The Mermaid 2

©Saman Giraud

The Mermaid

I was looking down at my necklace, holding the pendant of a little mermaid gently in the open palm of my hand.

She said: "That's cute! "

I replied: "It's a mermaid! When I was little, I used to believe that I was a mermaid. Nothing could convince me that I was not...I was never mad at people for not being capable to understand or willing to accept, so I mostly kept this precious secret to myself. Nothing could ever destroy or even touch this belief - not even the visible lack of a fishtail."

She said: "So what did finally convince you?"

"Nothing", I said and laughed.

Reasons To Hate New York

For 7 years, the New York magazine has been publishing 'Reasons to love New York'. The truth is that even though I love the city, it is not any different than a lover and therefore not perfect. But only once you acknowledge the imperfections, you can achieve acceptance or not, truly commit to the city and consider yourself as a New Yorker, who loves the city with flaws and all....

1_Attitude "I live in New York therefore I am important. You should know who I am. And in case you don't, I am more than happy to spell my name for you. Write it down and memorize."

2_Cracks Nuts 'The Nutcracker' performed by the New York City Ballet is considered by the New York magazine as 'our culture', written by Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Balanchine, who were both Russian just for the record. Anyone who has the slightest idea what an amazing merge this is, will be absolutely disappointed by the performance.

3_BK Myth Brooklyn is cool because Brooklyn is Brooklyn. Excuse me?

4_Cracks Brain Mental illness and Starbucks can be found on almost each block. With a broad range from PTSD, phobias, major depressions, bipolar syndrome, OCD, ADHD, substance abuse and more, it is not surprising that the top-selling class of drugs in the US are antipsychotics. Yes, the city is crazy.

5_Yellow Submarine The yellow cab shift change between 4-5 pm where it is impossible to get a cab, unless your destination is on his way home.

6_MTA = Morons Take Advantage The MTA charges us more every year and still doesn't manage to run on time when it rains, let alone snows. Instead there are service cuts. At least we know what we are paying for - with more than 10% of MTA employees earning more than a 100k a year.

7_Family Even though you have a live in nanny you send your kid to pre-pre-kindergarten.

8_Busy You don't have time, no matter what your job is , no matter if you have one: you are busy and that's why you slurp your stinky fish soup in the subway or stuff a sandwich in your mouth on the go while you're on the phone. Nail clipping included.

9_Addiction You can drug yourself up with over the counter medicine. Your dealer is officially legal.

10_Pee Pee Crime Public toilets are yet to be built, while public urinating is against the law. And when charged under the health code 153.09 it is a misdemeanor which is a crime under New York law. Pee pee goers are forced to be criminal.

11_Rent Is Too Damn High Living in Manhattan is expensive. Even though you can find a cheap room on Craigslist. Here is a typical ad: 'Location, location, location!The apartment is located in the basement of a town house in the fancy west village. Your room would be the first one in a railroad apartment. We are 8 super laid back folks who are looking for someone fun, quiet and clean. Vegans only.' Really?

12_Teach Me How To Doggie While the New York Dog law requires a rabies vaccination, it doesn't require your dog to wear a muzzle. But it's good to know that if i should get bitten, i won't have rabies. Thanks.

13_Dirty Just because you drop your laundry at the cleaners, doesn't mean they use detergent.

14_Nature Calling small areas like Paley Park a 'park' even tough there are more potted plants than rooted trees.

15_Major Bloomberg Problem He who enacts laws depending on his vision of the city while not accepting pay for his labor. I say let's pay him so that he functions as our voice and not his. The price we pay is much higher than his salary.

16_Starfucks You have to tip even if there is no table service and you have a coffee to go.

17_Vacation The US doesn't have government-mandated time off. Means: no mandatory vacation days. A similar government: good old China.

18_Marc Jacobs Invasion 382 Bleecker Street, 385 Bleecker Street, 400 Bleecker Street, 403 Bleecker Street. Save Bleecker Street!

19_Mean Streets Bumps, holes and cracks ruin heels, make you want to puke in a cab and cause a lot of bike accidents.

20_Monolgues The loneliness that makes strangers talk to you even if they were not asked to. The worst part is that even if you ignore them, they keep talking. Sharing is not always caring.

21_Trash Album Living in a 3rd world country where garbage cans are not provided is one thing. But what does it say about the people of a city when there are plenty of garbage cans and still such an extensive amount of trash that tourists take pictures of it?

22_Smoking is not allowed in front of certain buildings even though the air of the city can cause cancer. Try prohibiting parking in front of certain buildings and I guarantee you a healthier life.

23_Visa While immigration becomes harder and harder with each year for foreigners with the best intentions, Bridge and Tunnel people still invade the city each weekend with loud nasty talks, fights and fake nails. Visa please.

24_Subway Grease the rails or fix the breaks - whatever it is that needs to be done because 'as little as 30 minutes of exposure to decibel levels measured in NYC transit system per day has the potential to result in hearing loss. ' (Columbia University, Mailman School research)

25_Sick You don't call sick unless you were hit by car so severely that you can't walk.

