Life in LA

The Art of Abundance

I'm having another party this weekend and I've been at my obsessive menu-planning again.

Standouts on the sweet side include carrot cake cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting and lemon cupcakes with raspberry filling & topped with toasted coconut frosting.

I just got home from the grocery store. Along with menu-planning and part-throwing, I relish grocery shopping, languidly cruising up and down the aisles, carefully consulting my list...the thrill of a last minute menu-change or an unexpected inspiration for some eclectic addition. I also love unloading the groceries when I get home...barefoot in the kitchen working the refrigerator like a Rubix cube...standing back to survey the abundance I plan to lavish on my friends.

I'm so grateful to my mother for teaching me this art.

In Other News...

My friend Glasgow Phillips is reading from his new book The Royal Nonesuch at BookSoup tonight. Check out the NY Times review or visit his website. At the very least watch this hilarious video teaser. He's wonderfully weird and funny and just a generally lovely guy.

Also, I'm really honored to be included amongst some fabulous writers as a contributor on The Nervous Breakdown. I'll let you know when my first post goes up.

The Last Three Months

I went to an AA meeting tonight. I hadn't gone to one since my first week of sobriety and it had a bigger impact on me than I thought it would.

I guess I should have known. The first one I ever went to had a big impact as well. It's intense to sit in a crowded room for an hour with a bunch of Westside hipsters who all look as fucked and as normal as you do and it's intense to listen to their stories and to think about how you're all there in that room for the same reason really.

I felt okay all through the meeting, a little detached even. I felt okay as I stood outside the building amidst all the smokers, listening to a voicemail from my clinic about a client who needed to speak with me. I felt okay even as I walked down the street to my car. I felt okay as I sat in the car, engine off, speaking to my client.

It was after I hung up the phone and turned the ignition that the feelings welled up. I sat there for a moment, the volume on the stereo on mute, the wind blowing palm husks across the street. It was just after a nine, a windy Tuesday night in Los Angeles. And there I was: twenty-eight years old, ninety days sober, just hanging up the phone with a client.

I could hardly believe this picture of myself, still have a hard time grappling with it as I write it. I can't believe how far I've come...in the last three months...the last six months....the last ten years. I can't believe I've made it through all this shit.

I can't believe that I'm twenty-eight years old and that I have a steady job and a lovely little apartment and am on the cusp of a master's degree. I can't believe that I have such responsibilities as calling back psychotherapy clients. I can't believe that I haven't had a drink in three months. I can't believe all things I've thought about done and and felt and realized in the last three months.

I feel like finally, finally, I've begun to learn how to be alone.

Feeling all of this made me cry. And it made me not want to be alone. I wanted to share it all with someone and not having anyone made me cry a little more. I broke down and started making calls but no one was answering.

Finally, I did that which I've turned to over and over the last few months. I drew a bath and I wiped my tears and I lit a few candles and I turned of the light and set out a towel for myself and I closed the door and I sank into the scalding water and I just let myself be.

Good Grief

This morning I met with a supervisor at Our House, a grief and loss center here in Los Angeles.

It was really incredible to see this place. It was so REFRESHING to be in an environment where death isn't taboo, where people are free to talk about their fears, their guilt, their pain and nightmares and gruesome memories, where there are clinicians there who are capable of really listening to this stuff, who are truly able to hold these experiences.

I'm almost finished with a graduate program in clinical psychology and I have yet to be exposed to one class about death. I've taken classes on every disorder possible, have been required to attend workshops about spousal abuse and domestic violence, about aging, about substance abuse, about child abuse, about race & ethnicity and on and on... But the one thing that isn't required or even offered, is a class about death and bereavement, about grief and loss.

Even the DSM IV, the clincian's bible of mental disorders, allots one paragraph to bereavement and lists symptoms as lasting only two months. Anything longer is given a diagnosis of Major Depression. I didn't even BEGIN to grieve for my mother until about three months after she died. And out of all the disorders and categories and traumas a person can be and experience, death is truly the only one that we ALL have in common.

