I can choose fear, or I can choose trust

Yesterday, after I finished lunch, my mind started to take me to a place of potential future outcomes that very immediately felt scary. It pertained to something I was processing into a new understanding, a new reality, the other week. Through the waves, I had found—I have found—a wider stability, a deeper capacity to be in the now, rather than what if’s. Still, there are moments, and that’s OK. The voice that settled me as those frightening possibilities began to form as thoughts in my head, said, “You can choose fear, or you can choose trust.”

I choose trust. I chose trust in that moment, and I choose trust in writing right now. The reality is what it is; the rest, and me, is whatever I choose for it to be.

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

Sierra's pace

Back when I was marathon training, I shared some runs long runs, medium runs and stops under the Venice sign with my friend Sierra, who I met through Venice Run Club. I loved her energy, grit, spirit and sweetness (still do!). She, as a seasoned competitor, helped me prepare for a lot of the not-just-running parts of race prep, like logistics with fueling (“You need to bring water on these long runs!”) and being with it, better with it, even when it felt hard. (“Just don’t think about it,” she said on that infamous 18-mile run day in 88 degree heat under the open sun. We cried in gratitude looking out at the ocean along Manhattan Beach, and also probably from delirium. We made it.)

One Wednesday a few weeks before the marathon, we set out on our weekly 4.5-mile group loop. Everyone was clicking their smart watches and Strava apps on to start, timing it all, calculating. I saw her start and called out, “What pace are you going today?” to see if we’d run together. She turned back and smiled, responding across a few rows of people. “Sierra’s pace!” she said, shrugging her shoulders and continuing to run. Which meant, whatever felt right that day, in that moment, for her. Sierra’s pace. We say it often now, as do others who heard her response that night and, like me, loved it. Sierra’s pace. Your pace. Whatever that is.

For Sierra, who runs, swims, bikes, rests, resets and lives her own way, at her own pace, through life.

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.")

Miracles happen all the time

When I was sick in January, I started watching episodes of the well-being and sustainable living docuseries “Down to Earth with Zac Efron,” (super recommend it). The second episode centers on water. In it, they travel to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, which is believed to have healing waters. They meet the resident doctor, who is on staff to verify pilgrims’ claims of miracle healings. It’s really incredible to see the exchange and explanations, to see the medical doctor show X-ray, scans, documented evidence of healings that occurred after people visited the site, inexplicable by scientific medical knowledge. Since 1862, the Church has recognized 70 cases as “miraculous.”

Last week I reached out to a close friend when I was needing to process in relation to someone who knows me well, and she also happens to know a particular area of medicine well in which I was seeking solace. (A miracle.) She said many beautiful, helpful, truthful things to me in that conversation. She said, “Miracles happen all the time.” She’s right. They do. They really do.

A couple days later I was walking along the Venice Beach boardwalk with another friend, and we shared a moment of appreciation for the ocean, just over there, shimmering in the late afternoon sun. “The ocean is such a miracle,” she said, apropos of nothing but being in that moment. And in that, I was in awe.

Miracles happen all the time.

For Micha, a miracle of a friend with whom 16 years has been full of miracles, from a sorority to a move to Buenos Aires, a Sullivan Street psychic and everything in between, including (soon!) Ibiza

It's a blessing to have it around me

My friend Ryan is someone who has the incredible ability to get as excited about wonderful things happening in her loved ones’ lives as she is in her own. And she’s made a practice of it, too. She’s supported me in celebrating big moments, helping me to see and celebrate them even more than I would have—as much as she’s been there for me during difficult ones. I think there’s something so special, selfless and beautifully abundant about that.

One time when I was on the phone with her, I shared some good news about another good friend, someone she’s never met. She took it in, appreciating it with an “mmm,” and then said something I think of often and repeat, years later. “I remind myself it’s a blessing to have it around me.” I’d never heard anyone express appreciation in such a wide way, two connections away.

We can often get so caught up in how something is showing up for us, especially when it’s something we really want. That thing, just for us, only for us and not to be shared. We’re so focused on that, that we miss all the ways and forms in which it’s so present in our lives already. I think there’s a lot of culture-of-the-individual and competitive programming around this, but (and) it can be peeled back. Because when it’s around us, these good, desired, beautiful things, these blessings, we share in it, too. It’s also ours to appreciate, ours to celebrate.

For Rainbow Ryan, who is as incredible a healer as she is a friend, and who truly is a blessing to have around me, even though we’ve yet to meet in person!

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.