Over the summer a good friend of a good friend of mine asked me if our New Year’s Day car accident changed the way I live my life. The question, over a cocktail, kinda stopped me cold. I jumbled my reply with some trite and unoriginal answer. Sorry Tracy!
Here’s my real answer. Yes Tracy the accident changed how I live my life. A near brush with death is a wake up call to live. As you are still here and not gone I think you have a responsibility. A responsibility to live: to live it up on top. I am referencing Hadestown here, a musical I felt very lucky to see for a second time recently – and my first musical since Broadway has creaked open. It was a gratifying and emotionally fraught (in a good way) evening. The show, which won The Tony for best musical, ducks in and out of the underworld with great regularity. The fun stuff? The life affirming stuff? It happens on top.
And while yes I am unapologetically a GIANT fan of fun, it is not just “fun” that I am referencing when I talk about having a responsibility to live. It is leaning deliberately into life. It is about doing something that scares you – that moves you out of your safe zone every single darn day. Like writing this blog post. Or taking 15 people on a tour of the layered and fascinating Riverside Park that you crash coursed learned about in the three weeks prior to the tour. It is about employing a constant and deliberate curiosity – about people, about places, and about new things. It’s about adding value to the lives of others by simply asking them how they are doing. It’s about stopping in your tracks to admire a moment, or a view, or the way someone says a sentence or makes a particularly apt and profound observation. It is about engaging with life in the most enthusiastic and authentic way possible.
So yes Tracy – because of the accident? I am living it up – livin’ it up on top. Because I can.
And would I recommend seeing or going back to see Hadestown? A million percent yes. Grab Your Group, your mask, your proof of vaccine and GO – Go live it up on top. Because you can.
