Three Little Birds

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday, literally and figuratively, after a restless, sleepless night. They say things come in threes and I had three pretty big – I’m gonna go with disappointments – so here’s hoping I’m good for awhile. Why are human interactions so complicated, anyway? Seems simple enough: be nice, be honest, and be trustworthy. Those three tenets work well in every situation I can think of, actually. But, I was feeling like one of those enormously tall Beverly Hills palm trees on an extra windy day. Being pushed and pulled by forces of nature I couldn’t see, much less control.

So I had myself a morning freeway meltdown complete with the long phone chat with an old friend. Had a good cry and a good laugh and got some good advice. And some much needed love.

And I suddenly noticed what an incredibly beautiful day it was. The sky was clearer than I’d seen it since I’ve been in LA. Thanks to the cold front that brought the all day long chilly rain that dogged me on the freeway for four long hours the night before – big, bright, and gorgeously blue, with big, white, fluffy clouds, and most importantly, not a smidgen of smog. You could see for miles and miles in all directions. Sometimes, when I’m in my car and the windows are down and the sun is bright and the air is fresh and the tunes are blaring and I look over and the Pacific Ocean is right there and I turn my head and the San Gabriel mountains are right there and then the City of Angels is just right there and it is utterly, breathtakingly surreal that I am actually here. This was one of those moments. I sincerely hope that moment never gets old.

I could have driven around for hours yesterday simply enjoying the sun and the air – if I hadn’t been so astonishingly tired. Went home and took a nap instead. Naps are good too. The thing to remember is the palm trees may bend, and sometimes alarmingly so, but they don’t break.

A La Famiglia

Some, and sometimes all, of my family – my siblings, their spouses or significant others, my nieces and nephews and their spouses or significant others, and their children, and even exes and their current spouses or significant others, and their children – has dinner at my mom’s house every Sunday. We’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember. Honestly, for as long as I can remember. It’s just something we do. Happily, the numbers have grown and sadly, the numbers have also dwindled over the years. I haven’t been to a Sunday dinner in seven or eight weeks. I’ve lost count, and I'm not gonna lie, I miss them.

I call my mom every other day or so. It’s just something I do. Typically my conversations with my mom revolve around the weather. She really likes to talk about the weather. It goes something like this: Hello? Hi, mom. Hi, Jan (my mother is the only person on the face of the earth allowed to call me Jan), how ya doin? I’m good, how are you? Pretty good, you got a nice sunny day today? Yep, sure do. How 'bout you? It’s cloudy here today / It’s raining here today / It’s cold here today / It’s nice here today / It’s insert appropriate weather condition here today. Then we talk about everything she can and can’t or could or couldn’t do that day because of said weather conditions and I usually get to hear about yesterday’s and tomorrow’s weather and how that affected or will affect her daily activity, as well. She’s pretty adorable.

Today though, she surprised me! I have a distant cousin who lives in northern California. I don’t think I’ve actually ever met her. She and my mom spoke on the phone recently and mom mentioned to her that I had moved to Los Angeles. My cousin asked if I was going to become a movie star now and my mom could not wait to tell me this story and even launched into it ahead of the weather portion of our call. Unprecedented. When I responded with, “Ha! Not too likely”, my mom said, “Well, you could be an extra, or a producer or something, right?” And I said, “Yeah! I’m gonna be a producer! In fact, I’m gonna do that tomorrow!” She said, “Great! Sounds like fun.” Clearly, she didn’t catch my sarcasm. Or maybe, I missed her sincerity. She is pretty adorable.

Baby Steps

I've had what an amateur, or me, might call writer's block for the last couple of days. I've sat in front of my laptop every night, fingers poised on the keys, staring at the blank screen. Nothing. Oh, I've typed some words. Then held the delete button down until they were gone. Stared. Typed other words. Repeat delete button action. Stared. Cycle those three things several dozen more times and you have the general idea. Even a trip out to dog beach yesterday didn't do the trick. We'd never been out there on a weekend day. Beautiful weekend day equals no parking, lots of kiddos, and a short leash. Not exactly the dog beach my pal and I had come to regard as our own private sanctuary. Oh well, one more night of staring and deleting wasn't gonna hurt anybody.

This morning, on the freeway of all places, it finally occurred to me that I haven't been able to write because my brain is consumed with two conversations I need to have. Well, more accurately, need to have and have been avoiding. I'm extraordinarily good at avoiding what I perceive to be a confrontation. It takes its toll on my overall well being, of course, but that's a small price to pay, right? I immediately began to "write" the first conversation in my head. Picked up the phone. Dialed the X's number. Nothing. Oh, I had plenty of words. Just not the ones I had planned to say. I could actually feel my brain holding down the imaginary delete button until all the meaningful words were gone. Coward was the only word I could think of for the rest of the afternoon.

