Daniel Gabbay

This past weekend, we New Yorkers got our first taste of summer. As temperatures rose, so did we – perched on a rooftop as we soaked in the sunlight. As I’d look around, couples surrounded me in every direction, as if the warm weather brought the city’s lovers out of hiding – making toasts, clinking glasses, and sharing sips. On every sleeve hung a heart, and in each hand a cocktail.

I think what we drink says a lot about who we are. Straight up, stirred, shaken, dirty, neat, with a twist… It’s almost as if these cocktail traits describe the people drinking them – their tastes and their personalities alike. The more I think about this correlation, our poisons of choice say a lot about our hearts too. Perhaps how we drink speaks to how we feel – and maybe liquor and love have more in common than we thought.

When we drink and when we love, we can feel the same things: we can feel buzzed and excited. Adventurous and more fearless than we might normally, as if our inhibitions have melted away like the ice cubes in our cocktails on a warm summer’s night. Whether a glass of wine or a kiss on the lips, a shot of Patron or a quick glance that’s met from across the room, both drinking and being in love can make us feel like we’re losing our minds and going weak in the knees – like the room is spinning and we need to sit down to let our hearts and minds catch up to one another.

But too much of either liquor or love can leave us lightheaded, weak, and nauseous too – so miserable that we want to abandon our sun-kissed rooftops and stay in bed all day, questioning why we ever opened the bottle – or our hearts – in the first place. Whether we’re left in a high or a low or somewhere in between, both acts can lead us to reveal desires, thoughts, questions, truths, and confessions within us that we may not have expected to surface. Both drinking and exposing our hearts might force us to loosen our grasp on things, and both can leave us vulnerable. Whether that vulnerability results in reward or regret, discovery or disappointment, celebration or sorrow, who’s to predict what awaits us on the other side of that kiss or cocktail.

So I wonder – are the drinks and the memories that come with them worth the hangover that might follow? Is the experience of love worth the potential heartbreak that could come later?

From a literal perspective, alcohol and affection don’t have any direct correlation to each other at all. But sometimes, when I try to understand something as complicated as love, it helps to compare a topic so intricate and abstract to something tangible. Perhaps we’ll never be able to comprehend the full depth and capacity of love. Perhaps this conversation itself isn’t about alcohol or affection in the grand scheme of things at all, but rather knowing that life comes with risks – whether it be a hangover or a heartbreak.

When it comes down to it, there are potential dangers and consequences in everything we do. But if we went through life responsibly enough to never encounter a broken heart – or glass – every now and again, we’d live too scared and closed off to feel that perfect buzz or romance.

Of course, this conversation isn’t a call to action to throw all caution to a summer night’s wind, but to find enough balance and confidence to go with the breeze, and trust it’ll take us somewhere worth going. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being grounded – but maybe we have to kick up our heels and catch some air every now and again to open ourselves up to life’s risks – and even welcome them, just as I’m sure New York’s resident rooftop lovers did at one point or another.

As I reflect on my weekend observations, I don’t know what life has in store for us. I hope we all end up in love, toasting to the chances we took in pursuit of affection. Our hearts may burn in the same way our throats do when we throw back a shot or two – but perhaps we must endure those temporary moments of discomfort to find those things that make us happy later on – the ones that make us smile and dance and grow and feel, more intensely than we knew we could.

Indeed, a drink can lead to a hangover, and being vulnerable can result in heartbreak. But life is too short to live with fear. So let’s toast bravely and love fiercely. Endure the risks we take – and embrace them – and maybe we’ll end up drunk in love on a rooftop somewhere.

A couple of months ago, I planned a trip home to LA for my birthday. Before hitting “Purchase” on the red-eye flight I selected, I checked my itinerary and saw that my flight takes off on April 12^th and lands in LA a day later on April 13^th – my birthday. At that moment, the JetBlue confirmation page on my laptop made me realize that I’d be in flight, up in the air, as midnight rolls around and I turn a year older.