Anyway, I could rant about this. But what I'd rather do, is work to change it. And that's what Our House wants to do as well. There was another student in my meeting this morning, interviewing the supervisor for a paper she was working on. While she was asking a lot of questions about grief itself, I was asking questions about how to get into this field, where to start, who to talk to. Death is so incredibly hidden in our culture, in our society, even in the mental health field. I even know a lot of clinicians who are uncomfortable with the subject, who are unwilling to work with grieving clients. Trying to break into this field is like to trying to get into a secret club where you have to know a special handshake and or find an alley where some hidden back door is located.

Leaving the building this morning I shared the elevator with the other student. I'm amazed by how confident you are about wanting to go into this field, she said. How do you know that this is what you want to do?

I've experienced a lot of loss, I told her. And I've spent a lot of time working on it. I just feel very comfortable talking about it, working on it, helping others talk about it, I said. And because I feel so comfortable with, and because so many others don't feel comfortable with it, I really feel like I should do this.

It's like it's a gift, she said.

Yes, it is, I replied.

90 Days

Well, tomorrow it will be 90 days since I've had a drink.

I'm pretty amazed. This experience of being sober over the last three months, after drinking heavily for ten years, has been really profound. In the last 90 days I've done everything I was afraid to do without alcohol. In the last 90 days I realized how much my drinking was preventing me from moving forward. In the last 90 days I've realized that it's truly possible for me to make MAJOR changes in my life.

I went to my first AA meeting in December, on Christmas eve. I didn't really mean to go. I was spending the evening with a good friend who is sober and I overheard him on the phone with his sister saying that he was going to skip his regular meeting to spend the evening with me. Over the last several months he had offered repeatedly to take me to a meeting with him. My usual response, depending on my mood, was either "Fuck you," or "Thanks, but I'm not ready." But something about it being Christmas eve and spending my first holiday season alone and everything feeling completely fucked anyway, made me say, "Don't skip your meeting. I'll go with you."

And it was totally different than I imagined. As I sat in the back of the little candle-lit room, listening to the speaker describe his torrid affair with alcohol I began to think for the very first time that maybe I should try to quit for a while. The speaker talked about his first 90 days and I remember thinking, "Fuck, NINETY days...that seems interminable." I remember feeling an icicle of fear slip straight through me as I wondered if I could stop drinking for 90 days. I remember realizing that if the thought was that scary then I probably REALLY needed to give it a try. I remembered all the other times in my life when I happened upon something incredibly scary that I knew I needed to do in order to be the person I want to be: traveling alone in the Philippines, applying to grad school, getting out of certain relationships. I knew that someday I would have to give those 90 days a shot.

I went home and drank that night. I drank heavily for the next week. All through Christmas week and New Year's Eve weekend I drank. I bought a case of wine at Trader Joe's that week. I wanted to make sure there was always an open bottle of this particular white in my fridge. I started drinking at noon everyday on the last weekend of the year. I had a small New Year's Day party and I drank all day through that, knowing that come January 2nd I was going to give sobering up a shot. All day on January 2nd, I thought about how when I got home from work I wasn't going crack a beer or pour a glass of wine. The anxiety started to creep in around 4 o'clock. I texted my friend to see if he was going to a meeting that night and he was. He offered to pick me up. I went to my second ever meeting that evening and it really helped. I don't know if I could have stayed home that night and not had a drink. And I had no idea, at that point, how to go out, how to go anywhere and NOT have a drink.

In that first week of not drinking I didn't really have a plan. I didn't know how long I intended to go for. A week maybe? Two? I just knew that I need to dry out. It had been over a year since I had gone more than five days without a drink. In the last ten years I hadn't gone longer than a week. That first weekend of sobriety was also my first weekend of classes for my 5th quarter and in my Saturday Chemical Dependency class our teacher asked us to think about something we were willing to give up for the entire quarter. He wanted us to find a vice (drinking, smoking, gambling, nail biting, sugar, caffeine, channel surfing, whatever) and make an effort to abstain for ten weeks. I had already gone five days at that point and on Sunday when we were asked to announce the thing we were giving up, that same icicle of fear slipped through me. When it came to my turn I said, "Sugar. I'm giving up sugar." Ever since I quit drinking I had been bingeing heavily on sugar and it was making me sick.

