Laurel

She was in my dream last night. It was a dream in which I was clearly dwelling in the past--a past where I knew what the outcome would be. I was staying at her house. She asked if I could stop and...I can't quite remember this part...but basically stop somewhere and debug myself of all potential pathogens I had acquired traveling and being outside. It didn't seem like a strange request. I asked a cab driver if she knew anywhere I could go to do such a thing and she said no, so Laurel said 'forget it just come over.' Soon I was in her house, not her house but a house, with her again, bathed in her magic and whimsy like old times. And I knew she was going to die, that in fact she already HAD died, but it was nighttime and we went to bed and I slept on her couch for what seemed like minutes but then it was morning and she came in and said, "I slept so well!"

There were other details I can't remember. A distinctive feeling of having been there and knowing that all of it had happened before. But mostly I was happy. Happy to be with her again for a short time, even though I probably knew that I was dreaming. How else would the entire dream have been suffused with the knowledge that she would die?

It's been 1 year, 4 months, and 25 days. It's still just the very first chapter of my life without her. I think about her randomly and frequently, maybe when a picture of Blac Chyna comes out where her head size/thigh ratio seems impossible (must discuss) or when I'm trying to remember the name of a long-forgotten Rock of Love contestant (of course she would know, and probably interviewed her for 944 magazine back in the day). I was staying in Mendocino a few weeks ago and was so taken in by the striking beauty of the trees and ocean I think I whispered, "I miss you" out loud which felt stupid and satisfying at the same time. I have slowly lost the compulsion to send her a text message. I still have one of her voicemails saved on my phone.

Sometimes I flip through a Dropbox folder with her press clippings, writings, and photos compiled by friends and family called "Laurel's Archive." It is my chance to know her at times and stages I never really did. There she is in a cheerleading outfit, knee cocked, the same face I knew, the same dimples. At her high school prom, plump-cheeked and sporting an impressive 80's bang situation. They're all pictures I never saw when she was alive. The stories surrounding them likely lost to time and the people who were there and knew her then.

Her writing is profoundly good. It's one of the greatest mementos she left behind. In the archive are several poems she wrote. Usually reading other people's poetry is about as fun as sitting in on their therapy session (i.e. not nearly as interesting as you'd think) but of course her poems are devastatingly good. One of my favorites, untitled is simply:

My drowning pool is the loveliest shade of blue. Really, you should see it.
It's always just the right temperature and everything.
I climb right in with a big smile on my face.
I sink down and down
until the water covers my ears and I can't hear a word you say.

it.

Leaving San Francisco

I'm sitting in my living room on the threadbare, dirty carpet. There are boxes all around me, the room is strewn with 9 years' worth of personal detritus that I lovingly collect, frame, display, and shove into forgotten drawers. Out of the picture window, framed like a neon light-up poster, are the cotton candy clouds illuminated by a solstice sun that is taking its sweet time slipping behind Twin Peaks. Bernal Hill is to the right, the giant cranes in the Oakland shipyards are directly across the bay, standing like monstrous trojan horses. The neighbor's weird chimney vent that looks like a knight's helmet and shakes its head (gently or vehemently, depending on the strength of the wind) is unmoving, staring just off to the left where the plum tree that reaches its branches against my window is slowly bearing fruit.

I have spent 9 years of my life in this place, in my own place filled with my things, with this view from not the apex, but the near-apex of the hill. A place that makes it difficult getting in and out of your car--the door will keep trying to slam on your calves as you climb out. Visitors nearly always enter the apartment breathless, even if they only parked across the street, their cheeks and lungs flush with new blood.

I have moved from nascent to fully-formed adulthood in this apartment. Age 24 - 33. A time period that took me through 3 jobs, 2 boyfriends, 9 roommates. Roommates that come and go as their lives take them to other cities, other apartments, other jobs. Dean, Julia, Tara, Alicia, Brooke, Lori, Ben, Wardell, Monica. Gone but not forgotten (although I wish I could forget Ben, the roommate who locked himself in his room drinking for 3 months and never bothered to wipe his pee off of the bathroom floor). I hold their presence with me as I pace through the empty rooms, down the narrow hallway. Their DNA must still somehow remain in the lead-based paint and the threadbare carpet.

I want to remember every detail of every thing that ever happened to me within these walls. I want to memorize the floor plan so that 10, 20, 30 years from now, when I am calling somewhere else home, I can still conjure up the details of this, my first apartment. I want to remember every sunset that I watched from the living room, momentarily stopping whatever I was doing (or more likely, watching) to take in the vibrant colors and expansive mural of the city. I want to remember conversations had and un-had, parties thrown, lazy evenings spent in total and complete relaxation. I want to remember the guy who walks his cat on a leash and is maddeningly un-humorous about it.

I am sentimental and to forget is anathema.

But change is inevitable, and whatever comes with this new chapter of my life, my non-San Francisco chapter (working title) will surely bring with it new things to be wistful and wax poetic about, so I really shouldn't be standing in what was the spare bedroom getting all misty-eyed. It's not like I have nowhere to go. I won't be homeless. I'll just be transient for a time, without a home of my own but not without a roof over my head.