I didn’t think much of my flight’s timing when I booked it. “Just like any other trip,” I thought. But now, as I sit on this plane and look out my window to the once big city that’s now a sea of glistening specks, I reflect on this past year and realize the magical irony around my red-eye:

A year ago, about to turn another year older – (and hopefully wiser), I was unsure of the direction in which my life was headed. I was about to graduate college, look for a job, and continue on this so-called adventure that is adulthood. I didn’t have the strongest grasp on life; I had my doubts and truly felt like everything was up in the air.

Well, exactly a year later, as I fly deeper into my twenties, it seems I’ve ended up in the same place I was a year ago – up in the air, and quite literally. But this time, as I glide through clouds and weave through stars, buckled up in my window seat, I have a stronger sense of understanding, clarity, and self. It turns out that my initial feelings of uncertainty, curiosity, and even anxiety as to where life would take me post graduation, have evolved into emotions of pride, accomplishment, and even disbelief that I found my wings mid air.

In the last year, I graduated college and landed my first real job. I moved into a new apartment (and learned that you never have enough boxes or tape.) I found the humility to admit when I’m wrong, and the courage to affirm when I’m right. I cooked more (and burned more food than ever before). I met amazing new people that turned from strangers into friends, and I discovered some qualities about myself that were waiting to emerge.

Ironically enough, if I hadn’t experienced those moments of hesitation and ambiguity, when everything was up in the air, my feet would have never reached the ground to land where I am now. With that, I wonder: maybe being “up in the air” isn’t such a bad thing – maybe this stigma that lies around the phrase is misleading, (and maybe my most profound epiphanies come to me at 36,000 feet above ground).

They say life is a journey – but I have to disagree. As I fly home to LA and look forward to a new year, I realize that life is more like a series of flights – full of arrivals, departures, delays, and even turbulence. But if we embrace the bumps and enjoy the trip, perhaps we can see things from a new, refreshed perspective as we look down below. And when we feel like we’re helplessly floating up in the air with no solid ground below, it’s likely we’re really just on our way to our next destination.

Thank you all for partaking in my series of flights, and for being the best part of my itinerary, wherever life’s travels may lead me.

Yours, Always,

Dear Future Tenant,

After two amazing years, my time living in 5B is up. The time has finally come for me to leave Horatio Street, say goodbye to this version of a house that became a home, and move on to what’s next. I’ve boxed my belongings and packed up my memories along with me, to leave you with a fresh space – a space as empty of clutter as it is full with promise. As I give you the key to make this place your own, for however long you decide to stay, I have just a few thoughts to share as I close the door behind me, one last time:

Apartment 5B is a special place – a few hundred square feet of charm, comfort, delight, frustration, celebration, hassle, surprise, and discovery, all wrapped up together. As confusing as that description sounds, I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean soon enough.

For starters, 5B looks new and young with its freshly painted walls, marble counter tops, and wooden finishes, but it was built decades ago. Its spirit and soul are rooted in the past, infusing the space with nostalgic charm and timeworn comfort, if you look through its cracks. And its cracks are just the beginning:

There’s a small scrape on the wall next to the bedroom and a little hole in the wall in the kitchen. In the top right corner of the rug lives a slight stain, and the towel hook in the bathroom loosens if you give it a generous tug. If your landlord were to read this letter, I’d be probably be in big trouble, and I apologize for the “damages” – but the reason I’m sharing these flaws with you is to try and express all that 5B was for me:

I made that scrape on the wall by my bedroom when I ripped off a “Happy Birthday!” banner, peeling off some white paint right along with it. A few friends and I threw our best friend Alex a surprise party for her 24^th birthday and decorated the apartment with streamers, confetti, and party hats scattered everywhere. She was so surprised that I’d say the scrape was worth it.

The hole in the wall came from the chalkboard that my dad and I nailed and hammered in during my first week in 5B. I was so excited about the chalkboard at the time that I didn’t even consider the exposed space it would leave when I’d have to remove it one day. But now that I think about it, the hole in the wall where my chalkboard once hung kind of filled a void that I used to feel within myself. I moved into this apartment alone, but the chalkboard provided all who visited a surface on which they could scribble and draw and laugh and express themselves, to write funny messages, and make me feel a little less alone as a result.

