you enjoy!

Changing

You hear people say that it's impossible to change. But scientists will tell you that we are made to change, every cell in our body regenerating every seven years. And if our bodies change, why can't we? I think people don't change because change it is hard. It's uncomfortable, it takes effort. More than that, it takes looking deep and seeing what you may or may not be doing right. Change must be precipitated by the acknowledgment that we aren't perfect. While most people do lip service to this idea, it is just that. Lip service. Most people like to think they do everything perfectly – NEED to think they are doing things perfectly. That speech? Awesome. That presentation? Never better. That last purchase? That last conversation with a loved one? Perfect! But every once in a while something happens and we are forced to look deep. And when we do, if we see that we could be better, I believe the measure of a person is in what they do about it. Simply move on? Refuse to recognize what is there? Or attempt to do the hard work involved in becoming a better person. Because change truly is possible.

Of course POSSIBLE doesn't mean it is EASY. Behavior is in large part caused by a series of habits, and habits create neural pathways in the brain. Neural pathways help a body do things repeatedly easily. But when the habit is bad, it's hard to break that neural pathway, break the habit. In order to change, the habit must be broken, the neural pathway erased. Breaking neural pathways takes patience, perseverance. But it seems to me that a life well lived is one where at the end of it we have grown, we have not been stagnant. We have truly lived.

Linda Francis Lee in NYC Webisode #2 Night Out on the Town

Here is the new Linda Francis Lee in NYC Webisode #2!

Night on the Town

Linda Francis Lee in NYC Webisode #2 is up and running . . . A Night Out on the Town

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFZsTDWM0PE