Before we sent anything “up,” I wanted to know where “up” was. The troposphere, roughly 0 to 12 km from Earth’s surface, is the layer of life and weather. It’s home to clouds, storms, humans, animals and commercial aviation. It’s a busy place. The stratosphere, roughly 12 to 50 km up, is the protective layer with ozone that absorbs UV radiation. It’s dry and highly stable, ideal for things like spy planes and weather balloons. The mesosphere, roughly 50 to 85 km up, is the coldest layer and the planet’s shield. It protects us from meteors and space debris and creates shooting stars and glowing ice clouds. And finally, at 100 km from Earth’s surface sits the Kármán Line, the boundary of space. Above it, satellites and the ISS circle the planet in loops, endlessly, for years.

It takes all kinds of calculations, physics (which I failed in school) and logistics (where I excel), to send a camera into the stratosphere. Payload mass, balloon mass and gas volume all need to be considered in great detail. There is the climb rate and the burst altitude, the point at which the atmosphere has grown so thin that the balloon stretches until it bursts, releasing the payload with the camera back to Earth on a parachute. Since you can’t steer a weather balloon, atmospheric flight modeling is needed to calculate where it will land, and of course there is the FAA and all their regulations. I’m certain they do not share Alec’s sense of humor.

On launch day, we felt fairly prepared. Alec had double-checked our flight route and double-secured the camera on the rig. We had picked a time when we could send the balloon up from our friend’s yard in West Shokan and have it come down near Millbrook, about an hour’s drive from our house. Launching from home would have meant landing in New Haven, CT. Much too close to the ocean and at least a four-hour drive away. I insisted on filming our entire homemade space program, and I’m glad I did. This maiden voyage went all kinds of right and all kinds of wrong.

First, what went right. Our little weather balloon climbed while growing thinner and larger at the same time. When it reached 105,000 feet — three times higher than passenger jets fly — it had swelled to the size of a small house. Then it burst, right in the middle of the stratosphere, which, I want to underline, isn’t a great place for humans. Without a pressurized suit we would lose consciousness within seconds. But if we could be with the balloon at the peak of its journey, the sky would appear as dark violet, then black, even at noon, blending into the darkness of space. The air would be calm and clear and quieter than anything we know on Earth. Sound can barely travel. There aren’t enough molecules to carry vibrations.

The name stratosphere combines the Latin word stratum, “a layer” or “something spread out,” with the Greek word sphaira, meaning “sphere” or “globe.” I’m a child of the ’80s, when the hole in the ozone layer was one of the great threats hanging over us. Now that I have a new relationship with the stratosphere, I see it as a layer spread around the whole planet, like a blanket laid across a bed.

To see what went wrong, watch our film: from a backyard in Upstate New York into the stratosphere and back to the ground…kind of.

In early October, a few hundred people at Tootsie’s Video Vault watched our balloon pause at the edge of space. Some of them laughed. Some of them cheered. Some of them went quiet. For a few seconds, a room full of Earthlings was held by the vastness of the dark sky. Maybe Alec knew all along. When you’re here, you’re family.

You could revisit and share one of my pieces with someone you like, love or feel ambiguous about:

The Great Escape

Forgotten Feelings

Walking with Purpose

Share A Word

You could read this singular book by Samantha Harvey:

Orbital

It’s in my top five books of all time and probably on my mind because recently Alec and I sent a camera into the stratosphere on a giant weather balloon. It went wrong, it went right and it was a whole thing. More about that soon.

Or you could write something to me in the comments. Something you like, love or feel ambiguous about.

Seriously, thank you all for being here and to my four paid subscribers: your support means more to me than a German chocolate bar on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I send you many blessings for your week ahead.

There are 1) the hurt ex-lovers who say the city was never good for them, treated them badly, and that they are glad to finally be rid of all that is New York, its rats and piss smell and horrible landlords included. 2) the quietly defeated who don’t want to talk about their departure because they feel like they didn’t make it, didn’t have what it takes, didn’t have the grit, the guts, the money. 3) the ones who take the city with them, wherever they go next.

I do not fall into category one. To me, New York City is the best country in the world. It will always be a shining beacon in my heart for all that is good about people living together. Yes, it has many problems but nowhere else would a random pharmacist greet you with a loud, enthusiastic ‘Hello Moviestar!’ and then profess with a big smile that he will keep the bandaid trash you hand him as something to remember you by. Everywhere else this would be creepy as hell. In New York City, it’s perfect. Of course you’ll never see this pharmacist again and of course the pharmacist will most certainly not keep your trash. But as soon as you walk in he can see that your feet are killing you because you wore the sandals instead of the sneakers and there is something about you that makes him want to lift you up. That’s how it works on a good day in the city. Conversely, when the city is collectively in a bad mood (rain, tragedy, the subway) it will let you know about that too. It’s an honest exchange. Some hate it. I happen to love it.

