TAPPING INTO HER CREATIVE SIDE
Unlike many during the pandemic, Justyna Malota, a project coordinator for an artificial intelligence company in lower Manhattan, didn’t lose her job. In fact, because she was suddenly working from her Hackensack home, she actually gained something: time. “I was no longer commuting, which gave me an extra 20 hours a week,” she says. She’d always wanted to do something creative. In high school, she’d gotten into theater and costuming, and she’d developed a passion for interior design. But five years ago, she got married, “and I knew,” she says, “I had to get a job and make money.” She enjoys what she does for a living, she adds, “but there’s this whole other part of me.” So, faced with those extra hours—time in which many of us were binge-watching Netflix or doomscrolling on our phones—she decided to launch a jewelry business. “I told myself, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it now.” The pandemic may have offered her ample time, but it threw up a number of roadblocks: She couldn’t market her brand at trade shows and fairs. Because of the lockdown, she couldn’t hire a photographer or someone to model her jewelry. (She bought a professional-quality $2,000 camera and taught herself to use it, employing her sister as a model.) Even so, in March 2020, she was ready to launch her brand, Isle Wilde. The jewelry, she says, reflects her aesthetic: It’s airy and ethereal, some of it inspired by Greek mythology, which she loves. Her chokers made from vintage trim, for instance, evoke the necklaces of classical Greece. Her Capella necklaces, featuring crystals sewn onto mesh, look like jewels floating on the wearer’s skin. Eventually, she’d like to add clothing to the line, but for now she’s thrilled with what she’s been able to create. “It’s been a wonderful way to visit that other part of myself,” she says.
EMBRACING A DREAM
The house in Rutherford was small and old, and its owners, Charu Agarwal and Pranay Jain, decided that the time had come to find something newer and roomier for themselves and their two school-age sons. So, in January 2020 they started looking at houses in Ridgewood and Glen Rock, and by early March a sale of their house was in attorney review. Then came the pandemic. “We were reading about what was happening all over the world and were worried about the economy and the job market,” says Agarwal, who’d previously lost a job in the financial industry when her employer, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy in the recession of 2008. They pulled out of the sale and decided they’d reassess the idea of moving when they had a better sense of what the ultimate effects of the coronavirus on the market might be. By September, one thing was clear: The pandemic wasn’t ending any time soon. So, while they were anxious about inviting buyers into their home—and venturing themselves, into the homes of strangers—they shook off their concerns and made the decision, Agarwal says, “to take a risk and go ahead with our life and not put it on hold.” Buying during the time of COVID turned out to be less harrowing than they’d anticipated: There were N95 masks at every house they viewed, and only one family was allowed in at a time. Selling, however, was something else entirely. When their real estate agent, Michael Shetler, scheduled two back-to-back open houses in January, the couple was particularly anxious. After each one, Jain recalls, “we opened all the windows and turned on all the fans—it was super cold. And then we disinfected every knob and light switch in the house.” They made their sons wait outside for 20 minutes before allowing them back inside. Thankfully, he adds, the open houses yielded a buyer—particularly important because they’d already closed on a new build in Glen Rock in October. The house was completed in early March, and the move has proved every bit as satisfying as they’d hoped. They signed the mortgage papers in December and were able to take advantage of historically low interest rates. The boys have made friends and settled easily into their new school. And, says Agarwal, the community has been great—“everybody’s been very helpful and welcoming.” Sometimes, she acknowledges, you just have to reach for your dream, even if it entails anxiety and calculated risk-taking—and airing out your house, twice, in the dead of winter. BERGENMAG.COM
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