I didn't want to give up alcohol in front of the class. It seemed like too private of a battle. I was too confused and conflicted about what I was doing with it anyway. But over the course of the next twenty minutes as we went around the room and people gave things up, I kept thinking that I should really just do it. Ten weeks. Fuck, that sounded so scary. Ten weeks. Two & a half months. Without drinking?! My entire life would disappear, I thought. I wouldn't be able to go on any dates. I wouldn't be able to go to any parties. What would I do when Of Montreal came to town? How could I go to those shows sober?? My thoughts were racing. I was frantically fighting back and forth with myself. And then in the pause after the last person announced what they were giving up, my hand suddenly shot up and I said, "Wait, I want to change mine."

I only went to one more meeting. I thought a lot about doing the program. I talked to several sober friends. I still think about it, even though I haven't been back to AA since January. Those ten weeks were up two weeks ago. I'm still not ready to go back to drinking. Nor am I ready to make a comittment to long-term sobriety. All I know is that I feel better than I have maybe my whole life. I feel like I'm finally free. I never realized how much my drinking was holding me in one place. I've now done everything I was afraid to do without alcohol. I've been on dates and gone to parties. I've gone to shows and hung out in bars. I've hung out with friends I thought wouldn't want to hang out with me if I wasn't drinking. I've flown on airplanes (that used to require 4 drinks and a xanex) and I even made it through Lydia's wedding week in Spring Break/St. Patrick's Day madness.

I went out with a bunch of friends last night. My amazing and absolutely beautiful friend Lien (you should all read her hilarious column) organized a fun night of a lovely tapas dinner and downtown bar hopping and it was nice to be able to still participate in things like that. I didn't really feel any less fun or wild and crazy than I would have had I been drinking. And that's what I've realized through all this. Anytime over the last few months where I've found myself in a situation and wondered if I'd be happier or be having more fun I just try to imagine what it would be like if I were drinking. And everytime, I've realized that it would either be the same...or it would be worse.

On the night of Lydia's wedding I had been in Florida for five days and about half-way through the reception I realized that just about everyone except me was drunk. I remember leaning up against a wall on the dance floor, watching everyone cut loose. I suddenly felt exhausted. Just worn out from the constant processing I'd had to do that week about not drinking in the midst of such serious alcohol bingeing. I left the dance floor and walked out to a darkened veranda and sat down by myself on a wicker settee, staring down at the street below. It was quiet and peaceful and the cool night air pushed at my hair. I thought about all the things I'd stripped away. There I was, without a cigarette in my hand. Without a drink. Without family. Without a boy to love. And I realized that, for the first time in a long, long time, I actually felt peaceful. And I knew, I could viscerally imagine, that had I been drinking, I probably would have found myself sitting on this same veranda in the dark by myself, but I'd have been drunk and crying about my dead parents or about some boy or both and I'd be hating myself for all of it, hating myself so, so much, wishing that I coud just disappear and that it would all be over.

I can't even tell you how many nights I've spent over the last ten years feeling like that. And it wasn't necessarily the alcohol that made me feel that way.

But it was removing the alcohol that finally allowed me to sort through so many of those emotions. I'd never really let myself do it. It had always been too painful. I was so afraid of the pain that anytime I experience even a little bit of it, I'd just drink until it disappeared. The only problem was that it never really disappeared. It just lived there beneath the slippery surface of whatever varietal of wine I was sipping that evening. And that's why I'm not done with my sobriety. I'm still sifting through things. It's going to take some time I think, but I'm so grateful, so incredibly grateful, to have this time, to have this clarity and this space and this freedom to finally do so.

