Over July Fourth weekend I reached a year in my Venice Beach apartment, where, from my balcony every morning, I greet the ocean two blocks away and the mountains in the distance, even when the fog shrouds their outline. (Good morning, ocean. I see you; I feel you. Good morning, mountains. I see you, even when I don’t; I feel you. Thank you!)
I do love it here. It feels happy; a happy home and fills my heart. The prior tenant was even a famous actor/comedian (Mark McKinney, and if you end up reading this while I still live here, Mark, I’m probably still receiving your mail, and I did enjoy your copies of Kiplingers Personal Finance while they lasted) which feels very LA and fun. I moved into this place without ever having visited myself; I’d felt like it was right when I saw the listing, and when my close friend took me on a FaceTime tour, I knew from her response it was right. The only thing, she said, maybe, would be the sound from the street below. I was moving from NYC, I figured; it would be fine.
And it has been fine. But recently, I’m in a moment of, why just ‘fine”? Why not “great”?! (In all caps, with everything.) I realized I was wearing earplugs more nights than not, and I didn’t want to do that, and the nights that I didn’t I was convinced I was waking up more than otherwise, and I started getting into my head about not being able to sleep as well as I could (“ “) and so on, and so on so much that at some point I realized that I’d decided I probably maybe (should? yes?) needed to move. Maybe this was a sign, maybe this was time, maybe,,, but, like, I really didn’t want to otherwise??
And, then, in not even a great stroke of genius or particularly inspired insight, I realized I should try a white noise machine. It works, as millions (and millions, I’m sure) of people already know, but I had not yet discovered for myself. It was the simplest solution, and it has been the best. The best sleep, sound sleep, and it feels even easier to be here.
I wanted to start publishing again, notes and memories and messages to myself that have come up and I have come back to in the past few years, thoughts that come from slipping into “the space between thoughts,” as Deepak Chopra refers to the act, the effect, the result of meditation. The simplest way to do that, I felt, was just to write it here, on the little slice of internet real estate that was already mine, to do it my way, and do it for me.
I wanted to write something today, but didn’t know what, so I decided on this. The simplest solution, the simplest post.
(A philosophical follow-up note: I think simplicity, like anything, is a relative term, and that what presents itself as the “simplest” solution in the moment is because it is most relevant to the situation at hand.)