On Manifesting What We Want

My dear friend Marisa Maleck (pictured above) and I always mutually believed in our abilities to manifest the things we wanted the most. It was one of the things that made us connect so strongly. We became fast friends in 2016 when I sold my apartment to her and moved downstairs into the same building. She became a fixture in everything special in my life. Marisa passed away suddenly in April at 37, leaving a big, gaping hole in the hearts of her family and friends. I was one of those people, Marisa and I shared a love of wine and going to wine tastings together.

A few months after her passing, I helped Marisa’s family clean out her apartment. Ultimately, I was honored and humbled by the task of its sale for her estate. After a couple of months of preparation, it was finally on the market and being shown.

On a Tuesday night, five days into marketing the apartment, my husband Nick and I attended a Laurent-Perrier champagne tasting event hosted by Calvert Woodley at the wineLAIR in the Ritz Carlton West End. It was limited to 50 people and Molly, the wonderful rep who conducted the tasting and taught us about the wine, engaged the crowd with some questions. Her first was “How many bubbles are in a glass of champagne?” Ever the eager participant, I raised my hand and offered up, “seventy-five hundred”. The real answer was in the millions, but Molly kindly gave me a pale pink Laurent-Perrier beret which I excitedly put on immediately.

This was the kind of event Marisa and I would have certainly gone to together, and that was acutely on my mind throughout the evening. At the end of the event, Molly offered up a magnum bottle of Laurent-Perrier and we each put our names in a bucket for this raffle. I thought to myself, “If I get this, Marisa’s here.” I was prepared to smile and clap for whoever else in the crowd won. Molly pulled my name from the hat, and the bottle of Laurent-Perrier went to me.

Not sixty seconds later, I received a full-price offer for Marisa’s apartment in my e-mail inbox. If I wasn’t sure Marisa was there in spirit before, I certainly was then. The sale of Marisa’s apartment closed successfully on August 10th. When I eventually open that bottle, I will think of her with every sip.

For me, the business of real estate is not only my occupation but also something that connects me to people in a way I did not think imaginable when I started. It is stories like my journey with Marisa that make me so grateful for the important role I serve. With eternal love to my dear friend, cheers to Marisa!