Reflections Upon Return

I got back on Monday afternoon....and now it's Thursday. And all week I just haven't been able to bring myself to write here. It's not that I don't have anything to say...it has just seemed an insurmountable task for some reason. Kind of like getting back into an exercise routine after being off of it for two weeks. And I suppose writing really is kind of like that. There is a certain amount of discipline required, a certain amount of consistency needed to keep the whole thing from collapsing.

Oh well. Here I go. I'm back! Hi!

It's Thursday afternoon and I'm home from work. The doors are open wide to the deck and I can hear clothes tumbling in the dryer beneath the stairs, the faint scent of freshly washed fabric wafting through the air. I've got a client at the clinic at 7 tonight and then back home to unpack (I haven't done that yet either).

It's been tough getting back into my routine this week. Miami & Key West was one of those truly fantastic vacations that really just takes you far out of your life for a while. After six days of night clubs and party limos and wedding events and snorkeling and sailing and kayaking and parasailing and buzzing around on a little scooter I felt truly washed clean of my normal routine.

I was glad to come home, grateful for my little house and my pets and plants and bubble baths, but the lingering sunburn on the backs of my calves and the softly filtering memories of warm ocean air and Spanish moss have made it difficult to ease back into things.

And ever since I've been back the end of my graduate program has been looming large. I begin my sixth and final quater in ten days and I know that before I can even take a breath it will be over. No more rushing to class after work, no more hastily written response papers and articles skimmed over my lunch break, no more final papers to agonize over last minute, no more notes written back and forth during class about how everyone in the program (including myself) is crazy. This is it. In twelve weeks I'll be done and I'll have a Masters in Clinical Psychology. I'll be a BBS-registered MFT Intern.

This week I've been researching a lot of options for post-graduate jobs and I've been sending my resume out already as well. I've got a few informational interviews lined up already. I'm interested in grief work and am meeting with a supervisor at an amazing organization called Our House next week. I'm also really interested in working with veterans. I spent so much time at the VA clinic with my Dad and I'll be the first to tell you that it's a place that really needs quality care. Especially right now. I was particularly motivated to look into that field after last Sunday's New York Times Magazine's cover story. But so far, in my research it doesn't seem like the VA hires MFTs.

I'm also hell bent on getting back into the writing world. I wrote to some friends recently that I feel like I've had my head buried in the DSM IV for the last two years and I MISS literature. I miss knowing about who's who in the latest contemporary literary scene. I miss going to readings and buying hard covers because I couldn't stand to wait for the paperback to come out. It feels like forever ago that I used to do those things. And I want to write more. I want to write all kinds of things. But namely my book. I want to finish my book this year. And I want to get started right now.

I meant to write today about how I realized that for the first time in my life I don't feel lonely. And I also thought I'd write about being almost three months sober and what an incredible experience it's turned out to be. But perhaps I'll save those for my next entry.

For now, here's a picture of me on a scooter. I absolutely fell in love with that thing. I think I'm going to buy one to ride around Venice & Santa Monica. Last night I dreamt that I did.

Doors Open Wide

Oh, it's so nice out. Beautiful soft Southern California air. I've got the doors open wide to the deck, Robert Johnson on the stereo.

In an hour I'll run to the clinic to see a client and then dinner with J. Ryan. Tomorrow Lydia is picking me up at 6am and we're flying to Miami! She's getting married next weekend in Key West. I'm sooo excited about a real vacation. Two nights in Miami for bachelorette madness and then four days of snorkeling, massages, yoga on the beach and sparkly wedding fun in Key West.

I finished my fifth quarter of grad school yesterday and it feels like a real accomplishment. I can hardly believe that in 3 & 1/2 months I'll be Claire Bidwell Smith, MA.

So yeah, vacation. I probably won't post again until I get back but happy Spring Break to everyone! And here's a picture of the view from where I'm sitting, doors open wide to the deck.

These Days...

J. Ryan sent me this lovely poem the other day:

What
Do sad people have in
common?

It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past

And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.

What is the beginning of
Happiness?

It is to stop being
So religious

Like

That.

