Our Long Island

Long Island is a unique blend of city and country, workplace and home. 

We run the gamut from multi-family apartment buildings in Great Neck to multi-acre family farms on the east end with a bit of everything in between.  For some, Long Island is a good place for the kids to grow up while the parents spend much of their time commuting to their jobs in the city.  For others, its not only where we live, but where we work or run a business.  For still others, it’s a summer place, with vacation homes or rentals in the Hamptons, Montauk or the picturesque North Fork.  For most of us, it is simply – home.  And with all of its advantages and flaws, there’s no place like home.

This blog will be about all aspects of Long Island as they come to my attention – good deals, beautiful places, news, local businesses, healthy living and more.  I will share my passion for community, food, fun and supporting the local economy.  I hope to inform you, entertain you and inspire you.

For this first entry, I will leave you with some thoughts about taking time to smell the flowers. One of the most frequent complaints we hear about life today is that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things we want to do. As a result, we rush from appointment to appointment on auto-pilot missing the sights, sounds and smells that might delight our senses or transport us to some magical place in our imagination or memories.

As part of a mid-life crisis, several years ago, my husband and I took up motorcycling. Far from the leather-wearing, tattoo-covered riders that your movie-watching experience might bring to mind, we are two middle-aged nerds (but I digress). 

We each have our own ride. Sometimes we take them out together, sometimes I ride on back with him and sometimes we each go off on our own.  Owning and riding a motorcycle can be a lot of fun, but it is also a responsibility.  Like having a dog that has to be walked, there is an obligation to get that bike out of the garage and on the road with a reasonable frequency.  Sometimes, it can start to feel like just another thing you HAVE to do. 

My solution is using my bike to run my errands, as long as I don’t have anything huge to buy.  It lets me do the things I want to do (like ride) while doing the things I have to do (like errands).

So, what does all this talk of motorcycles have to do with taking time to smell the flowers?  If all of your travels around this island that we call home are in a car with the windows closed, you might not be aware of just how often flowers are precisely what you would smell if you weren’t in a sealed environment. 

From April through November, nature is constantly providing us with olfactory delights from flowers in bloom to ripening fruit and freshly mowed grass. Yes, there will be times when all you smell is grease from the fryer at the local fast food joint or even worse, a poorly tended dumpster, but there will be times when you will be transported to a childhood memory of picking berries, playing among the lilacs or hiding behind the honeysuckle arbor (and sucking out the honey).  

You might want to close your eyes, take a deep breath and revel in it. If you do, I recommend pulling over.