“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” – Anthony Robbins
As I watched the sun set over Manhattan from the rooftop of my best friend Mark Falconer’s Chelsea apartment, camera in hand, surrounded by the other hundred or so guests, there was one word in my mind: adventure. All these amazing people, some strangers, some new friends and quite a few I am lucky enough to call my true friends, part of my community, were brought together by a series of decisions that added up to a rare, powerful force: FATE. My personal fate, and just maybe the very start of the path that brought us all here, to the kick-off of the sixth season of BOCCE in the AFTERNOON, began with that single word: adventure.
The year was 1997. I had just turned 26. Bill Clinton was in office. Titanic was huge at the box office, JK Rowling published a little book called, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Princess Diana met with an untimely death, and I paced my basement apartment in Little Ferry, NJ, isolated, singing along to Clapton’s “Change the World” which poured constantly from my stereo. I was connected to the world by my primitive work laptop, a slow dial-up modem, and a $19.95 monthly subscription to AmericaOnline (AOL).
I was, and still am, an “early adopter” of technology. While I wasn’t trolling chat rooms, I was curious when someone pinged me via instant message. Sometimes I would answer back, and other times I wouldn’t. One evening, a message appeared that said, “I was searching for tall girls in Bergen County with adventure in their online profile page. I found you. How are you?” Something about the message just made me smile. Honestly, I didn’t even remember putting the word adventure in my profile, and I contemplated whether that was about my true self or a quality of the person I wanted to be. Still, I made a decision. I wrote back. “Hi. I’m not sure how adventurous I am, and I’m not even really that tall. But, I do live in Bergen County. I’m Cindy. What’s your name?” That was it. There was destiny in that sentence.
We IM’d for weeks before graduating to a phone call. Soon we were having marathon conversations that might last all night, Falconer quietly taking drags from a cigarette as I poured my heart out about anything and everything. His insights, even back then, were rich and nuanced. He spoke my language and generously shared his hard-earned jewels of wisdom. I’d call from pay phones during the day just to check in. I wondered how I could be so drawn to someone I hadn’t even met face to face. With Falconer, I was strangely home.
Even so, it took me several weeks to warm up to the idea of meeting Falconer in person. In part, it was the fear generated by the media about the dangers of meeting people online, but I was also afraid that meeting him might change our friendship, which already meant so much to me. His greatest talent, he assured me, was collecting people. Now that we were friends, he said, we would always be friends, unless I wanted out. So we risked it, and on a night in February 1997, I met Falconer at the bar at Bazzarelli’s, an Italian restaurant in Moonachie, New Jersey. The dinner was a little awkward, not much conversation and a great deal of staring as I tried to integrate the Falconer I knew from IM and the telephone to the handsome, slightly bashful man sitting across from me.
When the dinner came to an end, we went to our cars. Falconer insisted that I drive away first. I didn’t know it at the time but he was driving a car from Rent-a-Wreck with no muffler, so despite my lead, I could hear him start that car from a mile away. Fifteen minutes after arriving home, the phone rang. It was Falconer. We debriefed our strange dinner for a couple of hours, and I knew that I had made a real friend.
Now it’s 15 years later, and Falconer has been by my side through the best and worst of times. He was there, laughing, as I jumped on the bandwagon and got into rollerblading — in a dress no less; he was my first phone call when I learned of my Dad’s heart attack; he single-handedly moved me into a third floor walk-up in Hoboken; he took me on in a competitive game of Yahtzee! at the Malibu Diner; he advised me as I wrote my application for graduate school; Falconer picked me up from the Weehawken Ferry terminal, took me home and drew me a cold bath on 9/11; and he talked with me for hours and hours about life, love, loss and the complexities of growing up to become who we were meant to become. Falconer has helped me make sense of it all. His mantra is “Weird is good; weirder is better” and that has helped me stretch my own comfort zone and allowed me to experience much more of the world and all of its marvelous mysteries.
In 2006, Falconer moved from Hoboken to the Archstone building in Chelsea which has its own bocce court. He told me he was striving to meet some new people and expand our community. And with his own sense of adventure and fearlessness to put it all out there, Falconer created BOCCE in the AFTERNOON. While I missed the informal, inaugural event, I have not missed one since. The concept is simple: meet people, invite them and their friends to a regular standing party where we have some cocktails, talk about life, throw a few balls, watch the sunset together and maybe dance a little if the mood is right. The parties started with just a handful of people and were relatively tame by today’s standards, which include many cases of wine and pitchers of rum punch, french martinis and ghetto sangria, lots of appetizers from Fresh Direct, a bocce playlist of dance music, hired help, the “Bourdain” smoking room, stickers that remind people to stay quiet in the hallways and close to 150 people per party. I serve as the unofficial hostess, helping newbies meet the regulars and ensuring that everyone feels welcome and has a good time. I have taken and continue to take pictures at nearly every party, both to practice my passion for photography as well as to capture something special happening before our eyes. We are forming a new community — person by person, bocce party by bocce party — and for many of us, Falconer is something of a modern-day Gatsby.
Friday night was really special. With earlier warnings of thunderstorms, the weather was just perfect. I felt like we were living in San Diego — it was about 75 degrees without a hint of humidity in the air. And I couldn’t help but notice how happy people were to meet and reconnect. Frankly, for me it was a very long winter, and I too was elated to be out on this perfect night, feeling much better about my place in the world, and happy to see my friends. I exchanged hugs and knowing glances throughout the evening with Val, Falconer’s amazing, beautiful girlfriend of nearly four years. We knew this night almost didn’t happen, as Falconer had said season five might be his last and questioned whether the magic of BOCCE in the AFTERNOON had worn off. With Val as the official co-host and soon to be cohabitor, the three of us were nervous and excited to see what the night would bring. I couldn’t help but reflect on the journeys each of us had made to this party and to all the ones that came before. For me, it was that one word, adventure. For others, a chance meeting on a flight from Newark to New Orleans, for still others, a match.com date, a drink at Gasgone or a trip to Buenos Aries. How ever all these people came into my life, I had to stand back a moment and marvel. I realized that fate, like a bocce ball, follows a trajectory that isn’t always clear until it lands and finds its place in front of us. The signs are telling me this was meant to be, that these people are my people now. Thank you, Falconer, for that and so much more.
Want to see more pictures? You can find the entire Bocce 6.8.12 gallery at: http://smu.gs/KmfWs