-- Hafiz

And it really kind of sums of where I've been these days. I don't want to stop writing but I kind of feel like I'm finished being sad all the time. I've spent a solid ten years mourning and I finally feel like I'm done.

This place where I reside these days, in my head and my heart, is quite different than where I've dwelt for so long. There's a lot more light here. And mirth. And possibility. The world seems huge and open and real and I want to live in it.

For a long time I feel like I've been kind of bracing myself against my life and in a lot of ways, I did everything possible to keep myself from moving forward. I hid in relationships and alcohol and food and let abusive people tell me what to do or what not to do. And I'm done. With all of it. I really am. I don't even wish to mourn for things lost through those behaviors. I only want to move forward from here.

But it's such a new place, so open and free and endless. In some ways I don't even know where to start...but really, that's probably the best place from which to start.

Staying Present

I've been doing this interesting thing lately. It involves staying present. Like actually being here right now, in this moment.

It's something I don't normally do. I'm the girl who perpetually has six browser windows open (gmail, yahoo, myspace, statcounter, typepad, nytimes), the girl who holds her cell phone in one hand replying to eight text messages while holding her work phone to one ear and nodding at her co-worker as she relates a conversation she had with her boyfriend last night.

I'm usually like this all the time, everywhere...well, everywhere except maybe yoga. It's something I became really good at when I was volunteer coordinating at 826. I literally had to be able to do this...and then it just got kind of addictive.

But lately I've been making some changes and it's been really nice. I've been practicing only doing one thing at a time. Like if I'm in class, I'll actually put my phone in my purse instead of texting and checking my email while listening to the lecture. Or if Nicole starts telling me a story at work I'll actually turn away from my computer and fully listen to her. The one browser at a time thing is kind of tough but I'm not going to get crazy all at once, right?

And on top of focusing on one thing, I've also been trying to focus on right now. This moment. In this moment it's about 10:30 and I'm sitting at my desk in my little home. The double doors are flung open wide to the warm Los Angeles night. Chet Baker is on the stereo, candles flickering all over the house. Being here right now means not thinking about all the things I did today or all the things I have to do tomorrow. It means not thinking about all the things that make me me, all the things I've done or seen or been over my life. It means not thinking about what I'm going to do this summer or when I turn thirty or some even more distant future.

It means just being here right now. It means knowing that I am everything that I have ever been and will ever be right now, in this moment. It means thinking about my life as though this moment is all there is...because really it is.

And it's really a lovely moment. The taste of an apple in my mouth, saxophone gentle through the room, warmth and light and the dusky evening, me at 28 on a balmy March night in Los Angeles.

Where Have I Been?

I feel I've really disappeared this week.

I'm not sure what's been going on. I've been incredibly busy. But I'm always busy. Some things I've been up to this week:

• Driving around in my brand new Audi A4.
• Filing for candidacy & preparing to officially register with the BBS as a Marriage & Family Therapist Intern.
• Working, working, working.
• Yoga.
• Getting a really amazing massage at Burke Williams.
• Having a lovely dinner with Will at Tlapazola.
• Taking everyone I know, including my boss, my neighbor, & the guy who tried to sell me a Jetta at the VW dealership, for a ride in my new car.
• Bubble baths...haven't missed a bubble bath.
• Deep fantasties about having time to write, about finding a fantastic internship after I graduate, about traveling, about peacefulness.

I've been spending a lot of time contemplating the meaning of life. No really, I have. I've just been thinking a lot about what we're all doing here, what we're made of, what we're capable of, what I want out of my life in a really large sense.

And I've been realizing that being sober has allowed me to think about things like this. It will be ten weeks on Monday since I've had a drink and it's really been profound. It has allowed me so much emotional and philosophical space...space that I didn't even realize I was filling up, tamping down...space that is fundamental for me to have in order to attain any kind of inner balance. All this time...ten years of heavy drinking...of thinking I really had it figured it out...and all I had really figured out was the best way to stay numb.

I have to say, I'm really glad to be here.