Tibetan Woman

President Obama met with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, today. As happens whenever our government acknowledges the Tibetan spiritual leader, China is pissed and making lots of noise. And my heart shatters a little, as it always does when confronted with examples of political or social injustice that appear to have no resolution. I am an EMOTIONAL CREATURE, as Eve Ensler would say. I simply do not understand how a country can justify usurping a neighbor, forcing a foreign language on its people, destroying its monuments, and traumatizing its citizens. I simply do not understand how whatever it gains in land or minerals or water is valued more greatly than humanity. I know this lack of comprehension reveals a mind more appropriately matched to a five-year-old in the sandbox, but I’m okay with that. After all, no one has ever explained to me what is WRONG with wanting the world to be fair, expecting people to share and receiving a kiss or lollipop after cleaning up a mess.

Family Walking Along the Cora

I was in Tibet for four days. Seven years ago. A very short visit, a long time ago. I’ve mentioned before that the journey seared my soul. I pity anyone who goes to that place and does not feel the earth and sky dance in sublime harmony for just a moment when graced with a smile from one of its children or upon first glimpsing the prayer flags fluttering to a silent melody. It is a gift to our planet, its people a gift to our species, and it is being treated with the same disregard for its true value as the earth as a whole. You may think my words are just hyperbole. They are not. Go for yourself, and see. Better yet, FEEL.

Street Shopping

On the same visit, I traveled through many parts of China. It is a phenomenal country. It is the only place outside the U.S. where I met individuals as confident, blind and arrogant about their country’s position and dominance on the world stage as are some Americans. I also met people as friendly as many here. But NEVER ONCE did I mistake a Chinese person for a Tibetan. NEVER ONCE, while in Tibet, did I think I was in China. The differences in Tibet are not those blithely attributed to regional variance. To its core, Tibet is a place unto itself. I hope someday the Chinese will accept this, but that day is clearly not today. Today, the Chinese government creates policy after policy, applicable only to Tibet, designed to eradicate as much as possible of its soul.

Children At Play

By meeting with the Dalai Lama today, President Obama took one of the few actions that is available to all of us, one that is infinitely powerful. He LISTENED. We can all listen. We can all SEE. Wherever we are. Whatever our circumstances. And then, perhaps, we can even ACT.

“Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.” – Peter, Paul & Mary

My father put my brother and me to sleep each night by singing us folk songs. Lemon Tree is one of my favorites in my memory. It always transported me to another time and place. I was reminded of it again when I came upon David Smith-Harrison some months ago.

by David Smith-Harrison

His intaglio prints are gorgeous and haunting. The silhouettes of the trees, along with the architectural details he includes in his pieces, capture the starkness and romance of the Mediterranean. Having lived in that part of the world for almost two years, I’ve left a bit of my heart on its dry hills and along its stunning coasts. Some day, I will live there again.

"Cherry Tree" by David Smith-Harrison

In the meantime, evocative art and literature sooth the yearning.

I reread Bitter Lemons, by Lawrence Durrell, if I wish to recall the feel of a uniquely hot sun against barely-shaded white rocks or the sounds of devout old women bent double in their black shrouds as they curse young men who flirt without shame. The autobiographical book may be set in Cyprus – an island to which I’ve never been, and recounts life in the 1950′s – a time about which I know only through history, but it perfectly captures a spirit that still hovers over much of small-town Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, and Southern Italy.

I visit the Getty Villa when I want to remember what it feels like to delicately brush away centuries’ worth of dirt to reveal a fully-intact amphora, a still perfectly polished gold coin, or the alabaster head of one of David’s extended family that someone chose to use as a suitable brick in an ancient wall.

And I gather lemons.

by mewtate/flickr

I collect a few fresh specimen at the Farmers’ Market and retreat to my kitchen to cut and peel them, seeking their sharp aroma ad happy when their scent lingers in the air and on my fingertips. I squeeze their juices into a steaming cup of tea that accompanies a gorgeously gooey piece of fresh baklava from the Armenian bakery down the street.