The stain on the rug is from a red wine spill that I tried to clean and scrub out – unsuccessfully, as though it seems. (Just put a little plant over it and you won’t even notice it’s there). I got my first job out of college that day and had my close group of friends over to celebrate. We ordered pizza from Rubirosa and popped open some Cabernet. A glass led to a bottle, and soon enough, we were singing and dancing around the apartment and, well, had a little accident.

The loose towel hook hanging out from the wall in the bathroom is just old. Maybe I hung too many towels on it at once and misjudged its sturdiness. Who knows.

I’m sorry for leaving 5B with some wear and tear, but the reckless optimist in me would like to think that I left the apartment more worn in than worn out for you – with each scratch and scrape making the space more personable, and even human.

I hope the marks I’ve made here inspire you to leave your own.

Flaws aside – 5B is an extraordinary place to stay, but beyond that, to live, in every essence of the word. The apartment gave me a space to call my own, to reflect, rejoice, question, flourish, exhale, dream, take chances, and comprehend all that was going on at the time.

When I moved in, my life was in limbo. I was going through some pretty big changes, and I didn’t know what to expect out of my new home. But with every walk up and down those five flights of stairs that led to my apartment – (yes, five flights, get ready) – I felt as though I was making strides towards some sort of progress and further understanding about the person I am and the life I’ve chosen to live. 5B helped me do that; let it do the same for you. Cherish the safe haven that it is, and allow yourself to be whoever it is you want to be in there and beyond its doorstep.

I hope you take the moments to kick your feet up on the stools in front of the couch, graze the exposed brick wall with your fingers, open the window and gaze out to the Freedom Tower beaming proudly in the distance, pull out the glass vase in the cupboard above the stove and fill it with flowers, and look into the mirror mounted on the wall, and see yourself every so often. Sometimes it’s easy to lose ourselves in this city.

One thing I will say though, is that you’ll seldom feel lost on Horatio Street. Whenever I’d enter or leave the building, the cobblestone street and the trees would remind me that I have a place to call my own and a place where I belong – in this crazy city, and in this crazy life.

Now that I’m writing this letter to you, I realize how much I love that place, and how much I’m going to miss it. It’s difficult for me to let go of somewhere that represents such a big chapter of my life – but that chapter has ended, and it’s time for me to turn the page anew.

So, dear future tenant, take care of 5B for me. Enjoy it, embrace it, give it life again, make your own marks, and thank it – for the space and the home it will provide you with, to write your next chapter.

With that, I wish you all the best.

Welcome home…

Sincerely,

Whenever I spend time wandering the city during Valentine’s Day, I always see groups and groups of people taking pictures together and meeting at one specific spot in Nolita – in front of a small black brick wall painted with small red hearts all over its surface. For friends, families, and lovers all alike, the wall sparks a sense of excitement and romantic charm on this day of the year – serving as a reflective backdrop of the love they’re celebrating.

Yet, with all the attention we give the wall on this day, it almost seems as though the wall is less significant during the rest of the year, when we aren’t celebrating Valentine’s Day. So, while my favorite little wall in the city always makes me smile, it also makes me wonder:

Why is it that we only dedicate this one holiday to celebrate love, when Hallmark and Godiva tell us to? What about the rest of the year?

On Valentine’s Day, we become so used to associating the holiday with dark chocolate, chilled champagne, strawberries, red roses, perfectly shaped hearts we find in greeting cards – and the list goes on. But if we take a step forward and look at the wall more closely, perhaps our sugary perceptions of the holiday become merely surface-level.

The red hearts on the wall are of different sizes, face multiple directions – some upright and some upside down, and have cracks in them from the bricks on which they’re painted. To me, these hearts are what honestly represent the meaning behind Valentine’s Day – much more so than the bouquets and confections we become so attached to on this one day each year.

