Mother’s Day

In the deep north valley of Los Angeles County, there once lived a hospital called Van Nuys Psychiatric. Inside of this adult mental health facility, was a tiny youth program called ASAP. It was a drug rehabilitation center, where -- like the adults in residence, once you came in you did not leave. Once the door shut behind me, my stay lasted almost two years.

In this funky, no-nonsense lockdown facility, there was eccentric grown-ups and seniors, as well as kids ranging from 12 to 17. I was 13 to 14 during my stay. In total there were around 30ish kids at a time. Some came and went quickly due to insurance that could not continue to pay for their stay. “30 Days-kids” would brag, knowing they had a window of time to make it through and then they were out! It was the one time I resented my very good insurance, as there was no end to my stay. I was in for the long haul. I bonded with a lot of the kids, because like me, they did not know where to put their anger and they did not know how to live life anymore without the need to get high or self-destruct in some form and fashion. There was a very big range of reasons all these young humans were here. It ranged in behaviors. And once a week, all the patients, and their families or caretakers, aunts and uncles or foster care mentors, on Wednesday nights would sit and line up chairs around in a circle formation in a large room, and one family a week would have their chairs put in the middle. It was vulnerable and spectator. It was revealing and healing.

So here is what would take place: During the week, the patient, like me, would meet with their therapist. Mine was Dr. Blair. I loved him. He was kind and gracious. Safe and calm. I was so against being there in this hard-knocks place, but when I was with Dr. Blair, in this tiny room of his office, my walls would come down. When he asked me questions, I would think of how I would always ask how characters I was playing would feel. Who were they? The backstory? What were they experiencing and therefor feeling in a scene? So, instead of some made up person, I had to take all those questions inward. And with this therapist I could. I started to understand the value of therapy and even really enjoy opening up so that I could figure things out. I was already open to considering what a person needed to flush out a fictional character. I knew that details and reasoning to find my way into people I played in movies was a real exploration I did, so why not with myself? Each kid had their own therapist with some crossover here and there. Each therapist had multiple patients, but somehow you didn’t feel it. I never felt like the individual care was watered down by the sharing of therapists. Then there were the counselors. There were three very salient and cool adults. Betty, who I loved. Maternal and groovy, I was smitten. She was married to Dallas, a former rock and roll drummer (and how I ended up with David Crosby and his wife Jan to be able to petition for emancipation from my mother) and there was Lori. A tough matter of fact women who was full of truths and boundaries. I think I loved her the most, because what I understand now: kids love feeling safe, and having boundaries is one of those crucial bumper rails. I lived a boundaryless life and job. And this place, as hellacious as it was, it was exactly what I needed from the too much excess my life had become on the outside. But even though my story might have been splattered on the cover of the Enquirer Magazine at a check-out stand of your local whatever, they even put a picture or me holding a teddy bear with the sad story of me careening off the edge headline, shame entered the picture. But in this institution, it was the opposite. It was, “open up! share!”

On Wednesday nights, after a week of focused work and talks amongst us inmates, it was ringside! Out with all of it, right in the middle of everyone. There was a style that let you know it was not only safe but necessary to not sweep anything under the rug. It was made so beautifully clear by the adults running this life overhaul ritual that keeping things inside were not advised. Avoidance was the ticket that got you a stay in this place. And one way out of these halls was to figure your shit out and deal with it with everyone who would be on your journey on the outside. Wednesday nights were cathartic. Revelatory. Popcorn-level of “Yeah say it!!!!!! Go there. Do it!!!” And there was a ton of humor too. It was a coping mechanism for the heavy. Everyone laughed out loud. They cried. They got it all out and it was lighter at the end. Real. There was still stuff hanging and left in the air, but truths were spoken, and feelings were fought for, and at least road maps were drawn. Because we all know everyone in here was lost and trying to figure out how to live a life so we would talk. Put it all out there. It taught me the foundations of telling your truth. Not in a way that made you an immovable person on some high horse, but your story. Your feelings. Your faults. Your hopes and wishes. Your hurts. What and where you wanted to get to in life. And -- very important -- who was going to help you on your path and who would you have to let go. For me, at the end and when I got out, it was my mother.