And what is home anyway? How much does it really matter, to have a place filled with your shit that you return to at the end of the day and feel comfortable in? A place where the DVR is filled with your recordings, where the coffee grinder is right where you left it. Where time unfurls with an ease and predictability as comforting as pulling a warm fleece blanket around your shoulders when the June gloom sets in and the wind comes howling out of the west and sweeping down the hill. A place where you can walk around in your underwear and be ugly as you please.

All this is a roundabout way of admitting that I'm moving in with my parents for a time while I sort through the cognitive dissonance associated with being a textbook gentrifier who can't afford the city she helped gentrify. OH THE IRONY. I will miss this place.

Stay tuned for more adventures.

Goals

Goals. Not Hashtag Goals. Here is what I'm hoping to self-manifest in the year of Our Lord, 2016.

1. Travel somewhere new

Taj Mahal, 1959

Arc de Triomphe, Paris 1960

Tahiti, 1962

2. Read more books

3. Pick up a new creative hobby

The Art of Ornamental Orange Peeling, 1910

4. Keep expanding my musical horizons

 5. Visit a big city when it's snowing


6. Invest in laser hair removal

7. Keep exercising


8. Be less flaky

9. Furnish my patio

Why Does Time Fly?

If 2015 felt like the fastest year yet, welcome to the club. And if you need more reasons to fear the speed of your impending demise, check out this terrifying infographic by Maximilian Kiener that explains if you live to be 100, half of your perceived life is already over by age 7. 

Happy New Year!

The Source Family Weekend

My undying, everlasting love for Halloween hasn't waned despite being well past the age when putting on a wig and assuming the identity of someone else can be considered normal. This year we were loyal disciples of Father Yod, members of the Source Family, a hippie new-age cult that opened the first organic health food/salad joint on Sunset Boulevard in the 70s. It was cutting edge stuff back then, and frequented by hollywood stars like Marlon Brando and Julie Christie. Their guru, Father Yod was a 6'5" WWII veteran trained in Jiu Jitsu, which basically made him the world's least likely figure to lead a bunch of pot smoking hippies to total spiritual enlightenment, but there you go. They lived together (all 150 of them) in Father Yod's home in the Hollywood Hills, and their spiritual practices included eating an organic, vegetarian diet, and healing themselves with crystals. Oh yeah, and old Father Yod had 14 wives, natch. He also fronted an experimental psychedelic rock band called YaHoWha 13, and they recorded 9 completely unlistenable albums that featured Father Yod banging various percussion instruments and wailing like an injured animal. 

But overall, The Source Family were pretty tame for a cult, especially a 70's cult. When Father Yod finally lost his marbles, he just killed himself instead arranging a mass suicide, which I guess is pretty considerate. There's a fascinating documentary about them on Netflix if you like that kind of thing.

Point Reyes served as the perfect mise en scène for the weekend. We rented a small family cabin and went hiking in the misty, deserted woods. The clocks fell back, plunging us into a darkness that felt premature and welcome at the same time. It rained one night, which if you live in California is a rare treat. It was a nice escape, both from my daily look and from my daily reality.

Ten Years Later (another Katrina reflection piece)

The apartment on Dublin St., 2005

In August of 2005, I had just moved into my own apartment in Uptown New Orleans, a 1 bedroom on a quiet street pock-marked with potholes. I had one semester left at Tulane, right on track in my 4 1/2 year plan. I was looking forward to quiet nights at home with my boyfriend and testing out living like a pseudo adult. But on Monday, August 29, 2005, as they inevitably tend to do, things took an unexpected turn. Hurricane Katrina came barreling in and kicked off a series of events that culminated in the city I had loved since childhood and adopted as my own being subjected to one of the most surreal tragedies in modern history--within hours the entire city was underwater.

When I came back it was like entering a strange yet familiar dream world.  Landmarks were missing, askew, or burned to the ground. The stop lights didn't work. The population shrank from 500,000 to 20,000 overnight, resulting in large swaths of abandoned neighborhoods, areas crowded with memories but containing no one. Escaped dogs who had survived the storm formed packs and lived in piles of rubble in the neutral ground. Periodically you would walk down the street and encounter a pack of them trotting past you like they were on their way to an important dog convention now that they had officially taken over the city.

Wreckage. debris 3 months later in the Lakefront neighhborhood 

Abandoned home, with previous water levels visible

The remains of a building, Carrolton St., Uptown

Here's the thing: before Katrina, I had never really considered what it means to lose everything, and all the tiny things that make up everything. My friend Ed lost all of his family albums, which meant when the storm was over there wasn't a single photo of him before the age of 16. I remember that really struck me at the time. Something as simple as baby photos, poof, gone to the water.