As the wall vividly conveys, love can make us feel big, love can make us feel small, love can seem twisted and turned and make us feel as if our worlds have been turned upside down, love can make us float on air, and sometimes, love can even cause our own hearts to crack a bit – just like the hearts painted on these bricks.

Sometimes, we seem to forget these truths as we focus on the sweet stuff, but perhaps these are the true qualities we should embrace on Valentine’s Day – the traits and textures of love that make us feel and think and reflect, the ones that make us grow and bring us closer together and make us stronger, that make us human and make us love harder and more honestly than we ever knew we could.

As we reflect upon the brick wall on Mott Street and the truths about love it represents, let’s celebrate the authentic beauty of Valentine’s Day. Let’s embrace all its beautiful cracks and imperfections, and break down our own walls – to soak in the love that surrounds us in its most raw and honest form, today and always.

Love,

Just like every other day, I began today with a caffeine fix to jump-start my morning. Just like every other day, I ordered my usual almond milk latte – extra hot. And just like every other day, the barista asked me if I’d like to take my coffee to go or to stay. Normally, I take my coffee with me and drink it on the go as I run my errands and go about my day. But yesterday morning, I had nowhere to be. I didn’t make any early plans, knowing I’d still be recovering from a turkey-induced hangover, so I decided to sit down, drink my latte there at the coffee shop, and take my time.

While waiting for the barista to make my drink at the counter, I scanned the room and searched for an open table. As I paused and looked around for a place to sit, I also noticed all the people around me:

I saw a group of friends sitting and laughing together, an elderly couple sneaking kisses to one another, a mother playing peek-a-boo with her baby and rocking his stroller, a business man working on his laptop in the corner, a girl with blue highlights in her hair and a tattoo of a star on her wrist writing in a journal, a woman silently reading her book – seemingly holding back tears, and one of the baristas singing and dancing while he was preparing everyone’s coffees.

And in those few brief moments that felt like time had pleasantly frozen for me, I was once again reminded of so many things I’m grateful for – like laughter, friends, family, company, solitude, tears – the power to fight through them and the power to let them fall, self-expression, art, the infinite color blue, the stars, the sky, books, words, silence, music, dance, kisses, the ways that we’re all different, the ways we’re all the same, and the chance to be alive to experience all of these things.

Finally, my coffee was ready. Rather than the usual paper cup with a lid on top I normally take with me to go, the barista served me my coffee in a steaming, open-faced porcelain mug that framed a design she so artfully crafted with its foam. I looked down at my beautifully bare latte, and saw a milky white heart floating there, gazing back at me.

I thanked her with a smile and she thanked me back with a smile.

Before I took my first sip and claimed the open table in the back, I looked down again at my latte that held the universal symbol for love at its center. That’s another thing I’m grateful for: love – whether it’s around us, within us, or between the palms of our hands, staring back at us.

Of course, the hearts in our lattes inevitably fizzle and fade. But even after we leave the coffee shop, we’ve still got the ones beating vivaciously inside of us, giving us beautiful life, to feel the most grateful for.

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all – and much love,

When I was a young boy, my mom and I would always garden together. Every weekend, we would go out and buy packs of different seeds and rush home to plant them in our backyard. Over time, we grew strawberries, plums, apples – and the list goes on. But for some reason, I most vividly remember growing tomatoes together.

Each morning before I’d leave the house for school, I would run outside to check on our plants, hoping our tomatoes had ripened overnight. Of course, that was never the case – but I never lost hope. I would look closely and examine the exact spot where we planted the seeds, right next to our basil plants, confident that my focused stare would pressure my plant into growing more quickly.

As time went on, I would notice that the tiniest sprout that first peeked out of the soil kept growing taller and fuller with more and more tiny leaves appearing around it. Soon enough, the initial hint of green transformed into a juicy, red-orange tomato – and the time would finally come for us to pluck the plump prize of our patience from its stem.