Category two gave me a lot to think about. It’s tempting to feel like I failed or didn’t have the required staying power after all. She bought a house Upstate, did she run out of money? She gave up Subway Book Review years ago, I haven’t heard much about her since. She doesn’t have kids, so she certainly doesn’t need more space — and on and on and on it goes. The voices in my head were running rampant. The funny thing is that all of these things are partially true, which is what makes judgmental voices such universal tricksters. In reality, my priorities have changed. I would rather spend $2,000 on my garden than on take out dinners. I am thinking about what I want to do next, creatively, and for that I need space.

I am, firmly, in category three. New York City has made me a critical thinker who is ready for anything at a moment’s notice. I can be as flexible as chewing gum. I can be as tough as nails. I have foresight. I have plan A, B, C and D. I can have hard edges. I know what real community and commitment looks like. I know how to move in unfamiliar places. I can talk to anyone about anything. All of those years in the city have taught me well. I’m not the woman who arrived with her man and her cat and the idea that life is what you make it. You are what New York City makes you.

I hadn’t been in the city in months. Today, as I walked in Central Park and in Harlem where I saw my favorite tree and Colson Whitehead, I realized the city is not going anywhere. It will change and it will be the same — difficult, beautiful and the rent will be too damn high. You however, you can go wherever you want. And yes, you can take it with you.

Things I’ve learned in New York City

how to walk with purpose.

that you can be anyone you want to be.

how to endure almost anything.

how to be fabulous.

how to be broke.

that nothing lasts.

that nothing matters.

that everything is meant to be.

that we’re all coming and going,

all of the time.

(my feet in SoHo, 2013)

Bonus

I’m trying something new and have recorded myself reading this piece for you. Let me know what you think about this and all of the above in the comments.

We became part of this road in the summer of 2023. It’s a very pretty, windy country road, dotted with houses, that for an ungodly reason has a speed limit of 45 mph which means people drive even faster. The number of wildlife that dies and motorists who crash is heartbreaking. In 2024, I started a petition to lower the speed limit. I roped in my next-door neighbor Marie, a longtime local who I was just getting to know, to help me. We spoke at Town Hall and made our case. We made signs and stuck them into our yards. The town of Saugerties told us to collect twelve signatures in favor of our petition and we collected well over a hundred. Surprisingly, everyone on the road agreed: this was a longstanding problem that needed to be solved but no one had time for it.

Focusing on the speed limit of a country road seemed like an insane choice in 2024, the year of a critical presidential election. True priorities for people like me were fighting fascism and ICE. But no matter how much I donated, volunteered and phone-banked for Kamala Harris, something felt off. The people I called in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania who picked up and didn’t insult me were few and far between. The ones who spoke with me told me about personal medical emergencies and that they were barely making rent. They asked me where I was calling from and when I said New York, they would go silent. How could someone in New York understand what they needed in Racine, Wisconsin? How could I understand their lives during a five-minute phone call? Who was I to make promises about a better tomorrow? I felt far away not just from the people who answered my calls but also myself. I wasn’t even a citizen who could vote, yet here I was telling people to vote. I felt anxious, like I could be found out as a fraud.

The speed limit project was a safe space to care. Through it, I met my neighbors and we could talk about something we could agree on (rare in 2024). It was a feeling I had forgotten about. Me — someone who interviewed and photographed strangers on the subway for eight years, had forgotten how to make a conversation feel safe to explore feelings, actions and obstacles. I had to relearn how to take small steps, how to trust that process, and that asking questions is much better than pretending to know the answers (honestly, right now no one can say that they have the answers, it’s all too messed up and it’s okay to admit that, in fact we might have to before we can move on). Marie, who I recently learned is a Republican, and I worked together on something we didn’t know much about. I doubt most people would have predicted a Republican and DSA member coming together for a community project, but here we are. The town approved our motion. The county shut it down. But I’m far from giving up. The small steps are working in ways I could never imagine. I’m a rescuer of animals (three turtles, multiple deer, four birds so far this year). Marie and I talk about this because we talk about the road. She’s teased me more than once about my soft heart. When wildlife gets hit, Marie used to call the police to shoot the animal because that’s what you do in the country. A few weeks ago, a fawn was hit in our neighborhood. This time, Marie took a better look at the fawn and called the wildlife rehabilitation center instead of the police. They took it in and will release it back into the wild when it’s healed.

_{(Me, diving in. Photo credit: Alec Cohen)}

Taking any meaningful steps requires a lot of effort. Making change, even in a small community, takes time. You have to care, but you can’t be attached to how you get there. As for the man on the tire, I have no idea what happened to him. I do think about him often and believe it’s true that it’s none of my business if he wants to sit on a tire on the side of the road. But I can make it my business that he can do so safely. And maybe I’ve been looking at it all wrong. The big win might not be to fix the country at this time (again, big mess). The big win might be for all of us to claim a stretch of the road and care about how people pass through on it.