Then Calm sent me this: Famous Writers on Overcoming Writers Block, and I was like, hell yeah, Ray Bradbury, you're right! I was attempting to write anything and everything except what I needed to write or in this case, say. So, I wrote conversation number one into an email, well, my part of the conversation anyway, and off it went. Oh, I'm still a coward. But, it's a start, right?

Four Little Words

What do I want? What do I want? What do I want? Seems like an easy question, no? No. But these four little words have been propelling me forward for some time now. I'm sticking with forward because I'm still optimistic that's the direction I'm headed. I think. Yesterday, I knew. Maybe tomorrow, I'll know again. But today, I think. Such a loaded question, too. Reeks of selfishness. It shouldn't, it's an important thing to figure out.

What do I want?

Right this second, I want my feet not to be cold. Slippers.

I Heart the Beach

My dog beach days with my canine pal are sadly numbered. We had a particularly great one yesterday though, and hopefully, we can sneak in a couple more in the next few weeks. I was a little, okay more than a little, hung over after a quick jaunt out to Joshua Tree Sunday night for W&L’s Halloween party, and almost settled for a nap instead of making the effort to go to dog beach. I’m so glad we did! I just always feel better after an afternoon out there. What am I going to do when my pal moves away? Sad.

The tide was really low yesterday. Lower than I’ve ever seen it at this particular beach and we always go at about the same time of the day. It made for an awesome rock and shell graveyard though at the bottom (or is that the top) of the beach where the surf is usually crashing. Maybe it’s because there was a full moon last night? Just as long as it wasn’t a sign that a tsunami is next.

It's Official

I’m a Californian. Experienced my first earthquake yesterday! October 28, 2012 at 8:25 a.m., 3.9 on the Richter scale. I honestly thought it was a really big truck driving down the alley underneath my bedroom window. I have a ceramic glove form that sits on my dresser. I hang my necklaces on it. It rattled for a minute or so.

It was a good starter earthquake, I think.

It's All In A Word

Drove from the Valley to Venice Beach yesterday morning and avoided using a single freeway. I am what you might call, surface road girl! I don't mind the freeways, honestly. I mean, yeah, they're super congested and it's a total drag sometimes, but I've found that I'm pretty comfortable on them after all. Confusing numbers, breakneck speeds, winding roadways, and all. I just like the surface roads. I feel more connected to the city or something. LA is s...p...r...a...w...l...i...n...g, so knowing which neighborhood is where and how to navigate through them to get to wherever you need to be is, well, kind of essential.

Yesterday's drive was particularly nice though. Most of my time was spent on the really beautiful section of Topanga Canyon Boulevard that winds, and I mean winds, through that gorgeous canyon and bottoms out right smack dab into the Pacific Ocean. Honestly, you exit the canyon and the ocean, in all its glory, is quite suddenly twenty feet in front of you. It's a stunningly abrupt and stunningly gorgeous moment. Hang a right, and you're headed for Malibu and all points north. I was headed south through Pacific Palisades, home to what has to be the most expensive trailer park known to man-kind, then Santa Monica, and finally into Venice. Had coffee with a new friend and lunch with an old one, and then drove back exactly the way I had gotten there just so I could enjoy that canyon one more time and take some photos.

I was so taken with the Topanga landscape that I decided a hike there was exactly what I needed today. Fresh air, long walk, clear my head. Or more precisely, get out of my head. This year, I've had a sort of 'meditation word' I guess is the best phrase for it, "unfolding". Simply a word I've been repeating to myself to keep all the madness and changes in perspective. Helps me to remember all things are fluid and evolving, nothing is certain. This past week and a half though, my meditation word had morphed, much to my dismay, into something much less affirmative, "unraveling". I had seemingly lost my badass mojo. There were a couple of events that started the spool spinning of course, but really it's been mostly just me, spending too much time in my head. And not writing about it! I've felt a sort of responsibility to keep, what I had come to be afraid was an illusion, going. Not to admit in writing that I was feeling anxious and unsettled and frankly, sad. It's amazing what a little fresh air, a long walk, and a chat with a friend can do. "Think" with your heart, my friends. It's a much more accurate tool than the computer in your skull.*


*With thanks to my always insightful and almost always calm friend.