Grow curiously

I bought a Monstera at the Mar Vista Farmers Market not long after moving to Los Angeles. I was with my friend Katie, and I named the plant Moana. It had had already nearly outgrown its farmers market pot, and the nice people there repotted it for me, and I took it home to put on my dresser in my bedroom, where stretches awake to reach the morning sun and cranes to see the sunset color Century City and the Hills in the distance a gentle pink.

A week into settling into her new home, both pot and place, Moana was reaching in new directions, taller than before, splaying out, welcoming it all in. I sent a photo to Katie and she responded with emoji smiles, admiring comments and said, “I love how they grow, so curious.”

To grow curiously; what a beautiful, playful concept. How much more enjoyable, fun, easeful, experimental and gracious is all growth, all learning, all possibility, when rooted in curiosity? So much more, I feel.

May we all always grow curiously.

For Katie, with whom curious growth led us to life abroad in Buenos Aires and on many beautiful trips, from Japan to Santa Barbara, and I’m sure more to come

If it's never enough, then it's always enough

I used to be an “inbox zero” person. I felt the compulsive need to clear my emails every day, the red bubbles a constant reminder of what I was missing, didn’t do, needed to do, the lack.

I got so tired. I was doing this, it felt like, in every aspect of life. It was never enough; it couldn’t end, it wouldn’t end. And then I realized, I decided, I didn’t want to do it anymore. And the choice had been mine the whole time. To decide what was enough, and when was enough. Because if it was never enough, then it was also always enough. It was all for me for to decide. And it’s also yours.

(More than a year into turning off red notification bubbles, opting out when it feels most supportive, unsubscribing from many emails and doing large-scale deletes, it really feels so good, and I highly recommend it. I recently cleared out 150 emails, mostly newsletters I just wasn’t going to get to, and I had so much more mental clarity afterward. I decided I’m OK with what’s left unread.")

Both of these things are true

When I was thinking of creating this blog, this is one of the first sayings I can remember repeating with friends: Both of these things are true. It was back in Brooklyn, and that summer when that first heavy wave of COVID lifted and we all got a little reprieve, to be outside in parks, to reunite with a little less fear, to be in some form of revelry and normal. I spent a lot of that summer with a core group of Brooklyn friends after moving across the Williamsburg Bridge; we started most weekends on my rooftop and then walked up Berry Street to The Lot Radio, which somehow could stay open past midnight, everyone sitting in clusters on the triangular street corner among warehouses, a church, and McCarren Park, between Williamsburg and Greenpoint where no cars really went and the little Lot Radio stand could blast music and there was, one time, a pop-up fashion show at 2:30am. We called it the vortex, bopped around to different groups, had conversations with a lot of lines like “I have a lot of air in my (astrological) chart,” and ,for a suspended time of reality, felt like anything was possible in those endless summer days-to-nights.

At some point “both of these things are true” started to come up, be said and ring true. Things were hard and weird in the world, and, still, we were really having a great time. We were holding all these truths and, in acknowledging them, I found capacity for so much more. I learned to be able to hold them without them having to be so heavy. They could just be there, in the same space, and I could be with them, coexisting. Life got richer, easier, fuller, more beautifully complex, in acknowledging the multitude of a moment, and the prismatic refractions of any one experience.

I had dinner with one of these friends, who also had since moved to LA, last weekend. It was our first time getting together in a couple months, and it felt like a homecoming, that way it always is when we reconnect with people with whom we have a relationship of love, acceptance and knowing. I told her how challenging the week had been in my personal life, and also how some big, beautiful things had come from it, like registering for Reiki Level 1 training. She held the space for me and thanked me for sharing with her. It was a less emotional moment and, still, I felt that deeper level of processing and sharing do me good. We continued with the evening, laughed about instances where we were like, it’s not that deep, and made plans for a beach cabana getaway in a couple weekends.

A few days ago she checked in and said she had been thinking of me this week. In the message, too, she shared a heartfelt reminder: “Friends are here for the worries, too.” The worries, the fun; both of these things are true. I guess, after all, it is one.

For Sam, who thrives and alives in both NYC & LA. Happy to have had you in both places for days & nights of saying & playing.

Do one less thing

Sometimes I think life is a rotation between the two sides of the same advice coin, a back-and-forth flip that is sometimes quick, like both in one day, and, other times, we’re on the same side for some time. Before, it was Do this one thing. Right now, it’s: Do one less thing.

Do one less thing, make one less plan, make one choice less, say one less thing, deliberate one time less. There’s a peace that comes in granting that, I’ve found. A space for settling, and for something to naturally shift.

We're here, we may as well enjoy it

This thought started visiting me often, when I would find myself waiting in a line, on hold for something, existing in some between-space of time and/or place that really didn’t seem all that exciting, that wasn’t really my preference, but was what it needed to be then.

“I’m here; I may as well enjoy it.” I found myself saying. And, magically, I would almost automatically find a way to enjoy it. Something would become comical, I would come more into the present, or I would feel more like the whole situation was more mine, because I was choosing to make it into enjoyment. And I think that’s what it’s about, remembering that we deserve enjoyment, to live life in joy, regardless of the circumstances

Attention and appreciation make anything special. And when we can turn the mundane into the magical, I guess that’s called alchemy.

Do something because you want to, not because of what you expect in return

Do something because you want to, not because of what you expect in return, or because you expect something, anything, as a result. In that way, in this manner, it can only ever be positive. You are doing what you want, for the joy of it. This is mom advice (advice from my mom) that came through over the years in a simple moment It continues to reveal, reorient and simplify in all it touches in my life.

Orient toward the action, for the joy and the purity of the action, rather than the outcome. And whatever comes, will come, and it will be welcome.

For Mom who has done many things…

Release the timeline

A couple months into living in Venice Beach I had this moment, biking home from a friend’s on a Sunday evening along boardwalk, then turning on Speedway and pulling to my alley (mine! this was now home!) when I realized, like really realized, that I lived at the beach.

I’d always wanted to live summers at the beach growing up, have a home there, a place to stay rather than day trips in and out to the Jersey Shore. I was, I am, grateful for that, yes, and still, I craved languid summer nights with melting ice cream cones and slow sunsets and friends from other school districts, could feel the little bliss of what it’d be like to wake up to walk in the sand. Now, all these years later, but not a moment too late or too early, I was here. I am here.

Release the timeline. Because, the time is always divine; the timing is always right. (And maybe, sometimes it’s a boomerang?)