A Meditation on Rachel Veiga at 41
The first thing you notice about Rachel is her beautiful shoulder-length hair that recalls depictions of King Arthur’s Guinevere. It frames a face that radiates kindness, which is the first thing you feel in Rachel’s presence. As tumultuous as her life may be in any given moment, she is calm, deliberate, self-possessed. It may be her natural, practical state as a Capricorn but more likely the result of a rich inner life fueled by family, values and a deep connection to spiritual realms.
We met through a cold call. Rachel was working at a large media buying agency placing digital advertising for JetBlue and I was selling advertising for a publication that wanted JetBlue to advertise with us. I reached out to a friend from college who worked at JetBlue who introduced me to a colleague who gave me Rachel’s number and Rachel dutifully agreed to chat after I reached out and name dropped where I had gotten her contact info.
It was an uneventful phone call as these things went, likely one of a dozen each of us had that day and the best you could hope for is to make a modest case as to why the conversation should continue. According to the kabuki of the business development process, the next step (there’s always a proscribed set of Next Steps) would be to take Rachel and one of her junior teammates out to lunch near her office, free lunches being a key perk of our jobs, and we would explore ways to continue to mutually inform without offending with the hope of graduating to the next major milestone — the Request for Proposal — in which Rachel and her team would formally ask to evaluate our publication’s worthiness as a suitor for JetBlue’s investment. The RFP is an opportunity any up-and-publication receives with grave responsibility, even though statistically the rejection rate at this stage is upwards of 67%. Fatefully, our publication moved on to the next phase, a test investment for a regional ad buy, and green shoots of trust emerged.
As the business relationship evolved, so did our opportunities to put our guard down over meals and drinks. Invitations to events flowed in both directions. We both shared a love for music and attended shows together. She introduced me to her husband and to close friends of theirs, who are all conspicuously attractive, many professionally so, from chiseled dudes who model $8000 attaché cases to women doing catalog work. It’s like an alternative world, like Australia, in which everyone is over 5’11”, fit and capable of moving about their lives with great ease.
Shortly after Rachel and I started working together, I had a birthday party in which I rented a short yellow school bus to drive us around town while a band called Guyz Nite, a semi-satirical, over-the-top alpha male group who sang songs about drinking beer, action movies and leering at each other’s moms, performed in the back. At some point amid the haze of the evening, Rachel thought this debauchery could be translated into a strategic marketing solution for JetBlue. Rather than take over a school bus, what if we commandeered an entire airplane for a mid-air party and went to Vegas for 24 hours to celebrate JetBlue’s latest route and newest WiFi-enabled planes? It was a tribute to our collective spirit that several months later this vision came to life and JetVegas entered the annals of marketing legend.
Our dreams grew larger and the following year, instead of hosting a 24-hour party to and from Vegas, we decided to host a 3-day trip to a foreign country and not tell any of the guests where we were going until they arrived at the gate and thus JetMystery was born. As they say in Scooby Doo, we would have gotten away with it had it not been for the flash hurricane on the island of Kokomo in Jamaica that caused scaffolding to topple onto guests during a mosh that formed on the dance floor to The Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feelin’”. Rachel and I scrambled to evacuate injured guests to the local hospital and long story short, that was the last time we worked with JetBlue on overnight events.
By that time Rachel and my friendship achieved escape velocity and we were regular companions at industry events. If we didn’t go together, we’d be excited to see each other there. It’s often overlooked how valuable it is to have a dependable plus one at these spaces during this time in New York, a friend who could reliably “show up and show off”, turning up the energy when the music got cranking. Few doors were unavailable to us. I kept strange men at bay and Rachel broadcast that I wasn’t a total creeper to women I tried to meet.
Given that our birthdays are a week apart, it was inevitable that we joined forces for “Rothveigas”, a portmanteau that gave a name to the type of ecstatic free-for-alls we wanted our parties to be. For ten consecutive years, we combined invite lists, found DJs, performers and subterranean spaces in which to spray champagne, jump on banquets and generally celebrate one more year of being alive.
To know Rachel is to know that she’s an exceptionally deep spirit for whom God plays a central role in her life. I was honored when Rachel invited me to this Sunday Side of her when I first got to attend the church on 22nd street, witnessing how neatly music interplayed with Scripture and community.
I also got to see more of the texture in Rachel and Tiago’s relationship. It occurred to me that there are some couples that perform really well together. They photograph well, dress to the nines, laugh confidently at each other’s jokes and address each other as “honey”, “sweetheart” and other florid terms of endearment. These couples stress everyone out. How do they do it? Easy: they’re Mormon Instagrammers. Rachel and Tiago offer more charity: they show you the work. They show you there’s God in every act of creation and relationships are no different — they require you to re-up and recommit every day.
In her deliberateness and the high expectations she holds in the company she keeps, Rachel has always represented divine maternal energy so it’s been a joy watching her raise two beautiful girls. To them, she’s been a source of play, a tour guide and a teacher of secular knowledge and human nature. In low moments when some stray news item causes me to fret about the future of humanity, I think about Rachel as a mom and the possibility that there are other Rachels out there, raising happy ninja poets who will share their grace with the world.
Rachel’s connection to God makes a habit out of synchronicity. If I happen to be struggling with something, Rachel will somehow know to text a prayer, which in those moments feels like a balm. Shortly after Rachel met my wife back when we were first dating, Rachel texted me the next morning with a lucid description of a dream detailing what my wedding would look like. Her vision, down to the location, emotional context and even the description of the dress my wife wore was 100% accurate, defying any secular idea of randomness. Rachel’s daughter JJ has these vivid dreams as well, what she calls God Dreams. The apple never falls far.
On this 23rd day of January, on Rachel’s [redacted] birthday, my dream is that she continues to share her light with the world. She is a warrior for her friends, for her colleagues and especially for her family. All that vigilance can make you tired. So today, may you receive the rest that you so richly deserve. May your home reverberate with your favorite tracks, the kitchen cabinet with your favorite snacks and know that I, along with the rest of the world, love you back.