It is, after all, not so impossible to eat the fruit of the poor lemon. The task is not for the faint of heart, of course, but it is worth it. Funny, isn’t it, how much of life is both bitter and sweet?

"Lemons" by David Smith-Harrison

What do you do to transport yourself to another time and place? Where do you go?

Side note: I had been toying with the idea of perhaps moving to Colorado. Being greeted by sub-freezing temperatures is an incredibly effective deterrent. I’m still undecided, but holy-mercury-free-mackerel that kind of cold can be some misery!

What I’ve discovered been reminded of (yet again!) is that there are only two activities that are guaranteed to return me to my self and settle me – physically, emotionally, mentally, and metaphorically.

1. TAKING A BREATH. How often do you breathe, consciously? If you’re like me, the answer is: not often enough. In fact, every time I see the words “breathe” or “breath” in print, I suddenly feel compelled to inhale deeply, only to discover that until that moment I’d barely been using my lungs. I hold my breath all the time without being aware of the prison I’m creating for my body. Or I maintain a very shallow breath. Why? Is it an unconscious attempt to be smaller, quieter, less? I certainly feel more real, more tangible, more alive when I breathe deeply. Why wouldn’t I want to feel like that all the time? Because it takes effort. LIFE TAKES EFFORT. Ain’t that a bitch?
2. ENGAGING WITH NATURE. When was the last time you walked barefoot in the grass just to feel the spring and prickle of each blade against your instep, or gently ran your bare hand through a pile of freshly fallen snow just to feel it slowly melt, or stood to watch a full sunset from start to finish with no other intention other than acknowledgment of its beauty? Whenever I take time to truly commune with nature, whether it be for the minute it takes to feel rough tree bark against my palm or the hour it takes to watch the sun sink behind the waves on the horizon, I am brought back to my self. My mind clears. I become right-sized – neither too small nor too big.

by Jesus de Blas/flickr

I’ve spent the past few days doing these two activities, with varying degrees of success, and I’m beginning to finally feel like I’ve landed. Or at least the wheels have been lowered. I’m not even going to worry about how far I am from the gate. I have nowhere I need to be but here.

What about you?

The best car ride of 2009 occurred during my trip through Ireland. I was with Jamie. I honestly can’t remember which one of us was driving. Our destination was Cork. The scent in the air through the rolled down windows was vibrant combination of earth, grass, salt, manure… the smell of life in the countryside.

We had configured the GPS to avoid all highways and disallow any U-turns. This meant our route was a meander down one lane lanes that served more as boundary markers between farm plots than actual roads. We rarely saw another car, but we encountered many tractors. And we had an adventure.

We were stopped by a herd of sheep and their stern shepherdess.

sheep in the road

We accidentally herded a half dozen cows until a cross old lady jumped out of her house to scold us for letting them eat the flowers on her fence and a frazzled farmer came tearing out of a nearby field to claim the wayward beasts as his own.

herding cows

We were told by GPS Lady countless times, “in 100 metres, turn ____.” And then, once, she said, “in 100 metres, board ferry.” Needless to say, we did not see that coming.

on the ferry

We hit many bushes. (We were driving on the opposite side of the road, after all.)

We lost a hub cap.

When we reached a town to grab a bite to eat at one of the pubs and realized parallel parking on the opposite side of the road is even more challenging than driving on it, we cornered a hapless worker on his lunch break to do it for us. We then tried not to laugh as he mumbled and cursed and inched the car into place, completely flummoxed by the lack of a stick shift.

roadside grave yard

We saw fields, hills, tombstones, churches – new, old and crumbled, farm houses, farm animals, wind turbines, unmarked ruins, ocean, and sky.

catching the wind

We drove. We sang at the top of our lungs. We talked about love, traveling, U2, Twitter, beer, family, life, religion, politics, and how fucking green Ireland really is.

We had a blast. And I will treasure the memory.

Where did you go?

by gguillaumee/flickr

Well, clearly this question was devised by a tea drinker. Alas, I am still a coffee junkie. That being said, I love tea, particularly the ritual of it.