I’d rush to the kitchen, juggling the fruits of our labor in the small palms of my hands, holding them closely against my chest so they wouldn’t fall. After washing them under the faucet, I’d lay them all out on the black marble counter and pat them dry with a paper towel, ever so delicately.

But when the time would come to decide what to do with our new tomatoes, I was always hesitant. My mom would come up with different ideas, enthusiastically suggesting we chop them into little pieces to mix into a salad, cut them into thin slices to add into a sandwich, or even cook them into a delicious tomato-basil sauce to go with her famous angel hair pasta – my favorite. But even so, I didn’t want to let go of my tomatoes. In an attempt to provide me with some heartfelt clarity, she would remind me that if we don’t eat our fresh tomatoes, they would eventually rot: “We should enjoy them now because we can always plant more tomorrow,” she’d say. And she was right; we continued to grow tomatoes and pick basil from our garden and cook them into different tasty dishes that I would eat with so much pride and satisfaction.

Yet, as the years went by and the seasons would pass, my mom and I would garden less and less frequently. Little Daniel seemed to outgrow his favorite ritual; growing up seemed to take too much of his time. Now, about a decade and a half later since then, things have changed, as they normally do over time. Garden views have faded into cityscapes, school lunches have turned into conference room meetings, classmates have been replaced by colleagues, and now I prepare my own lunches to take to work with me.

Almost every weekend, I make a trip to the grocery store to purchase food for the coming workweek. Yesterday afternoon, however, I opted for an adventurous change of plans; rather than heading to Mrs. Green’s market on Hudson Street like I normally do, I visited the Union Square Farmers’ Market. As I weaved through the different stands, I let my senses guide me: aromas of olive oil, rosemary, lavender soap, and freshly baked bread wafted through the air, as emerald apples, blood red cherries, and blazing yellow sunflowers filled my sight. I kept walking through the market, crossing all my items off my mental shopping list. I was about to head home – shopping bags slipping through my fingers – until an all too familiar scent waltzed around my nose, triggering an unexpected sense of nostalgia. I turned around – “Fresh Basil” was written across a black board in white chalk. And of course, next to the fragrant basil, were endless containers of bright red tomatoes.

I was suddenly transported back to Los Angeles, to my family’s garden next to my mom, as we planted our tomato seeds together – awaiting their ripened arrival until we crafted them into lunchtime masterpieces that I’d show off to my friends at school. Now, more than ever, as I stood facing these visual remnants of my childhood, that time feels like a memory more distant than ever before – a memory that has remained tucked away in the corners of my mind – until yesterday, when I was pleasantly reminded of its existence.

For years, I have always imagined what my adult life would turn out like – an evolving vision that began sprouting during the garden days, that has stuck with me since, as I continue to explore the Concrete Jungle. I’m finally living a version of that life that I always envisioned – as a “grown up,” as some people call it, living in New York City, with a job that beholds endless promise and possibility, and the capacity to feel and think and love and evolve as an individual.

But now, as I reflect back, I realize I didn’t end up here over night. Just like my beloved plants, rooted eternally in my childhood, time patience, hard work, and belief in my potential to grow have all collectively contributed in cultivating the man I am today.

As it seems, life is as cyclical as its moments are temporary: things change, (as they should), and reappear in new shapes and forms over time. With that, nothing is instantaneous. Life is a process – and the milestones we reach result from the steps and moments that have previously lead up to them. So, regardless of where we end up, we must always remember our roots. We ripen and blossom into the people we become because we begin as seeds first, and we grow – just as the independent man in the city first started out as the boy in the garden with his mother by his side.

As time continues to pass and I’m faced with obstacles, challenges, and my own fear of change, I try and channel little Daniel from the garden, the boy who had conviction in his craft even when he had his doubts. I know he’s still there inside – because he vividly reminds me of where I started, even when I have no idea where I’m going. Perhaps, therefore, if we acknowledge our past and embrace our beginnings, we can rekindle that same authentic comfort and confidence in who we are as individuals as life goes on, as the seasons change, and as we continue to grow into the people we are meant to become.