My Joy List
July 15th - 21st: Atlantic Grill UES chopped salad, lady bugs, Amsterdam summer things, & Ruby swims/kisses/snuggles
You’re reading a newsletter from Syd, an NYC-born gal who quit her “golden handcuffs” job and moved to Amsterdam to follow her heart’s calls for a path less traveled. Here, I share the challenges and wins of my own journey from people pleasing & perfectionism to authenticity, balance, joy, & freedom. Beyond this page, I coach fellow high achievers along their own journey. I also share their stories in a podcast, The Path Less Traveled. You may find comfort, empowerment, inspiration, and/or community. Welcome 🫶🏻
Hi my sunshiney souls!
I just got back from a spectacular bike ride to the Monday farmers market that’s mainly a flower market. Here’s a photo I sent to my new friend, Meg, with the bouquet I put together:
I’m quite proud of it! But what really brought me joy was opening my phone upon returning to my bike with my bouquet to see an unexpected message from Meg with a photo of her own bouquet. So my photo was really a reply bouquet. We should start a movement. Reply bouquets. More people would experience the wonder of watching the evolution of a fresh bouquet of flowers.
I tried taking a photo shoot on the bridge near the market, but it was hard to bring my vision to life with self timer. Alas, here’s what I captured:
It’s not lost on me that, when I gave up on being in the photo, the newspaper article that’s visible is titled, “Music in a time of war.”
I thought quite a bit this morning about who I’m writing to here. I think it has something to do with what my meditation teacher, Erika, said, “we’re here to hack the human experience” and more specifically, learning how to tap into our agency to uncover light in any room, even the darkest ones. And so, it feels apt that this newspaper article’s first sentence said,
“In Odesa, Ukraine’s southern city, where even dark times cannot suppress joie de vivre, everything is normal, until it isn’t. In the fourth year of the war, the city is buzzing with life.”
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Did you know “along with gratitude and awe, inspiration is considered one of the self-transcendent emotions”? (p. 46 from Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson)
That blew my mind: emotions can be self-transcendent. In other words, “It’s a form of positivity that pulls us out of our shell of self-absorption."
Maybe that also has to do with who I’m writing to here. Those who are eager to feel more of what causes them to transcend their selves.
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Or does something else keep you coming back, reading this? I’d really love to know. Please message me or comment!
I’m realizing that sometimes what I list as joy is actually...
another positive emotion, like serenity or awe.
I’m learning about the distinction in Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson, my summer reading for my masters program. There’s so much I want to share with you from it. But for now, I love how she described serenity as an “afterglow emotion” of other positive emotions.
Unrelatedly, my new to-do list approach…
Caused me a lot of anxiety last week, which is ironic because I raved about the approach in the new episode of The Path Less Traveled (released last week).
The approach wasn’t really the problem, though. It’s that the items on the list were too vague.
I put “ideate Amsterdam + Japan guides,” for example, but what does that really mean? Did I want to create a rough draft? Make a list of places? Start writing prose? Or did I just want to sit and think about it for a specific period of time? (I wanted the last.)
Because I was so vague, a moment never arrived when I said, “ah, now’s the time for that.” I didn’t define what “that” was. And so, the task loomed large on my list all week (along with a couple other similarly vague items), taunting me with that tiger-is-chasing-me stress of knowing there’s something to be done but not having any idea of when you’re going to do it. It’s kind of like putting a pin down in Google maps and then getting a “network connection lost” message when you tap directions.
In retrospect, I realize everything I experienced lines right up with (not) creating S.M.A.R.T. goals. If you’ve ever struggled with reaching a goal, I really recommend assessing whether your goal is S.M.A.R.T. Here’s a to-the-point article about the process from Yale.
My goals were not smart last week :| But it’s a brand new week and you better believe I was specific today!
My biggest accomplishment of last week…
was making a near-identical recreation of the world’s best chopped salad from the closed-but-previously-iconic Atlantic Grill on the Upper East Side. The salad’s kind of like the La Scala chopped salad in L.A., but even better.
In searching for the Atlantic Grill UES menu, I was reminded of the Haru it used to live next to. Remember Haru? There’s now a giant branch of Lenox Hill Hospital living on top of the Atlantic Grill/Haru rubble. Sad. But my memory worked wonders and I think I pulled the salad from the ashes.
Here she is:
iceberg lettuce
Bell peppers
Kalamata olives
Cherry tomatoes
Chickpeas
Red onion
Feta!
dressing = olive oil, balsamic, a dollop of dijon mustard, salt, & pep
!! Every ingredient (except chickpeas) MUST be well chopped. This is the most important part of the salad. You should be able to eat it with a spoon it’s so well chopped!
Okkkkk I’ve kept you waiting long enough. Let’s get into the full list! Happy joy spotting :)
Joy spotting: the practice of noticing little moments of joy surrounding us all the time (more)
The lady bug on the soil in the potted plant on our walk to coffee district
Rubs launching herself into the water at Bos all on her own to get the stick
Rubs’ looking up at me with a dirty face from the clay in the water
the weeping willow I’ve walked by a million times, glowing in the sun
the tiny 3 month old dauschend coming to nuzzle into me when I crouched down on the wood chip path in the park
The abundance of light pink roses in the plot in the rose garden
Ruby standing between my legs while I made my parfait and brushed my teeth, waiting for me to sit with her to enjoy her chicken foot
Eating A’s polenta fries during our music meeting
Finding my attempted recreation of the Atlantic Grill chopped salad was extremely close to the original after the first bite
The lady bug I found on the baseboard when I pulled open our bedroom curtains
Rubs smothering A’s face in kisses
Rubs smothering my face in kisses
Seeing A in his wedding suit
Talking to mom and dad on the phone about wedding updates as i walked around the park
spontaneously eating outside at Eetcafe Schotscheuvel with Rubs and A
Rubs fearlessly walking right into the ocean on her own accord on the beach
The flavor bomb of the mashed mushroom patty smeared inside the roti with onions and lime juice and the green sauce
Rubs sleeping on the couch while we watched Knocked Up
Rubs crawling onto A’s left thigh on the couch to get in on the action when I sat on his right thigh
Reading Positivity on my kindle on the couch next to A and Rubs with last night’s phish show on the tv
Rubs lying down underneath me while i eat my parfait on the balcony
The sound of older men singing and playing instruments as I pulled up to the market on my bike
checking my phone, flowers in hand, to see Meg’s text with a photo of her flowers
playing tug and fetch with Rubs with her pink frisbee in the park
Rubs running up to me to give me kisses in the middle of my call during our picnic
Big squeeze <3
Love,
Syd