Why I jumped in the [freezing!] Atlantic Ocean today…
Taking the plunge – into the ocean and onto Substack
Every January 1 I have jumped into the (freezing) Atlantic Ocean. Some folks are like, that’s cool. Other folks are like, what?! You’re crazy! If someone decides to do a thing that other people find a bit crazy, it seems that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” to paraphrase our founding fathers, “requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to” do such a thing.
Those causes include: reminding yourself that you are alive, reminding yourself that you’re going to die, and, well, a great invigorating excuse to warm your belly with a shot of whiskey, whoop it up with a few friends (and 4000 strangers), and afterwards, take a long triumphant walk down the Coney Island boardwalk, and then eat a big meal at one of those Russian gangster-run places on Brighton Beach.
That’s the usual ritual. For a couple years in there, a few close friends would fall back from the Big City to a friend's childhood home on Long Island Sound. Come the first morning of the new year, my pal James and I would strip down naked and run across the long shallow sand bar until we could find deep enough water to throw ourselves in. The rest of our friends looked on, thinking we were idiots, but possibly brave and entertaining idiots.
This year, I really need to remember I’m alive (and that I’m going to die). I need a symbolic rebirth. I need some reinvention.
It’s been four years since the launch of the Climate Clock, three years since a devastating breakup, one year since the book came out. In spite of the resilience I profess in the book — and at times manage to manifest in real life — I’m a burnt and broken puppy. But a dogged puppy still able to learn new tricks (did you see what I did there?)
A big part of this year’s reinvention is (gradually) handing the reins of the Climate Clock project to our new Executive Director Raj Burman. That process is just getting underway. And while it’s a liberation I’ve long longed for, it comes with its own reckonings and anxiety. I really want to let go. But it’s also hard to let go,
It’s part of a larger shift – a psychic-level transition, if you will – from executive mode (responsible to others for strategy, payroll, etc.) to a more personal, reflective, creative mode (responsible to myself, the truth I gotta tell, the beauty a sentence requires). And so, I’m beginning to write again, both dusting off old unfinished projects as well as sparking off new ideas… and also starting this Substack where, according to the About description, I’ll be…
…delving under my own hood, posting irregular rants/musings/beefs on topics ranging from postmodernism to Israel-Palestine to why I jump in the freezing ocean every Jan 1 [pretty meta, huh?], as well as sharing idea-sized excerpts and cutting room floor gems that never made it into the books. Thanks for tuning in.
So, welcome to my new Substack. Welcome to this new year. Whatever your Jan 1 rite of passage, may you get the rebirth you are seeking. And may our hurting planet and reeling world get the many reinventions — towards justice and kindness and healing — she so sorely needs.
All December in New York, the air has been unseasonably, eerily warm (and, sadly, we know why); but the ocean water at Coney Island today was as freezing cold and bracing as always. Walking barefoot along the boardwalk, I felt ever so slightly reborn.
Happy holy daze, all.