My great-aunt Billye and her sister, both widows in their eighties who had lived next door to each other for their entire adult lives had to move into a small 2 bedroom rental that they shared, and hated sharing. Before their homes were eventually demolished I went to see if there was anything left to salvage. The strata of the receding water levels started well above my head and mold bloomed on the walls in an astonishing rainbow of disgusting, putrid colors. The refrigerator had floated into the living room. Every conceivable item of value, including a fur coat, was covered in black mold. There was nothing left.

My Great Aunt Billye's home after Katrina

How could New Orleans bounce back from this? How, when 9 months later the stop lights were still out, the debris from thousands of demolished homes was still piled 6 feet high on the streets, waiting to be carted off? By who? The national guard? As far as I could tell, their main job was to park their big ass humvees on the neutral ground and generally contribute to the atmosphere of war-torn desolation, which they did quite well.

Debris from Katrina cleanup and demolished homes (St. Bernard Ave??) 

One of the "dollhouses" after Katrina

Months later, cars grown into the jungle

And of course, it didn't so much bounce back as claw its way back...surviving through some animal-like resistance to annihilation. The 'recovery' was at times so slow as to be imperceptible. But recover it did.

10 years later. New Orleans is arguably, quantifiably better off than it was before the storm. There are more restaurants. The population is finally, at long last, 94% of what it was before Katrina. It's been called the fastest growing city in the U.S. by Forbes. Everything is good, or as good as it can be in a place that still prides itself on being a little bit third world. When I visit (because I am just a visitor now, as I maybe and probably always have been) I'm continually struck by how much newness there is in the city. New restaurants, new roads, new construction, new residents.

And yes, the inevitable conversation about change being 'good' or 'bad' is coming up as well. When asked whether he's concerned about New Orleans losing some of its authenticity in the face of rapid development and demographic changes (see: whiter, richer), mayor Mitch Landrieu proclaimed he's not worried about outsiders coming in and changing the culture of the city because "there's no way you can change this city before it changes you." I guess if that statement could be true for any city, it would have to be true for New Orleans. But of course change is always a 2-way street, whether there are still alligator tours and voodoo gift shops and live music being played on the streets or not. The New Orleans of today is the same, and completely different from the city it was in August of 2005. And that in itself is both an inevitable tragedy and a cause for celebration.

Location: Joshua Tree, CA

I spent memorial day weekend taking in the alien landscape of the Mojave Desert. Climbed up and over giant boulders that looked like the crumbling ruins of Easter Island statues to take in sunsets that painted the sky in garish technicolor rainbows. Watched bats zigzagging through the air at dusk, saw more stars than I've ever seen in my life, and found myself humbled by the silence and stillness. The desert is a perfect microcosm of the beauty and harshness in the world.

On Getting Older

I long ago stopped asking myself if I have arrived where I thought I would be by my age. When I was 5 years old and wondering (with awe and disbelief) what I would be like at 17, or 25, or--gasp, 30, I suppose I thought I would be like my parents. By the time they were in their 30s they had already achieved the trifecta of adulthood: married, owned a home, and had a kid (me) on the way. I'm nowhere near any of the above, nor am I certain that I aspire to any of the traditional trappings of adulthood.

I'm 32 today, and still figuring out what it means to be a woman of a certain age. A woman who is unmarried, doesn't own a house, doesn't have children. Is still trying to decide what she wants to be when she 'grows up.' Doesn't even think she wants children. Is in fact wary of the entire institution of marriage. Whatever my life has in store for me, I know it won't look anything like my parents. I live in a prohibitively expensive city where home ownership is a pipe dream, and I am part of a generation of women with ubiquitous, cheap, convenient forms of birth control. All of which is definitely not making me want to flee to the suburbs. I love living in a city. I love having the freedom to travel.  I'm not going to lie, I think I could live this way forever.

2014, a Year Well-Lived

Sunset from Pruitt Ridge Campground, Big Sur, CA

Protective prayer painted in taxicab roof, Bangkok, Thailand // tiled floors of the Doi Suthep temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Lotus flowers for making offerings at Doi Suthep temple, Chiang Mai, Thailand 

Camping at Alabama Hills in Lone Pine, CA 

Beyonce concert at AT&T Park, San Francisco 

Longtail boats docked at Railay Beach, Thailand 

Bang Bang Bar, Railay Beach, Thailand 

Longtail boat ride Andaman Sea, Thailand // Perfect afternoon reading spot Railay Beach, Thailand 

Whale watching, Rancho Pescadero, Pescadero Beach, Mexico 

Home away from home in New Orleans, our Air BnB apartment, built circa 1870 

Truck camping with dog 

Waterfall, Feather River in Plumas National Forest, CA 

Rooftop pool at Terminal 21 Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand 

Sunset at Pruitt Ridge, Big Sur, CA

This photo set is clearly not representative of say, any given Tuesday in 2014, but then again you probably wouldn't care to see pictures of me sitting at a desk hunched over chewing on my cuticles. We'll call this my world through rose-colored glasses aka all the cool shit I did that was worth putting on Instagram.