VIV Moments

Hometown

Southampton, NY, via New York City

Joie de VIVre

LUSH Design, my spiritual-space/interior-design company; being the former curator and design director for House of Blues Entertainment; being the mother of two toddlers under 3 years of age; doing charity work for Cancer 101, which helps cancer patients and was started by good friend and survivor Monica Knoll; traveling to New Orleans; taking nature walks with kids; being on the beach late in the evening; making big dinners for friends; and playing with our golden retriever, who is our children’s furry brother.

VIV Moment

Initially, I wanted to say the birth of my children because as an adoptee, seeing my flesh and blood was such a life-altering moment, as there’s such beauty and magic in the creation of a life.

With that said, I looked deeper into what moments really changed me as an individual. Places and people played in my head: There was Bora Bora, a place I never imagined I would ever see, together with my husband on a weather-beaten rowboat on an aquamarine sea; meeting people like Aretha Franklin, Fats Domino and artist Howard Finster; and being there when my husband’s mother took her last breath with her family by her side at Mass General Hospital in Boston.

On a lighter note, my memory of being perfectly content involved sitting on a balcony in Zermatt, Switzerland, with my two closest friends, just weeks after I was engaged. We celebrated by skiing and drinking like it was a decade ago and we had no responsibilities and lived our perfectly imperfect, “Sex and the City” lifestyles.

But the thing that changed me the most was a car accident I had when I was 20 that bound me to crutches and a hospital bed for four years, scarring my body but not my spirit. I recently realized that I am a better person and a better friend now that I know what being lonely is really about and what perseverance is, and when you learn to walk again after an accident like mine, you count every healthy step from there on out as a blessing. I used to take a lot of things for granted; now I am grateful for the smallest things in life.

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