When I got emancipated by the courts at 14 years old, the umbilical cord was severed, and I have not been the same since. It was necessary for me to step away and start to become my own person. And at the age of 14, my own parent. I cannot give myself rave reviews. I drank too much. Partied and burned the candle at every end. I danced on desks and posed half naked in the name of art. Nothing I judge. It’s my history. I was just trying to figure out how to grow up and who I wanted to become. But I also found a new family. I built a company called Flower Films at 19, and somehow the great karma of life would fill it with a few people who I will be soon celebrating 30 years of partnership with. My found family. My best friends and my consciences. I am now a mother too. I have stopped drinking alcohol because it was my poison. I am not sober nor work a program, but I broke generational cycles that no one in my family had been able to conquer in their priority of hedonism. They were all artists who, maybe like me, enjoyed feeling invincible and veiled from pain all in the same glass.

I have put my cup down and said yes to life, and my daughters were my inspiration, as they are for every decision I have tried to make. Being a mother constantly triggers everything from my own childhood now. I live in an often-petrified state of thinking about my past and wanting to have things different for them. I want them protected. I want them to grow up slowly. I want family around and traditions and rules and boundaries. I want therapists and feelings to be out on the table. I want to work on personal and individual growth in a house that looks at feelings and behaviors. One of my friends and mentors Dr. Aliza Pressman of Raising Good Humans Podcast says, “All feelings are welcome; all behaviors are not.” I love this. I grew up in a way that everything was on the table emotionally for work. Be this person who sets fire to things. Have an alien be your best friend and protect the unfamiliar. Divorce my parents in one film and reach deep and get into my own sadness about my mom and dad splitting up before I was born. And now my job is to TALK. Talk about everything. Ask questions. Figure out “how to live a life” right there in a forum.

The other day I went to lunch with a friend who is a major chef/foodie and so I took him to this glorious New York institution of a power lunch in Manhattan. High ceilings, art, and a gravitas to it that isn’t exactly me, but I appreciate it.  We sat at the bar eating a crab Louis. We were talking about everything in life, and we got onto the subject of the institution. And I was telling him about the room where all the families would gather in the circle and how I felt so loving about the routine of siting around in a formation where the outskirts felt like an audience but also a protection from the fall. Everyone in that room knew what they were there to do. TALK.  And the more we talked the more we laughed and worked through things and took turns doing verbal trust falls and supporting each other to grow. And I immediately got emotional. THE SHOW. The show is like the room. And all feelings are welcomed, and all behaviors are not. I couldn’t eat anymore. My stomach was flipping. Was my whole life a lead up to continue to fight for and protect an open discussion and dialogue about who we are, what we need, want, must do, have done, want to do, are figuring out … with a lot of laughter to make it all ok at the end of the day?

Doesn’t all the work we do on ourselves eventually pay off into play! A liberation from whatever holds us back. A celebration of the places we have brought ourselves to. And the stories. Oh, the stories.  And with that I realized the purpose behind the show. Get vulnerable and be as silly as possible too. But LEARN.  I have loved learning my whole life, from every source I am lucky enough to get some pollen from. I have traveled around going from place to person and drank from all the wisdom and humor I could. I have tried to contribute everything I can and not hold back. Feel the encouragement to be brave and put yourself out there. Well, sometimes it does feel very vulnerable. Raw. Uncomfortable. But I am also living, loving, and learning. And one journey on the show has been mothers. My most poignant subject. My most important. My deepest lifelong search. This year in particular I have been able to discuss many dynamics with and about mothers. And it hasn’t been easy, as most people who have shared their truths no longer have to worry about their mother’s reaction’s because they have passed on. My mother is still here. And I worry every day that something in my exploration will hurt her feelings. Because that isn’t what I want. And I have been petrified of how to justifiably go on my expedition without consequence. Once again, my friend Dr. Aliza Pressman, said, as I poured out my worries to her, she said, “Well you don’t have the luxury of waiting, you have two young girls.” with that came a gift and peace. This isn’t just about my mom. It’s about my girls. It’s about me. It’s about how to simply be a mother.