26_Slut Prostitutes were replaced by escorts. Illegal became legal and a new synonym for hooker was born.

27_Gristedes is gross.

28_Text you text, you don't call. Problem: you can text bullshit forever but you can't talk bullshit forever.

29_Vogue Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis gets her column and can't write. When exactly did blue blood replace proficiency?

30_Freedom It is perfectly fine to have In Vitro Fertilization with the egg of a donor, the sperm of a donor, through a surrogate for a want-to-be-single mum at the age of 50.

End New York is the center of the world.

Paris Je T'Aime

©Saman Giraud

Midnight in Paris

'All cowardice

comes from not loving

or

not loving well

- which is the same thing.'

Woody Allen

Love actually

While I am certainly not fond of routines once they start taking over spontaneity, I do enjoy the, what I call, 'children' of certain routines like Christmas because after all, I was not born or raised religious. Our family didn't sing any songs, nor did we pray or attend Christmas mass. And we certainly never reflected on Jesus. To make a long story short, to us, Christmas could have taken place on a random day like May 16th if at all.

Christmas was rather a yearly tradition that we adopted, celebrated solely as a peaceful gathering of family and close friends, because as it seems the majority of the people, especially families, need a date and a reason in order to overcome past peculiar quarrels and focus on the one thing that matters most: Love.

A religious holiday, even in a non religious family, is the best subconscious force of it all - my parents knew that and took blunt advantage of it: family and friends would dress up, hug each other intensely, kiss and laugh. Those who walked into our apartment would forgive and forget - all in the name of the holiday. Cicero was right: ' An unjust peace is better than a just war.'

On nights like that, we would enjoy a never ending homemade dinner whose smell would blend perfectly with the smell of the tree, the smell of sweet burning wood from the fireplace, the smell of the masses of fresh white snow that the winter breeze would try to squeeze in, and the smell of the people I love. Needless to say that until this day, this very smell is the exquisite perfume of a long lost joyous time.

Dinner was usually followed by the mandatory gift exchange where my poor parents seemed disadvantaged to me. My sister and I would get various gifts in different shapes and sizes, wrapped beautifully in colorful gift paper, with bows and ribbons from all the people who attended dinner, while my parents would nod and smile, be polite by the book and thankful for their health.

It was perfectly fine for me to gratify my dad every year with a new tie that I could afford with pocket-money that I received from him. At the end of his life he was the proud proprietor of an entire tie collection and I wondered if I should have asked him for a pocket-money raise back then in order to buy him a nice watch. I came to the sober conclusion that it would have made no sense at all . Looking back, I see how the entire 'pocket-money-gift' from kid to parent was nothing but an act of Love and the living proof that it is the thought that counts.

It was one of the best days of the year, considering the fact that it was not my birthday but actually the one of someone else I never knew. Plus if you think about it: when else is it nowadays socially acceptable to put an entire chopped down tree into your apartment?

Moving to New York City with no family and close friends by my side had many downsides apart from the one that I had no one that I could have forced to cheer up, celebrate and love for the sake of Christmas - let alone the gift exchange.

Years later I might be physically not surrounded by my family, but thanks to modern technology, we force gather online and have a blast. I am delighted to spend my Christmases with wonderful, loving friends. We might not cook the 5 course dinner, but then again, we live in New York where time and space are limited, where gluten-free meatballs and fondue accompanied by many nice glasses of wine and 'all i want for christmas' on Pandora, followed by ice cream and 'Love actually' are synonym for a 5 course family dinner in Europe.

And when I arrived at my friend's apartment in lovely Stuyvesant Town, straight from the hospital with no makeup on and in my PJs from the morning, the most festive attire about me were my new winter boots and a bottle of wine. When I was welcomed at the entrance door with warm hugs and kisses by Jillian and Lidia, it was Love actually. Clearly it really is the thought that counts.

Deep Frozen Egg

I opened my freezer this morning to find the usual suspects: tons of italian coffee that my mum, who by the way is my biggest coffee drinking supporter, keeps on sending me from Europe where great coffee doesn't demand great finances ; 4 boxes of ice cream that i, for some reason, crave more in winter than in summer; 2 packs of frozen spinach from my roommate and last but not least, the permanent residents: ice cubes.

The usual suspects of the freezer were not one happy family but rather two. Category number 1 needs to be in the freezer in order to survive. Ice cream wouldn't be ice cream if stored in the fridge, neither would ice cubes. Category number 2 on the contrary is forced to be there out of human convenience. Spinach or coffee that we can't or don't want to consume straight away, is kept deep frozen and prevented from aging. Rule of thumb says we should freeze at peak quality. The same rule of thumb says that not everything freezes well, like lettuce or eggs in shells. Yet....

"You should freeze your eggs." is what I was told to do by a woman on a Saturday night to whom I had been introduced only moments before. And she didn't mean the eggs who come in shells.

A meeting between two strangers had turned uncomfortably intimate within a few minutes and while she kept trying to persuade me that it would be the best thing to do, I couldn't help but wonder how we even got that far...

If time is a bitch, the biological clock of a woman is the pimp. And even though times have changed in quality, time in numbers didn't change a second.

