Life in LA

Back in LA

I'm back in Los Angeles.

Back to my book and my little house. Back to the palm trees and the sunny Southern California afternoons. Back to my clients and my stack of bills. Back to my friends and my last week of classes. Back to my whole life. Here in Los Angeles.

But the truth is that I'm completely distracted. Taking that trip really threw a wrench into the trajectory I was on. I wasn't planning to go out of town in the middle of this book project, in the middle of this incredibly interesting time in my life.

And because it's such an interesting time in my life, all sorts of interesting things happened while on my trip.

And now I'm home and I'm trying really hard to get back into my routine.

This Week

It's been a strange quiet sort of week.

I haven't felt sad, really. Just contemplative and careful.

I've been writing all week, have written an incredible amount of Section Two, in fact. Feel like I'm really hitting my stride with it. I know where it's going, where I want it to go, where it has no choice but to go.

I'm leaving for Cape Cod early tomorrow morning. My grandmother's funeral is on Saturday. It will be nice to be there with the rest of my extended family, to pay homage to this wonderful woman who crowned our family for so many years.

That's it really. I'll be back Sunday.

May 21, 2007

My Grandmother died this morning, on this my 29th birthday.

I adored her. She was 96 years old and lived a long, wonderful life.

There was a different me, a different time, in which I would have reacted with pain and sadness and a feeling of destruction.

But today, at 29 years old, living in my little home in Los Angeles by myself, I feel peaceful. I feel at peace with this strange story that is my life.

I got up this morning, pushed back the covers and placed my feet on the cool hardwood floor. I knew she was gone. I got the call yesterday from my uncle that she was in the hospital, that she was not expected to last the week.

And I knew that she would die today, on my birthday. The strange timing of my life seems magical and meaningful these days. I feel as though I am truly on a path. This strange life I live, this story, this narrative I walk through.

I got up and I opened the blinds in the living room, padded into the kitchen, to make coffee, to feed the cats, nodding at the email that confirmed that she was gone.

And I stood there in the kitchen, feeling serene, feeling so glad to be alone. To be alone and happy in my little kitchen. 29 years old and living this life that only I can live.

Day 25...Nauset Beach

Sundays are quickly becoming my favorite writing day. I've always liked Sundays in general. The quiet, the gentle emptiness of this day of the week. The cusp of the thing.

I just finished writing the sixth chapter of Section Two. It's going well, starting to flow. I'm ceaselessly amazed by the way I am somehow able to sit down without a plan of what I will write, only to have something like this just pour so fluidly out of me.

Here's the latest.

(You might need to download QuickTime to hear it.)

Nauset Beach:

You can access a complete list of all audio clips in the About Me section of this blog.

Day 24...Taking Inventory

This morning I finally felt rested. I took a long time getting around to writing though. I made coffee, talked on the phone, glanced through a growing stack of bills and to-do lists. I seem to be forgetting how to live my daily life...the minutiae piling up in the corners.

I finally decided to stop this drifting around in my head that I've been doing all week. I turned off the melancholic music and turned up the LCD Soundsystem. I stood on the benches on the deck, looking up at the sky and the rooftops and reminded myself of what I'm doing, where I'm going, what it is I want from this time in my life.

And then I sat down to write. I deleted everything I wrote yesterday and began from scratch, pouring out 700 words in twenty minutes. It felt good. I had direction.

On an email break, my friend Amber called, was around the corner. I put on another cup of coffee and greeted her at the top of my stairs, in my nightie still, face unwashed. We sat on the deck in the sun and drank coffee for a while, catching up, and it was lovely. I adore it when people stop by unexpectedly.

I watered the plants, took a shower, after she left. And then I sat down to write again, revisiting that time again, drifting, drifting back to those first weeks after my mother died, those days so full of weight and numbness.

I'll record more audio soon. I'm just beginning to feel comfortable in this section. Just beginning to stretch my limbs, to reach for the shimmering walls of this part of the story.

Day 23...Nothing to Say

I didn't get any sleep last night and was exhausted as I sat in front of the computer this morning, determined to write. I haven't missed a writing day yet. I didn't want today to be the first.

