Life After LA

I'm sitting on the deck again. It's not quite 9AM. I'm eating a banana chocolate chip muffin and drinking coffee and it is, in fact, wonderfully windy today. It's cool out and the sky is filled with big, blustery clouds. The air smells like rain and I realize that I had forgotten about the smell of rain, like depth and possibility.

I spent most of yesterday crying. For no real reason. My life just feels so upended and all the things that make me happy and sparkly and adventurous don't seem as present or as plangent. But feeling sorry for myself is really quite lonely and unoriginal. And it's something I've already spent enough time doing in this life.

Greg came over last night and I made the loveliest dinner of spicy chicken sausage, farfalle and a spicy tomato-basil-vodka sauce, topping it all off with a heaping dollop of ricotta. I'm realizing as I write this that it's one of my strongest tendencies: cooking to ward off insecurity.

I've been doing it for years. When I moved back to Vermont after my mother died when I was eighteen it was the middle of winter and I was dreadfully depressed and isolated. And so what did I do? I cooked. Night after night. I spent my afternoons wandering the aisles of the local grocery store, picking out ingredients for whatever recipe I had chosen from The Joy of Cooking and then I spent the evening carefully destroying the kitchen in my attempt to make Potato Leek Soup (serves 6-8) or a flaky pastry crust for Quiche Lorraine (100,000 calories per serving).

I went on like this for months, cooking and crying and soothing myself in this strange culinary sort of way. I've refined the process a bit in my older age, reducing the crying, cooking healthier dishes, lessening the isolation and adding in a nice bubble bath here and there.

Okay, I'm rambling. I'm procrastinating.

Thanks to everyone for all the input on what I should do about Life in LA. Despite all of your wonderful suggestions, I'm still unsure. A couple of months ago I bought the domain www.clairebidwellsmith.com and I would like that to be my actual url, I think, but that still leaves the question of what to do about the title of the blog. And it's been Life in LA for so long that it does feel sort of strange to change it.

But really. I live in Chicago now. I need to do something about this.

Comments

[Christine]

Wow Claire - you've gone through so many challenges, and I continue to admire your courage. I think you are following what you feel you need to follow, whether you understand at the time all the reasons you may need to follow it... I think that's the key to life, really, though riding the uncertainty gets to us at times. It IS a big deal.

Chicago is such a great town, as I'm sure you're aware. (I'm 3 hours north).

Re: lifeinla... I can see how the blog name is still relevant as a subtext to where you are now, so it's an interesting continuity to keep it right now. I'm sure you've already thought of this, but you could close it off eventually and let it stand on its own, and continue writing at your new domain.

[Shaw]

"My unameable blargh!"
"Name this blargh!"
"You're so vein, you probably think this blargh is about you..."

[Claire Bidwell Smith]

Christine--thank you for the lovely comment. And you know what? It actually hadn't occurred to me to start another blog - thank you so much! That's exactly what I'm going to do! The moment I read your suggestion, I was knew that was the answer! Yay!

Shaw, Shaw, Shaw....thanks, as always, for the mirthful comments.

On to Life in Chicago!

[christine]

Claire - that's funny. Part of me wants to say 'you're kidding, right'... but hey, anytime you want advice... !!!