I am taking baby steps toward incorporating it more fully into my life, too. I’m just saying a VERY PROLONGED goodbye to the bean. I only drink decaffeinated coffee now. And I have seven different teas in my house. The water kettle is always on the stove.

Perhaps 2010 will witness my transformation on this level along with every other.

If I could drink my favorite tea every day, the change might come about more quickly. But I have not, in fact, found my favorite tea in 2009. I actually found it in 2003, and then promptly lost it.

The tea of which I speak is a magical brew with floating… stuff… in it.

I had it in the tea garden of a park in Beijing.

I don’t remember the name of the park, though I spent hours in it and have photos of retirees playing Mah Jong to prove my presence. And I can’t articulate the taste, really… only that it was sweet, but not too sweet; strong, but not too strong; soothing; refreshing. But I just know it was perfectly delicious.

Without that tea from China as a choice now, I usually opt for peppermint.

Tetley is my current favorite of the bagged variety. I suppose that can count in answer to the question, right?

Not revolutionary, but safe and predictable. This year, I kinda prefer that.

I’ve been sitting with this questions for over 24 hours. Why don’t you travel back over that time with me…

First off, I have to admit, I rejected “coffee shop” as the answer. People who’ve spent any physical time with me might be surprised by that. After all, I adore cafes and I spend a significant amount of time in them, being a writer in L.A. and all.

by d1andonlykar1/flickr

Unfortunately, while all that is true, I am still searching for one that hits all the high notes – great coffee, affordable prices, a food menu with which I don’t get bored, comfortable writing chairs, tables the right height, free wireless, welcoming staff, and friendly (but not too talkative) regulars… so, yeah, a cafe is not the best place I’ve been in 2009.

The other four suggestions Gwen kindly provided to stoke the imagination were nixed about 2 nanoseconds after the first.

I’m not much of a drinker and, while I visited some great pubs in Ireland, the pub scene in L.A. is a wee bit contrived.

Retreat centers have been out of my budget this year except through work and then, well, it was work.

I actually pity the people who reveal that a cubicle was the best place in which they found themselves in 2009, and may want to hear more of their stories so I can feel oh-so-much-better about my own life.

And then, there’s the nook…

Production still from Walt Disney Pictures 2005 film, "The Chronicles of Narnia."

I don’t actually think I’ve been in a nook, certainly not the kind Gwen has been in (which actually sounds utterly delightful and makes me think I, too, would have selected it if I’d ever experienced such a thing) or The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe kind (which is the only kind of nook that sprang to mind) because a) I live in a small apartment without large furniture and b) even if I did have large furniture, I’ve never had any impulse to crawl into that sort of thing.

Farm machinery boxes are an entirely different matter, but I had no access to any of those in 2009.

So I was left pondering all the places I’ve been this year and evaluating each. And after much hair twirling, but not enough to make me shave my head, I decided upon three places – the first is a great distance in miles, the second is only a place through which to pass and the third is the closest and farthest from me at any given time.

A GREAT DISTANCE IN MILES

On the opposite side of this country lives a little girl with bright red hair and a laugh that lights up the world. My niece is the most amazing person I’ve ever met. She is only two, but she has power over my universe. Any time I am in her sphere of innocent wonder and ecstatic giggles, I am overwhelmed. Adoration is too slight a word to convey my feelings for this nymph.

Whenever I am with her, even if it’s just through the camera on a laptop, I am in a best place.

by Yiyo

A PLACE THROUGH WHICH TO PASS

A five minute drive takes me to this place. It is marked by a thigh-high cement wall extended further by a chain link fence. It is on the edge of a road. It separates me from what could be a beautiful lake but, in reality, is an artificial reservoir built to quench the thirst of Angelenos. I arrive at this place to begin a walk or a hike or a jog, depending on my ambition on any given day.

It is a beginning and an end, never lingered in too long.

But if I am at this place, I can breathe. Because, if I am here, it means I’ve found time in my day for a moving meditation. I grab the cold metal of the chain link fence and… pull back and… STRETCH. And then I step into a bounty of possibilities – Will I walk or run? Will the deer or coyotes be out? Will I encounter other people? Will I find clarity as my head stops whirring or drift into daydreaming fantasy?

