String Theory

An old boyfriend once told me that I reminded him of a fly on a string, zipping in upward directions with boundless optimism, while he was more zen than zag, tethering the other end to the solid foundation of earth. This is not the reason he’s an old boyfriend, and to his credit, the analogy was prescient without the tragic trajectory.

I have known two things from a very young age: that I rarely stop moving, and that life is meant to be lived looking up. I met my match one summer afternoon almost twenty years ago in a phone interview with Michela O’Connor Abrams – she barrelling across the Golden Gate Bridge with a four-year-old in the back and I tucked away in a quiet house with my new husband in a little town outside of Toronto.

In the twenty years since, Michela and I have developed a connection unlike any I have known. We work together with an innate rhythm that can’t be manufactured, the mutual respect and support having evolved into a fiercely loyal, lucid, and true friendship, leading to some of the deepest laughs, greatest self-discoveries and most important decisions of my life.

This is one of them.

I have decided to start a new chapter. These past months have proven to be a mercurial incubator, delivering debilitating moments of fear, division and uncertainty in the same swallow as great swings of optimism for a better, more deeply connected world. It has offered me the unexpected opportunity to sit quietly, to listen, and to embrace uncertainty.