This should all feel incredibly good. I’m not endlessly offered new “trends” that actually do not matter at all. I’m not shown horrific images without any warning. I’m not confronted with status symbols that may or may not be owned by the person in real life. The bizarre thing is being off social media isn’t the great escape I had hoped for. I’m aware of the wildfires. I’m aware of AI companies shredding books. And yes, I’m also aware of how cute a dachshund looks in a headscarf. But now that I’ve gone through this social media elimination diet, I’m aware of an inescapable truth: The source of me feeling at odds with the world is larger than any personal lifestyle change.

_{(photo credit: @mrcharliebrowne)}

Even without social media, every day a rumble runs through me to alert me that “things aren’t right”. It’s not a classic case of anxiety. More like a knowing that something is happening that can’t be undone and will fundamentally change us as people. Once my social media was turned off, I realized it expands and intensifies the rumble, but it isn’t the cause for it. I’ve tried various things to calm the rumble down. I’m planting a native pollinator garden, I organize with the DSA and Contra ICE, I donate and volunteer — but the rumble rumbles on. And for good reason. Just the other day I looked out the window as the reservoir across the street flooded the lawns and streets around my house. The rain was relentless for hours and days and there was no escaping it. All we could do was wait it out and hope for the best. This was a week after my Mum called me, panicked, because their town in Germany was being pummeled by hail the size of golf balls right after an extreme heat wave. The neighbor’s garden didn’t survive, zucchini and kale were smashed to bits.

_{(photo credit: Eurozone)}

The rumble doesn’t want to be escaped. It wants to be noticed. In German we have a surprisingly short word for this feeling: uneins. It translates to be “not one” or “to be at odds”. I love that “uneins” doesn’t further specify what one is in disagreement with. Uneins to me means not feeling whole. Something has fragmented, splintered, left the original source. It wants to find its way back and hasn’t accepted yet that it can’t. Feeling uneins might be the biggest gift. There is no more waiting for change. The change is here. Getting off social media can’t fix this. It might create more space to get a better look at things however. Ram Dass said: “Ask yourself: Where am I? Answer: Here. What time is it? Answer: Now. Say it until you can hear it.” I’m starting to think that spending time getting uncomfortable, like really uncomfortable, could be a good start. A great escape will not hold the answers — but the rumble might.

That same week, Alec started to have never-ending headaches. The chills came next, then the sweating, then a pain so complete it seemed to live in every cell of his body. By the weekend, his fever hit 103 degrees. A tick bite. One that he never even saw or felt. Quietly, the bacteria was doing its work—his liver was especially under attack. We were in and out of urgent care, then the hospital. Many tests later the verdict: lyme disease. He would get better, with antibiotics and time.

At home, I set up a “healing room” for Alec that looks over a part of the garden we jokingly call the orchard. It consists of a struggling pear tree, an apple tree that’s so strange it’s hard to describe, and a giant mulberry tree whose branches we can’t reach. The orchard is where the baby raccoons loved to spend time all hours of the day. As I cared for Alec, I would see them outside the window. Cute but also helpless, too small to be without a mom. I set out water and blueberries. I put up signs along the road to slow down drivers. I asked wildlife rehabilitators for help, but still—four baby raccoons turned to three, then three turned to two. It was unbearable. Nature is doing what nature does, said everyone around me. Let them be. I said I understood, but I felt I had to try. Every spare moment, I made phone calls. I talked to a woman who lost her job and still cares for a herd of rescue goats. I talked to an old farmer who can barely walk and still tends to six rescue horses. And finally I talked to Michelle, a woman who rehabilitates wild animals on 100 acres of protected land in Poughkeepsie. A team she works with safely captured and delivered the two remaining baby raccoons to their new future. Even so, I have to admit, I didn’t save them. A fox might eat them. They might get sick. It’s not up to me. All I can do is give them a better chance. 

Nature, I learned, doesn't wait for me to be ready. It doesn’t care about my priorities, my pleasure or pain. It just is. A cycle that repeats with a million possible outcomes. Forever. 

Fran, my energy healer, who lives in the woods and turns eighty this summer, said something that stuck: consider what the essence of your nature is and how willfully determined it is. Part of my nature is to protect, especially all that is soft and small. Within it, there is a boundary to respect which nature shows me if I look long enough. Every season delicate Queen Anne's lace is followed by bright poppies, then light blue cornflowers, then pink snap peas—all of it in sequence, all of it temporary. The blooms come, then fade, then vanish, until the next season. A cycle is not a promise of permanence. It's a promise of return. Of the thing that dies coming back, changed, but coming back.