It is quiet. It is ritual. It is necessary. So yes, this, too, is a best place.

THE CLOSEST AND FARTHEST FROM ME

There are moments, fleeting and much too infrequent, when I am completely in love with myself. I cringe as I let those words stay on the page. And yet I will let them remain because, my god, we all really do need to love ourselves. It’s such a challenging prospect for so many of us, however, that we build up defenses against the idea, roll our eyes at the cheesiness of the statement and go on our merry mad way doing everything we can to get others to love us instead. Or at least, that’s what I usually do.

But every once in a while, and rarely as a result of conscious action, I land in a moment, a place, in which I find absolutely nothing wrong with me, in which the overly accomplished critic in my head has nothing to say – about my body, my bank account, my career, my love life, my relationships, my possessions, etc. – and so says nothing.

It is a place in which I simple AM.

That place is utterly amazing.

That place is one in which I wish I had permanent residence.

I’ve been there one or two times this year. And it is, without question, one of the best best places to be.

by LightSpectral/flickr

What best place did you visit this year?

Is it possible for a trip to be the best and the worst at once? It seems so.

I went to Ireland this year, you see. I have red hair, and a wee bit o’ Gaelic blood, and I’ve always wanted to go. And so I put my wish out there. On a sigh. Or, actually, in the middle of a rant among girlfriends. I said, “I’m about to turn 40, my life sucks, I haven’t traveled in years – cause unless it requires a passport, it doesn’t count, and I really wish I could go to Ireland!”

I say things like that on a fairly regular basis.

But on this one day in March, a very dear friend in the midst of all these fabulous girlfriends, actually paid attention. With an impulsive “I’ll go with you” and a wave of her wand – or, actually, a few thousand hotel points – she made it happen.

Before I could take a breath, but just in time for me to dismiss her impulsiveness, she’d bought her airline ticket.

And so, I bought mine.

And we went.

Eight days. Driving back roads as much as possible. Laughing and singing and drinking our way through Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, Kerry and Shannon before returning to the amazing city of Dublin for a final few days of pub crawling and rugby viewing.

It was green. Very, very green.

The beer was good. Very, very good.

The people were friendly. Very, very– well, not that friendly, but really nice.

And I felt like I was able to breathe again, after months of suffocation.

I was born to travel. I love doing it more than doing almost anything else you can imagine. I hold strongly the belief that if more people picked up a passport rather than a gun, we would obtain peace. I spent my 20s living out of a suitcase. And when too much time has passed between one trip and the next, I miss the freedom, challenge and adventure of travel like an amputee misses her limb.

This trip was stupendous. Even when my friend tripped over a curb our last day and sprained her ankle, thereby putting the kabosh on our much anticipated literary pub crawl. We simply shrugged off the change in plans, as one becomes adept at doing while traveling, and lounged in the hotel room debating the highlights of the proceeding week.

Neither of us had any way of knowing that seven days later, she would be dead of complications stemming from that damned sprained ankle.

I am left with beautiful pictures. Bittersweet memories. An unshakable passion for travel. And complete confusion. I still wade through a shitload of emotions with the weight of molasses. I struggle to reconcile the joy of the trip with the devastation of its aftermath, to retain the hope I rediscovered for myself in the midst of despairing grief for… everything.

There are seven stages of grief, I’ve been told. I thought they would come in a brief, orderly fashion, like months of the year. I was wrong.

And now, I just really wish I could go to some forgotten island in Greece and let the sun and the sand and the sea dissolve all the pain that comes with life. But then again, if I’ve learned one thing this year, it is definitely… be careful what you wish for.

If you’re still reading this, you may be wondering where the hell the positive, pleasurable spin is in all this. After all, this was supposed to be one of the BEST moments of 2009, right? Here’s what I can give you or, perhaps more importantly, give myself…

I spent eight intense, incredibly memorable, very personal days with an amazing woman who gave me more gifts with her friendship than I will likely have time to pay forward.

I journeyed through a greater spectrum of the human experience as a result of this trip than ever before.