And it wasn't entirely. I reread through my work on Section 2 and I began a new chapter. I wrote a few paragraphs and then realized that I just couldn't go on. I made a lot of notes for things about that chapter and then I closed the lid of the computer and I closed all the blinds and I went to bed.

I dreamt of being on a mission somewhere, of crossing a bridge over a deep and flowing river, forests all around. Halfway across the bridge I realized that it had broken off; there was no way to get to the other side. I turned back, determined to find a new way, but the way upon which I'd come had broken into pieces as well.

I didn't hesitate. I plunged into the cold depths, letting go of all my possessions, to swim back to the other side from where I'd come. I maneuevered through the swellling brown water, swimming past huge chunks of debris and climbed up the bank of the river.

Ride-Along Part 3

The final installment of my ride-along with the Inglewood PD is up on The Nervous Breakdown!

In this last part you can read all about how I ended up in an eight squad car pursuit going down Crenshaw Blvd. on a Friday night and how I almost decided to become a cop.

Check it out here.

Day 22...writing, writing, writing

It's 2pm and I just finished writing for the day.

I wrote over 2k words, which feels good.

I gave myself a pep talk last night. Took a long bath and cleared my head of everything but my intentions for this book and my life right now.

It's been over a month now since I've been home writing and I'm getting really used to it. It doesn't seem so new and so brave anymore. It's not the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning.

I'm used to waking up alone, stretched across my bed, the warm California breeze pushing at the screens. I'm used to spending all day in my nightie, barefoot, lifting a cup of coffee to my lips.

But I don't want to become complacent. I don't want to forget that I have a purpose and a drive to get this book done.

It's easy to live my life these days. Well, kind of.

Day 21...It Hurts

I began work on the second section of my book today.

It's been rough going.

For starters, I cut my finger really badly at a party yesterday. Sliced right through the tip while trying to open a bag of guacamole in my friend's kitchen. It doesn't make typing very enjoyable. In fact, it hurts.

This section kind of hurts too. Or at least the beginning of it. I keep dreaming about the middle of this section. I know I'll enjoy writing that part. But right now I'm writing through my mother's funeral and I just don't want to do it.

I've been laying in the sun on the deck all day, dragging myself inside every half hour or so to write another paragraph. It's strange to begin a new section too. I don't feel like I've completely let go of the old one. And I don't have a clear picture yet of where this one is going.

But I have to remember that Day 1 was kind of similar. It wasn't easy. But I just kept writing and slowly the story emerged.

Day 20...My Mother

I just completed the first section of my book.

22 Chapters

100 pages

20,000 words

The section begins and ends with me hearing about my mother's death.

Today is Mother's Day. I didn't plan to finish this section on Mother's Day.

When I quit my job a month ago to write this book, I didn't even know that the book would be in sections, that the first one would be about my mother.

When I quit my job a month ago, I only knew that I was ready to write this book. When I quit my job a month ago I could not forsee myself on a warm Sunday sitting down with wet hair, my skin flush from the sun on the deck, to write about the completion of this first section.

I didn't cry today. I was shaky and breathless when I finished though. There had been no question of what I would write when I sat down today. There had been no wavering doubt that I would be able to write it. There was no planning out of the words that appeared on the screen of my laptop.

I got up this morning, feeling heavy from 10 hours of sleep. I haven't slept more than 7 hours a night in months. I got up and made coffee, fed the cats. And then I sat down at my desk to write. I read everything I've written in the last month first. It took well over an hour. There were parts I didn't remember having written. There were things I know that I'll want to change. There were sentences, paragraphs that I loved.

When I was done reading I went right into the writing of the last two chapters.

When I was done I was shaky and breathless, my body humming from lack of food, from too much caffeine.

I took a shower. I ate something. And then I layed in the sun on the deck, on the beautiful benches I made with my friends. And I closed my eyes and I let out a deep breath.

I could feel everything about my life, swelling beneath me. Could feel the support of all the things I've created and cultivated for myself. I could feel all of myself, my skin warm, at age 28, lying in the sun in Los Angeles.