When I look around the world, I could have never imagined that my overexposed and too much access in my youth would be the same problem all kids and parents are facing today. This unprecedented and untested world of everything at your fingertips is just not what I would wish on anyone, knowing what I know. We all need a mother right now to protect us and consider carefully at every turn what is too much and what is a healthy amount. Social media cut all the umbilical cords and set us free to figure out so much on our own, at any age, and without boundaries. It is the world we live in. It is the world I survived. It is the world I promised my daughters wouldn’t experience… and yet all our kids are in it now. So, we all need to be nurturing figures. All feelings are valid. All behaviors are not. Now having traveled the world since I was 7 years old, I have been open to all the styles on this globe of “how to live a life” or be a family, and there are so many ways. No one is right or wrong. Styles. And without judgement, we can follow what feels right and needed for our loved ones. But I can see where boundaries are healthy. I have come to finally learn what they are. And yet, I feel as naked as ever. I don’t always congratulate myself on being an open book. But in that room of feelings, with open brave lines of communication, I would travel back to the beginning of time in history. When maybe very small groups of people, might sit around and talk. How else do we ever get anywhere without this courageous act of speaking? And listening? Accepting or fighting for what we believe in? It is all through talking. And we have been figuring out ways to do this since the beginning of time and I have found the breakdown of communication can be an inroad to so much pain. If we can get back to that ritualistic setting of communicating, it could open one’s heart. And my heart tells me we all need a mom. From Mother Earth to that one single individual who is willing to give you love.

I love being a mom. Greatest thing I will ever do in my life without question. Everything in my experience here on this pale blue dot has been for them. And now it is also my chance to not make it about me but learn how to deal with all that comes with choosing to be a parent. I need to continue to figure things out. Not to project but to disembark from my past and live in the present, so that I may meet my future with as much resilience as I possibly can.  

It is about to be Mother’s Day.  It was recently my mother’s birthday. I texted her. It simply read “Happy birthday, Mom.” and she wrote back “Thank you so much! I’m incredibly proud of you and send you love.” It was the biggest gift I could have ever received. To know that she is proud of me. Too know she loves me, in the middle of the circle, where I have gone deep into trying to continue to grow in front of people. And share. And be brave. I love you, too, Mom. Thank you for letting me be me. And still loving who I am. And to my girls… I just hope I can be someone who makes you feel safe. And that you can laugh with. And that you can tell me anything. I’m here for it. I’m in the circle with you… for life.

REBELS WHO LOVE

The other day I walked into a workout class and this woman said “you look just like Drew Barrymore except for you look like you have mental wellness and besides …she hates sex!” I did not know what this woman was talking about.

Then a few days later, I learned that somehow a comment that I had made on the show about how abstaining from sex for six months just didn’t seem like that long to me because at my age and with my life experience, it just doesn’t. The whole conversation came about because the news reported that a talented and cool, male actor - who is considered a heart throb by many accounts! - abstained from sex for six months as part of a role he was working on. And I love this actor. For him, that must have been challenging. I see that now. And I’m sure that there was one point in my life where six months might have seemed extreme, but I’m on the other side of that now.