And I’ve now been to Ireland.

I can recommend it.

Nirvana by Bathroom Tomorrow

If you’ve been around here for a while, you already know I have a thing for bathtubs. But I just stumbled upon this one and immediately got giddy. It’s made by Bathroom Tomorrow, a design company in Bangkok – I swear, design out of Southeast Asia and Japan continually amazes me. It’s so fun, romantic, silly, gorgeous! Someday, I really must own a home with many bathrooms so I can remodel the hell out of them and have a different style bathtub in each one.

For now, I’ll just ponder on the best bottle of wine, grooviest tunes and most appropriate book to accompany this particular tub… definitely champagne of some sort… Mazzy Star from the speakers… and maybe a picture book of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, do you suppose?

Available at Target

Whenever I travel by plane, I make sure I don’t have to check any luggage. It’s too much of a hassle. And normally I do a very good job of fitting everything I need for wherever I’m going into my trusty, old, beat-up, green carry-on bag. This time, however, I misjudged the weather. I checked the five-day forecast online and saw that it would be damn cold here in New Jersey – keeping in mind that I’m now a delicate SoCal creature who cranks up the heat when the mercury drops below 75 – so I packed a winter coat and some long-sleeve t-shirts. And guess what happened? A picture-perfect autumn day! So now it’s not cold enough for the winter jacket but too crisp for just the shirt. What is a girl to do? I went shopping. As luck would have it, my business meeting took place directly across from a Target, so I popped inside. Lo and behold, I found this adorable red-check vest and instantly fell in love.

Now, I don’t even normally wear vests – my arms feel so abandoned. And plaid tends to give me flashbacks to the 80s and lumberjacks – neither of which is a good thing in my memory. But this thing is actually flattering on me! (I’d include a photo of me modeling it but I didn’t pack my connector cable for my camera either – it’s been a hectic week, folks!) More importantly, it is warm in all the right places. No embarrassing headlights on this girl – woo hoo!

It comes in a bunch of different colors, though not black and grey which would have been nice.

I never would have considered purchasing a faux-fur trimmed, plaid vest if I hadn’t found myself shivering in the Garden State. Now, I’m going to rock it everywhere. In fact, I’m wearing it right now. And I’m utterly cozy and happy.

So this is my truly unexpected pleasure find of the week.

And I’m starting to like New Jersey.

Price: $29.99. Available at Target and Target.com.

Image via Sarasota Coffee Company

Halloween is over – thank god – but the piles of candy remain to taunt me. For most of the year, I can ignore all those delectable favorites of my childhood. Most of the brands I like best don’t get huge marketing budgets attached, which means I truly forget they exist for about 358 days of each year. But for some reason, during the seven days after Halloween, they come back to haunt me – all those retro brands that kids today eye suspiciously when they empty their overflowing pillowcases at the end of their night knocking on strangers’ doors, and then toss off to pushers parents, who then carry them to offices and let loose to seduce hapless “adults,” like me.

I have no power to resist the pull.

Which is why I’m currently suffering from a sugar crash of magnificent proportion… If only you could see me now!

So you can understand how I was caught unaware, here’s what happened…

I was at an event last night. With tons and tons and tons of candy. So much candy, in fact, that we were told to take some home with us. And who am I to refuse a direct order? Particularly when said candy is the good stuff – Sugar Babies and Pop Rocks and Tootsie Rolls and Nerds and– well, you get it. Besides, it was free and we’re in a recession and I have to spend the weekend in New Jersey. So, really, it’s remarkable I didn’t leave with the entire supply.

Instead, I thought it would be a good idea– and here, as any addict can tell you, is when I should have walked away but, alas, did not– to take a handful, or three, of Sugar Babies packets to accompany me on my lonely and long-ass-with-a-lay-over plane ride today. Security really should have stopped. I was PACKING, I’m telling you!

Then, it got ugly. I’ve eaten destroyed the seedy evidence of my debauchery. But I was not at my most lady-like today. And now, even though the trail of tears wrappers is gone, I am left feeling like crap and needing to mainline some protein STAT.

At least this only happens once a year.