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On Friday afternoon, my partner and I drove out to Greenport, New York on the North Fork of Long Island for a calm seaside end-of-summer escape. For most of the drive, I was buried in my phone editing content for our upcoming fall collection (dropping next Thursday!) By the time I finally looked up from my screen, we were eight minutes from the hotel, passing farm stands and flower farms that felt almost like relics from another life. I am, by nature, a very forward-looking person. I am almost always thinking about what is next. The next launch. The next collection. The next season. The next goal. The next version of my life. And I like that about myself. Ambition has carried me far. But lately, I have started wondering how much of life I risk missing by always leaning toward the future. That evening, we had dinner overlooking the water as we watched the sun set. Over the next few days, we visited wineries, went out for brunch, drove past stretches of farmland, and sat on a rocky shore picking out pretty stones before throwing them back into the water. It all had that particular feeling of the last days of summer. And instead of thinking about what was coming next, I had this overwhelming sense that I was already inside something I would one day miss. Not the next collection. Not the next milestone. Not the future version of me who has figured out a little more and accomplished a little more. This. Dinner by the water. Sitting on a rocky shore with nowhere urgent to be. A winery with a view. For a long time I imagined life as something I was building toward. There was always another marker in the distance, and somewhere underneath that was the assumption that I would eventually arrive at a point where things felt settled enough to fully enjoy them. But there's always another marker. The future keeps moving. And at some point, you realize the life you have been racing toward is already happening around you. Attention feels like the closest thing we have to slowing down time. To notice where you are while you are still there. To let an ordinary afternoon register as something worth remembering. To stop assuming you will appreciate it properly later. The weekend isn’t over yet. We have a few more meals to savor, farms to experience and family to visit. And I’m trying not to skip ahead. Fall will come soon enough. Hugs, |
