Inside and Out

Ivan Carbajal sits across from me in the Petrossian café. On the table between us are two glasses of champagne and the famous café’s caviar tasting dish. He spreads crème fraiche over a small, square blini and carefully spoons a tiny amount of caviar on top. He hands the tiny square to me and I let the deliciously salty eggs dissolve on my tongue.

He studies my reaction carefully, peering through his glasses. He is almost blind, now and asks me to describe the room to him as we nibble on the delicacies. I do and he nods approvingly and begins to tell me about the time he met Hillary Clinton at the Yale Club. He is wearing a Brooks Brothers jacket and an expensive bolo made of silver and turquoise. “A bolo is a cowboy tie,” Ivan tells me. “It’s from the silver capital of the world.”

When I first met Ivan, I had a hard time believing he was real. He is a self-described “forty-eight-years-old-forever millionaire” and a good family friend. The first time we went to dinner, he showed up holding a blue bag from Tiffany’s. He talked to me about his travels and Noel Coward and the opera. He was endlessly interesting and he thought I was “a young Grace Kelly, an Audrey Hepburn.” From then on, Ivan and I were great friends. I would occasionally accompany him to dinners and to Carnegie Hall. He considered himself my mentor, I considered him my friend.

Ivan is the youngest of ten children and is now the only one still alive. He was born in Mexico and raised in Southern Texas. For college, he attended Yale for law school and slowly rose to become a prominent lawyer in New York City. After an accident in his forties, he lost his vision and retired from law. He began investing his money and uses the income to travel the world tasting fine foods and listening to beautiful music. “’When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is,’” he says, quoting his favorite author, Oscar Wilde. Ivan smiles at me and then says quietly, “But, my dear, money is not everything. Money can only get you so far. The rest is up to you. The secret to making it in this city is to adapt to change, and to do it stylishly.”

German Varela sits at a small wooden table, holding the hand of his beautiful wife, Sonya. She has long golden hair and is only twenty-eight, fourteen years younger than German, who has long hair and green eyes that stand out against his tan skin. “We got our lives together around the same time,” He says. “She is much more mature. It took me longer to figure myself out. That’s how we worked out so well.”

Looking around their tiny apartment in Washington Heights, you can tell that they are spiritual people. Their apartment is minimally furnished and smells of incense. As a waiter in a local restaurant, German makes just enough money to get by but he and Sonya couldn’t care less. They spend their time together by meditating, going for walks and cooking dinner together. They are happy as long as they are together.

German grew up in Argentina with two older sisters. He spent his days listening to heavy metal and fighting on the streets. “It was dangerous to be a kid there,” he says. “Especially a skinny intellectual like myself.” A typical education did not interest German, and he left Argentina in his twenties to travel the world.

German traveled to Europe and then back to the Americas. He moved from Mexico to Miami to New York, never staying in one place more than three years. Then he met Sonya, five years ago, in New York, and his life completely changed. She had never left New York and her whole family was there. After his three years of living in New York, German decided he was going to stay. Wherever Sonya is happy, he is happy.

Sonya and German practice yoga and meditation regularly. They like to stay in touch with themselves and their feelings, which can be hard in a city like New York where everything seems to be about material possessions. Recently, they have been discussing moving away, buying some land, and building a house, away from the busy city. They want to get back in touch with nature.

German says that the key to making it in this world, in New York, is happiness. To be happy wherever you are, with whatever you have. He says the best way to do that is to allow change to happen around you, and to adapt to it. “Nothing is permanent, especially life, so experience it. Live your life fully. Experience everything with your whole being.” German looks at you and sees your soul, not what you’re wearing or how you look. He believes we need to look inside for inspiration, rather than out.

“I have discovered that the inside is infinite, just the like outside world. In the city, we turn the lights on because we are scared of the darkness inside of ourselves. But when you’re naked and alone in the woods with only the stars, all the illumination comes from within.”