The night before, another kind of winner was crowned. It brought me zero percent joy to watch Elon Musk become the world’s first trillionaire following the IPO of SpaceX. Musk addressed his employees on Friday and said, “There are always problems on Earth. There are always things we wish to be better, that we want to solve here on Earth, and we should solve them. But there also have to be things that get you excited about the future.” Here are some things that Musk says get him excited about the future (spoiler alert: planet Earth is not one of them). A work optional world where AI and humanoid robots handle all practical labor, leading to “unprecedented economic abundance”. A world where money in the form of currency is irrelevant because robots and AI satisfy all human needs at a “near-zero cost”. A multi-planetary future with cities on the Moon, Mars and eventually beyond that safeguard humanity against “terrestrial disasters”. A world where AI data centers orbit in space to overcome “power constraints” on Earth. A future where aging and death (simple programming issues) are resolved by advanced medical technology and unlock a semi-immortality. And lastly, a world with redefined human purpose where humanity's primary function is to provide AI with meaning. Musk says he dreams of this radical technological abundance, the colonization of the solar system, and the transformation of the human experience through artificial intelligence. Musk does not dream about this for you and me, the general population — over 750,000 people died as a direct result of Musk dismantling USAID with DOGE. In true dark tetrad fashion, the general population becomes a “necessary casualty” on the way to the big win. If this all feels overwhelming and completely impossible to think about it is so by design.

Zero-sum, winner-takes-all stories breed scarcity. Scarcity breeds fear. If competition is used as a short-term fix for fear, can collaboration become a long-term strategy to counteract it?

Psychologists found that people who love an underdog story tend to value fairness, perseverance, hope and collaboration. They are empathetic and resilient, having faced their own adversities. They believe in earning triumph through hard work, grit and heart over unearned privilege or status. And they experience Schadenfreude because they enjoywatching the heavily favored, dominant powerhouse entity fall.

Jalen Brunson, the Knicks’ MVP, said that winning took everything. "Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it. I’m just never afraid to fail.” What if we ventured forth, valuing persistent collaboration over short-sighted competition? What if we had the same appreciation for failing as we do for winning? I always have and will continue to look for the underdogs. As a person who was born and raised in Germany, the underdog-schadenfreude combo is an unparalleled discovery for me. I’m going to let it create an unabashed kind of joy and can’t wait to see what happens.

Do you have an underdog story that gets you fired up? If so, leave it in the comments.

One of the main questions and source of conflict seems to be who has the power over how we shape, tell and preserve our story? Is it the artists, the billionaires, is it AI? It’s a big, unresolved question. One that would have taken many philosophers to gather for months, probably years, at the Agora of Athens, which was a marketplace for ideas at the time. Socrates held philosophical debates here by asking impossible questions. Diogenes, a founder of Cynicism who famously lived in a large jar, specifically came here to test his ideas against the noise of the market. The Stoics found their name here - their specific meeting place was the Stoa Poikile, hence Stoicism - and were able to share elite-level thinking with everyday people. The Agora was also a commercial hub where goods and people were sold (the latter is horrific, stating this fact here for accuracy and to show that the darkness of “capitalism at scale” has existed all along - something worth returning to in another post). My point is, the Agora was the heart of culture and commerce. The two were not separated, they were vetted against each other, over time, which is one of the hugest obstacles we’re up against. You might be thinking, well we have a contemporary Agora and marketplace for storytelling, it’s social media, and I see your point. However I would say that social media is a commercial hub, an advertising playground, a thing that feeds data centers and creates it’s own value by creating it’s own demand. To me, social media is difficult to be considered “a thoughtful place”. It’s the noise Diogenes would test his ideas against. To create “space” might also not be our first problem. It might be to create “time”.

The speed at which we make choices about progress and technology has accelerated. If things feel majorly “urgent” and also majorly “murky leaning toward bad” it’s because they are. We don’t seem to prioritize making time to ask questions, to apply foresight, to connect the dots, to meet everyday people where they are. To vet anything or anyone. To bring artists, billionaires, tech leaders, economists, climate experts and everyday people together to think this thing through. Scale doesn’t like pause. Scale loves acceleration. But is scale really what we need at this moment? It seems we have scaled. All the way to the tipping point, actually. Where are the people who will slow us down, thoughtfully, and ask us to take a beat? The people who will say if stories shape culture and culture shapes the future we’re building, how can we empower the storytellers? How do we make them not our sherpas who guide us as we climb this precarious mountain but see them as the valued members of society they are? How do we acknowledge that we are all telling this story, together?

I’m writing A Word not so much to create “space”. I hope to create “time”. A moment to think, to ask questions, to ponder, maybe even daydream. See you next Sunday. And please tell me in the comments, what moves you and how do you create time?

*This piece was written by me, Uli, not Claude. I used AI and Google for bits of research because quite frankly I didn’t know a thing about the Greeks. Aside from that, these are my original thoughts and I welcome yours.