follow my bliss

Kevin (the boyfriend) and I spent an unexpectedly great day in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn today.  We’d gone to the neighborhood to help our friends Shelly and Ptolemy shoot a short video, but once we arrived, it turned out they didn’t need us for a while. So we ended up spending a few sunshine-filled hours of our Sunday afternoon wandering up and down Smith Street, an area where neither one of us have ever spent much time. I didn’t mind having to pass the time at all, in fact I was grateful for it. The last few weeks have been hectic and we both needed the free time.

The weather was a god send. 45-50 degrees, sunny, blue skies – I was in heaven. The freezing temps lately have just chilled me (and everyone, I’m sure) to the bone. This is my absolute least favorite time of year, so a warm, sunny day was such welcome relief.

This area of Brooklyn is adorable and a dream come true for someone looking to follow their bliss. Every other store front is clearly someone’s unique home grown project, someone’s passion, someone’s idea turned into reality.

There were even a few store fronts that weren’t stores at all, but community art or culture projects. There was also a little store that was actually a salsa dancing studio! People inside were dancing and laughing, enjoying the sun streaming in the window.

After spending a good thirty minutes sitting on a bench soaking up some of the Vitamin D we’ve both been lacking lately, and then walking up and down the street checking out the little shops, we found a fresh juice cafe and had some lunch.

We both ordered veggie juices, in addition to our sandwiches. Neither one of us had ever tried a fresh veggie juice before. I loved mine. It was kale, celery, cucumber, apple, lemon and spinach. Kevin’s was good too. It had a lot more ginger than he wanted, but he still liked it. We both felt so energized and healthy after finishing our juices. I’d love to try to have them more often – maybe make them at home…

We sat at the front of the cafe by the window, in the sun of course, and chatted and laughed. It was great.

It was so inspiring to see not only so many different kinds of shops and restaurants, each one more carefully tended to than the next, but also to see people so enjoying their community and giving back to it. There was an obvious awareness toward the environment and living organically. And just walking down these particular blocks made me feel like it would be incredibly simple to start a small business in a neighborhood like this. (I’m sure it’s a lot harder than it looks.) I felt inspired and very much at home.

After lunch, we walked a bit more and happened upon a place that made me gasp out loud when we walked inside.  The Nut Box.

I just loved this place. It was exactly what the name implies – a tiny little box-shaped store, stocked with every kind of imaginable nut, legume, dried fruit, and mixture or chocolate-covered version thereof. Hundreds and hundreds of little packages of nuts. I, for one, am a huge fan of dried fruit and nuts, so it was really fun for me.

The best part, though, was that I was really impressed by the idea itself. What a simple, easy, smart product to sell. They have a whole online business too. And of course the place was swarming with people. With tons of all natural and organic options, there was something for everyone. I loved it.

I’d wanted to ask a dozen different people about their jobs, their shops, their lives in this neighborhood, or their lives as small business owners or employees. I couldn’t do it, though. It felt a little silly today for some reason, but I was also enjoying the day off and the time with Kev. Snapping a few photos was plenty of “bliss-following” for the day.

I did manage to pick up a couple cards from some of the stores we saw. Who knows, maybe I’ll need a part-time job with flexible hours someday soon. If I decide to go back to school for nutrition (the daydream of the last 24 hours), or teach yoga full time once I’m certified, I’d love to work at a little place like this to help supplement income.

I also found a brochure for a place called The Fitness Collective. I believe this is a personal training studio. It’s not a gym, but a studio where people go to work with trainers one on one in a private, relaxed atmosphere. I just recently learned that these places exist and that they are great employment options for fitness trainers, since most studios like this don’t require them to meet a quota or recruit clients the way the big gyms require their trainers to do. So I grabbed the brochure – something to keep in mind if I decide to pursue certification to be a fitness trainer, another one of the dozen daydream jobs that run through my head these days.

We eventually got the call to go back to the video shoot and do what we came to Cobble Hill to do, which was also a fun, easy, relaxed time.

Today was a lovely, romantic, impromptu Sunday. It was also a big testament to what different experiences I might have if I keep my intention to find my dream job in mind as I take in the world around me. It seemed like the whole neighborhood was screaming out to me, “It’s possible! Do what you love! The rest will come!” I felt so encouraged about my own career aspirations as I saw all these people living their dreams. I even overheard a woman in one of the stores, a place called Home & Haven (the brown card in the photo above), say to her friend that even though she was feeling under the weather, “it still beats working in an office.” Ha. I decided that she’d followed her dream of owning her own home decor shop to get to this place. I might be wrong, but I’m going to pretend I’m right.