At nearly 48 I have very different feelings about intimacy than I did growing up. I did not have role model parents and I engaged with people in grown up ways since a tender age!  I was looking for companionship! validation! excitement! pleasure! hedonism! fun! And adventures!! Now, because I can’t get in the time machine and change my history. So I now choose to look at it through a positive lens, which is that I lived! I lived a very rich full life. However, after two kids and a separation from their father that has made me cautious, I have had the pleasure of shifting my focus when it comes to love for myself and my two daughters. I know that does not include a man nor has it for a while. I’ve come to realize through working in therapy (with Barry), he said something and I had to write it down. He said, “Sex is not love! It is the expression of love.” I have searched my whole life to have words like that to help me understand the difference and now, thanks to him, I do.

And since entering life as a single mom, I have not been able to have an intimate relationship. I have had the honor and a pleasure to actually work on myself and learn what parenting is, again something I was not exactly clear on growing up and I’ve had many learning curves thrown my way. I’ve been intimidated. I’ve been triumphant. I’ve been asked to be educated in every way I can be. The truth is, it’s different for every family and every individual, but I have had to try and find my own way. I’m also raising two daughters, so how we raise girls to be appropriate and empowered and to love themselves and to realize that we live in an age where the images and messages that they will see will also contradict what I have come to believe intimacy is! Intimacy is something that makes you feel good about yourself!  I also talk about and have learned when something doesn’t make you feel good or it makes you feel bad about yourself, pay as much attention to that as what makes you feel great because there’s a lesson in there.

I am just in a completely different place in my life and maybe in the near future I will get into a relationship… but it simply hasn’t been my priority. So I’m not a person who needs sex and has to go out there and engage with people on that level. I am someone who is deeply committed to fostering how young girls, my daughters, and myself as a woman, are supposed to function in this world! A relationship with a man has not been top of mind for me for a very long time. Some people can get out of a marriage or relationship and in the near future find themselves in another relationship. There is nothing wrong with that! Not one bit.  I do not judge! I celebrate their journey! Because for some people that really works. It didn’t work for me. I needed to stay very celibate and honoring and in some sort of state of morning of the loss of a nuclear family that I swore I would have for my daughters and to find grace and acceptance and what our new normal of a blended family would be. It took time. I’m proud of myself that I took that time. That's what I, as my own individual and no one else just me, needed to do and I honored that and I respect myself for it, as I respect anyone else for their choices. I have just simply come to laugh about the fact that it is not my personal priority to be with a partner, but that doesn’t mean it won’t become one someday. I need time. And my view on sex has truly changed.

I wish when I was younger that I had had the chastity and the thoughtfulness that I do about intimacy now as a 48-year-old woman. I wish I had been taught by my mother or my father or my friends that there is age appropriateness business and that there is a way to become a classy young woman! There are things that are fun but also boundaries that can lead to tremendous self-respect. When you are selective and you look at sex as an expression of love and not love itself…well, I’m so glad to be here now in my life. But don’t forget I’m a naughty monkey who is rebellious and weird and comedic and wacky and doesn’t judge others and really doesn’t want anyone highly involved in my choices when it comes to this vulnerable subject but because I’ve been an open book my whole life but here we are!

So for the record, I do not hate sex! I have just finally come to the epiphany that love and sex are simply not the same thing. I searched my whole life for, which is to be a calm woman and not a bombastic party girl. Also, when you grow up and are in a marriage with kids and you think you’ll only be with this one person for the rest of your life and then that doesn’t happen? It rocked me to my core, to put it lightly. But I am lucky enough to have my cup runneth over in the love department: I have my two daughters, and for the first time ever in my life, I’m actually including self-love, too. I actually really appreciated what Billie Eilish talked about on The Howard Stern Show about how young girls should filter the images and messages of the current state of sex is in this modern world. Wow! Thank you for that. We need rebels who love to show us the way.

I wish for everyone that they find out what makes them feel good about themselves and seek that! And if and when they happen to find what makes them feel bad about themselves, that they pay attention and avoid it, and even abstain from inviting in emotions that do not lead to self respect. And then of course, find out what makes them feel good about themselves and seek that! And to be passionate and protective in the fact that we all deserve love! and we should all give love! but love and sex are simply not the same thing.

