I spent stretches of my childhood in Venezuela, where my mom is from. I’m very grateful I learned to speak Spanish as a kid. Also, I learned how to dance merengue and salsa — mostly by hanging on when my cousins whipped me around the dance floor. Tambores was harder. It required me to dance alone, twitching my hips while moving in a circle. Venezuelans are bringing tambores with them as they disperse around the country. When I learned about tambores being performed in New York City, I knew I had to write about it. The article is in the Arts & Leisure section this weekend.
Back in Guatemala
I have spent most of the past two weeks in Guatemala. It is a fascinating — and beautiful — country. Mostly I’ve been reporting on the political situation here, but I took this weekend to go to Lake Atitlan. When you travel you meet so many people from all over. I spoke with three sets of four men who had met in college and now travel together every year.
I was on the fence about returning to Guatemala. Last year I was held up at knife point in the capital; the man severed my tendon when he stole my phone. I had to fly back to New York City to have surgery on my dominant hand. I’ve tried to see that episode as a one-off and press on.
And if I hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t have been able to do this hike in Santa Cruz.
Looking Back on a Magical Month
A year ago I had the good fortune to be the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. That month has been on my mind a lot recently. The estate is spectacularly beautiful. The food is extraordinary. It is the people, though, that have stuck with me. Something about all being together and socializing at the end of long days. I’ve been trying to make more time to see friends. We are so busy, though, and I’ve been in a place where I’m dependent on a car to get around.
At Bellagio, people I wanted to spend time with were literally living in the house where I resided. I miss that.
A Celebration of Live Performance
I had the pleasure of writing about the hard-core devotees of Jonathan Groff in “Just in Time.” I love live theater and I am a big admirer of Groff. His performance in “Just in Time” — he plays the mid-century crooner Bobby Darin — carries the show. And I thought he was a revelation in “Merrily We Roll Along.”
What was cool about this reporting project was meeting this community of women who shared a passion and were so supportive of each other. They live all over the country. They were a little sheepish about their fandom. But it brought joy to their lives and they reveled in it.
Groff’s last performance is Sunday. Hence the title: “Last Dance for the Groffies.” I hope you like it.
George Saunders is a national treasure
I’ve been re-reading a collection of George Saunders’ short stories. Every time I pick up a book of that caliber I think — all that time I spent doomscrolling is so much better spent with a master of the craft. This Q&A with Saunders that ran in the New York Times is not to be missed. He speaks of the difference between niceness and kindness, being in sync with our true selves, and the magic of writing and reading: “human connection is important, that you can know my mind and I can know yours is a vastly consoling idea, and we need it.”
The Artist's Way
I’ve been off from work this week and attempting to prune through the detrius of a summer move. (Yes, I know it’s months overdue.) I tend not to be efficient at tasks like this, in part because it entails deciding which books to keep. Then I end up re-reading books, or feeling guilty about never finishing Infinite Jest and flipping through its pages trying to figure out where I left off.
It had been a long time since I picked up Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. The writer Kate DiCamillo recommended it to me twenty years ago. I needed the refresher. While I write in my journal compulsively, I hadn’t been doing “morning pages” — essentially, three pages of free-flowing writing in the morning. More to the point, I needed the reminder that to write well we almost always must write badly. We can’t judge those early drafts. We must commit to working hard to improve upon them. And keep at it, even when it’s frustrating and exhausting. Good things can emerge from that process.
“Each painting has its own way of evolving … When the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself.” William Baziotes
The Eye of the Beholder
I met Aimee Ng several years ago and we toured the Frick — where she is now chief curator — together. There is a lot of focus on the dearth of women artists, or more accurately on their underrepresenation in galleries and museums. I would argue the lack of women in curatorial roles has an impact too. Ng made a point of unearthing the stories of the women featured on the Frick’s walls. Here’s a story I wrote on what she found out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/arts/design/aimee-ng-curator-frick-gainsborough.html
Wisdom on the Streets of New York
There are many reasons I love New York. The theater, ballet, public readings. Sometimes it is the unexpected which fills me with delight. Street art, for example. I love spotting Phoebe on lamp posts:
And I always seem to stumble across messages from Sevensoulsdeep when I need to be reminded why it’s important not to give up. To persevere. To have dreams and make a consistent, daily effort to realize them.
On How to Live
Sometimes people seem impressed when I tell them I keep a journal. They seem to view it as a feat of discipline. But the truth is I write in those pages compulsively. It’s how I communicate with myself. Even in middle age, I’m trying to figure out how to live. In between the reminders to meditate and exercise and pick up milk, that’s what I keep coming back to in those entries. How do I want to spend my time?
I wish I could tell you I had hard and fast rules. I don’t. But I do notice that I tend to mark time by the art I interact with. I remember museum shows, or a theater performance, or the first time I see a particular ballet pas de deux. Other parts of my life can be a little bit of a blur — the runs in the park, the morning lattes, the hours spent at my computer editing. But then it is the daily effort on projects that lead to something bigger.
I think my goal for this upcoming year is to balance the quotidian work with getting out to see things. Maybe, too, doing things, like dancing merengue. It all requires effort, and sometimes it seems like making sure I’m fed and reasonably healthy and working is all I can manage. But there is a payoff to both daily effort and making time for the fun stuff. Here’s to trying, at least.
Calvin Royal III is Pushing the Boundaries of Ballet
I had the immense pleasure of profiling Calvin Royal III for NPR. One of the best afternoons I’ve had over the past few months happened at the American Ballet Theater’s studios, where he was rehearsing with Isabella Bolyston. They danced “Bitter Earth” which is one of those pas de deux that just grab you by the heart. I find it so enlivening to be with people who are passionate about what they do and put the hours in to make themselves as good as they possibly can be. To the point where they are the very best in the world.
Here’s Calvin as Apollo.
Photograph by Rosalie O'Connor.