Shoveling Down the Greens

Welp, friends. Florida is a bust, because...my tooth is busted! Another crack on another molar, meaning another visit to the dentist and doling out cash money for a deluxe crown that, unfortunately, is not as ostentatious as, say, a grill , but just as expensive.  Another sign from the universe to slow down and, as one soul sister said, stop running away.  I didn't think I was running away from my problems when I last posted. And I truly apologize to anyone I worried over my crisis. I try to speak candidly about mental health, because for so many years I didn't speak up and it snowballed into the inevitable solitude that anchors you to the bottom of the well. When I say I've had depression before, I'm talking about years ago. College. My parents' divorce. Very low times when I was drowning. This year has had moments of fighting against the current, but nothing in comparison. Especially when I can see the tide coming and know exactly how to swim back to safety--even ...

What's the thing that gets you up every day? For a lot of my friends it's kids. The joy and terror and daily mission of keeping the family alive. Most of my mom pals are ready to primal scream into a pillow  after the past year. I don't blame or envy them. And I would never deny them that.  And, yet, the grass is always a little bit greener. Isn't it. Because I can't find a thing to get up for these days. While I'm single and child-free and, mostly, happily so, the pandemic has shone a spotlight--often in the very early hours of the morning when I should be asleep but am on my seventh hour of Netflix--on the utter lack of purpose in my life. (Stop here if you're a parent or person in crisis or happily child-free human who doesn't want to listen to a healthy woman armed with choices and opportunity battle a mental blizzard. I don't blame you.)  Ironically, I'm not alone in my isolation. There have never been more single adults living in the United...

After living out of two fat suitcases for three weeks, I came home only to immediately begin the cull. Tiny toiletries. Beat-up sneakers you can fold in half. Scarfs and blankets the cats have burrowed into beyond repair because, in this home, we can't have nice things. (See: All glassware.) There's a Nor'easter on the horizon. Buckets of snow about to be dumped on us. And I'm trying my darndest to maintain my island momentum--in mind, in heart, in fantastically soft skin that is crying out for the Pacific to come back! To rescue me from the dry heat of this Boston apartment.  But, alas. 3,000 miles from my mint green sea we are. It feels so strange to be home. To look in the my pink bathroom mirror and see tanned me. Changed me. The me who crept to the edge of the Grand Canyon and devoured Din Tai Fung and star gazed from a Honolulu highway with the top down. To begin scheduling affairs and cooking and...life. How? In the valley, it was get up, eat something wholesome,...

I have been dipped in Hawaii like a Dairy Queen cone and I never want to crack the sugar shell. From my sea-green toenails, to my skin that’s been baked to a sand-colored crisp, to my darkening hair that’s been waved and salt-cured like a piece of driftwood...I feel like Wednesday Adams, painted into the wallpaper; if I close my eyes I could blend into my surroundings and never come home. But, to home I must go. To save and reflect and continue onward. I’ve been playing around with the idea of staying here. As Joy says, it’s not expensive—it’s expansive. I agree, but I also paid my bills today and vacation Hawaii has sapped my non-expansive savings. Also, I don’t think vacation Hawaii and remote work Hawaii will be one in the same. However, this was a beautiful reset. The much-needed better half of my first solo trek. And, as Liz says, a step in my ongoing migration. I realized the other day that what I love so much about Hawaii beyond the ocean are the mountains she’s built on. ...

Liz and I once stood in line next to Joshua Jackson at LAX and his naked feet next to my naked feet was the celebrity highlight of my life—until this morning. That peak Pacey moment was nothing compared to the starlet I met today. For there, poking his beautiful yellow face out of the water, mouth open in what I like to think was a smile, not once, not twice, but three times for some big gulps of air before going back on his merry way, was a sea turtle. His black eyes were looking up—while I was looking at him, not five feet away. My heart exploded. I mean, how much can a girl take? Waking up to rainbows not only on the horizon, but reflected in the water. Walking into bath-warm water for an hour-long wade in a jade green sea that matches my toes. Floating next to a Pomeranian on a boogie board, for crying out loud. I didn’t think the day could get any better, but as I drove to Haleiwa, IZ on the radio, top down, my resting heart rate just above coma, I felt the peace that ofte...

Everyone seems to be coming up with a word for the new year. Intention. Forgiveness. Listening. I'm no good with following through on things long-term (hence, the six year gap in posts on this blog) unless I really take them to heart--or they feed and clothe me. But one word has kept popping up throughout the past week--from the moment the valley first revealed herself to me coming around that rugged pass, to the basketball I played in honor of the kids who grew up in Manzanar on their deserted white dust court, to the many, many truckers I passed or gave way to as I shared the road with them over 1,000+ miles. Respect.  Sometimes, I think, being a Northeasterner makes me too anxious to give a situation the respect it deserves. We're always in such a hurry. We're competitive. We've been hardened by blizzards and a New York Napoleon complex and navigating old cow paths that make no sense to anyone but us (but, god forbid, should an outsider make a mistake and need to cha...

My eyes really didn't know what to do with themselves today. I don't know about you, but 2020 hasn't been a year to turn off. It's rare to just sit and look at something without a task at hand: texting, typing, watching, plotting, reading subtitles. To just sit and stare at this canyon...I had to mentally whack myself to keep from reaching for my phone, a snack, thinking about where I wanted to visit next, how long I wanted to stay in the park, if my mask was in place, etc. It wasn't the canyon's fault. My god. She's such a thing of beauty, I almost hesitated to walk up to the first fence. My heart was so full of wonder not just at the size, but the years--the centuries and epochs and massive weather extremes--it took to carve her land. And it's not like I hadn't seen beauty all the live-long day. The drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon is just plain fun, especially on a sunny day. (Do they even have non-sunny days out this way?) The journey starts ...