One generation ago, motherhood at the age of 20 was given. Today it is incomprehensible. Woman nowadays have the choice to work and the opportunity to build a career. In many cases it is even a necessity. As a result, families are started later than sooner - if at all.

According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine the peak quality for a woman's egg is before she turns 20. From that moment on the eggs begin to diminish in quantity and quality. At the age of 40 a woman has a 5% chance or less of becoming pregnant naturally in any one month. The chance of chromosomal abnormalities like Down Syndrome increases to 1 in 100 at the age of 40, compared to 1 in 1000 at the age of 20.

To make a long story short: getting pregnant at the age of 40 or more is risky in many ways.

Freezing eggs falls in the "Freezer Philosophy" under category number 2 - the same as spinach. Also known as the "Convenience Category". I looked at the spinach in the freezer who, stiff and lifeless, stared right back at me. Astonishing how it had stopped aging and slipped through time's claws. Who would have thought that some day frozen eggs and frozen spinach would have something in common? I imagined their common slogan: "Preserve today while young and use later."

The difference is that while spinach is not part of our bodies, our eggs are. And while they might stay young and fresh in the timeless freezer, we still keep aging. Our hair will eventually turn grey, even if we dye it. Our skin will get wrinkles, Botox or not. At the end of the day, no matter how much we master the art of looking young, we will keep aging internally and mentally. No plastic surgery can change your date of birth.

The time difference between the frozen egg and the body that will carry it is as relevant as in any other good relationship. A year or two don't even count, 5 years are sexy, 10 great, 15 perfect and 30 is like the distance from earth to moon - nice from afar but impossible to explore.

Being the best parent possible to a kid, who needs constant action, attentiveness and patience, should be the highest priority for a parent. An attribute and necessity like patience, for example, is at the age of 20 endless and seems permanent - at age 40 it is a nice visitor. Raising kids requires a fair amount of energy. The very same energy that diminishes with age.

As a young woman who is about to turn 30 and is self - aware, I would consider myself as a liar or in severe denial if I would dare to say that nothing has changed in the past 10 years. It is not easy to see simply because one's natural surroundings age as much as oneself. Our lives are the reflection of subjectivity. My friends and family are the same to me as 10 years ago but certainly not to a stranger who sees us objectively.

When it comes to having children from deep frozen eggs, we should step back from the idea of what we want and respond to what a child would want. After all, motherhood is the opposite of selfishness...

What happens when the age difference between parent and child becomes questionable? How much could we understand each others worlds? Wouldn't grandparents vanish at some point? And while we would deprive them from us being able to give a 100% as a great parent, wouldn't we above all deprive them from enjoying their parents for as long as possible? Because by gaining more time for ourselves wouldn't we have less time to give to our kids?

Our priorities change all through our lives. The importance lies within making the right choices for ourselves and taking full responsibility for those. Keeping constantly options open prevents us from settling for anything at all. As my mum always used to say: there is a time for everything. Maybe we should keep this in mind, remove the deep frozen eggs and replace them by good old spinach.

Patience 1

 

©Saman Giraud 

Fashion Night Out In NYC

It was one of those perfect New York City nights...The city was as bright as ever, lights in every form and every color seemed to turn even the darkest corners of the city into a living stage. Music filled the late summer air only to be carried away by a light breeze and to merge somewhere in this clear night with loud, blissful laughter and jumbled chit-chat. The meatpacking district was flooded with performers, walking in every possible direction, taking over the streets and making them their own because tonight was the night where every performer was a protagonist - it was Fashion Night Out. 

When a wave of beauty in such diversity and grandeur crosses our way, we can let ourselves be carried away or hold on for a moment and watch - be the orgiast or the voyeur.

I stopped at the corner of 13th street and Washington and the longer I stood there, the more I enjoyed what was happening around me. The protagonists of the night were dressed at their very best: high heels and higher heels were clicking their way through the cobble stone pavement. Sheer, lace and sequins were walking hand in hand with the classic black 2 button suit. Skin was everywhere: shorts and hot pants, midi and mini skirts, dresses and gowns, sleeveless tops and bustiers. There was no doubt: skin was the fabric of choice. Panama hats, top hats, cowboy hats and fedoras adorned some heads, while others had chosen luscious feathers, beaded headbands and head scarves from Gucci to Pucci. And in the midst of all the fashion was the indispensable NYC traffic consisting of cars, yellow cabs and gypsy cabs, limos and stretch limos, fire trucks and NYPD cars blinking and honking in order to make their way, even if slowly through the never-ending waves of crowds. 

It appeared to me that every thing that exists or could possibly exist was represented right here in this very moment at this very corner. Every country was represented, every style lived out, vintage and new, young and restless, male and female, heterosexual, bi, gay and transgender. It was one of those precious moments that reminded me that despite or maybe because we live on a tiny island like Manhattan that shelters almost 1,6 million people, where we feel physically constricted at times, for very obvious and legitimate reasons, we have the luxury to have the limitless space for individuality.

Fashion Night Out captures the legendary spirit of the city and all I could do was smile and think: New York, I love you.

Balloons

 

©Saman Giraud