Today Should Be Different

The news all morning was that we were in a blizzard. I was alone all weekend, and there was a snow storm on the entire eastern seaboard, and it felt like an absolute dare for me to go outside, so I grabed the dogs, their two leashes some pathetic raincoat for myslef that had that split up the middle as i was walking, and thank God had waist toggles that I manages to tie together. I had two mismatched gloves and a balaclava on my face making me look like a brown Carhart mystery man. But off I was to the park trying to keep the dogs paws off the salt on the road as it stings them and walking down the center lane of a mucky street and finally into the Winter Wonderland of Central Park.

I walked around for about 30 minutes choosing paths that were different than my normal routes because I thought “today should be different” and when I said that to myself I didn’t really realize the dare I was about to do to myself. I was walking near the Mall in Central Park, which is that wide cinematic pathway with incredibly tall tree lined views, and I saw a man and he was very handsome and appealing with a long lanky body and bright blue eyes and a handsome face he looked to me like he was in it has least 30s possibly 40s and there was just some thing about him. I was so allured that I found myself turning my dogs around and following him. It didn’t hurt that the music in my headphones had lyrics saying “I will go wherever you will go” that I took as a sign, but this is just not my usual behavior. I don’t follow people (and trust me as someone who does get followed I think it’s quite weird) but I got pulled in the wake of this man’s ocean. What if the two of us were to lock eyes, I mean that’s really the only part of my face you can see of me anyway, and not shortly there after he parked himself on the side of the wide road of the Central Park mall and was looking at his phone and really almost seeming like a wanderer himself. He was not a man on a mission, he was just simply slaloming through the park with complete casualness. So I did some thing I’ve never done before I walked right up to him and I said “excuse me” with a giggle and shy eyes I said “are you single?” and his response was “perhaps?” and I said “well OK that’s not a no” and we both laughed I said “are you gay?” and he said “no” and we laughed again, as i tend to fall for men who are not looking fo someone like me, I said “well ok!” And with that i realized I wasn’t barking up the wrong tree per say, and then this overwhelming shyness came over me as I realized what the hell I was doing? What do I say next? It was as if I was talking with no control and realizing that I was in mid Leap, so I said “well sir I just thought I would ask you these things because I saw you and you seemed really lovely and the truth of the matter is that it is no matter what happens from this conversation I have no expectations! I just wanted to do some thing today that would make me proud of myself and that would come from daring to speak to you! and he said “well I’m proud of you too” with a sweet smile and dimples with a thick Irish accent. Yet there was a gentle bewilderment to his laugh that said he couldn’t believe this is happening either but he was certainly not gonna make me feel bad about it! And then the fact that only my eyes were showing, I said, “now I’m too shy to even look you in the eyes, which Is ridiculous coming from the person who initiated this conversation” so I decided to take my Balaklava off and reveal myself, and as my face hit the cold snowflake air, the hair fell all down my shoulders i looked in his eyes and said “hi” he smiled and nodded. Our conversation staled for a minute, and it was then I noticed a girl a few feet away staring outwardly to the vistas, but I could gather that she had heard everything, to which I thought I have two decisions. I could lead this gentleman away or be I could just figure out what to say to him next and so we struck up a small conversation. He said that he had just left his apartment in order to step away from work “because he works too much” and I said “having worked pretty much consistently since I was 11 months old I like a good work ethic” and he said yes but “I live to work” and I said “well how bad is your life work balance?” and I guess that is a whole other subject and then as I’m looking at him I realized there was another possibly important question that dawned on me in that moment, and I said “how old are you” and he looked at me and he said “28” my heart sank. I said “oh, I didn’t realize you were so young” and he laughed and he told me a story about how his father looked so young until he was an old man but for some reason he himself did not get that and gene and has looked old since he was young. I laughed and said “yes I don’t think I would’ve stopped you had I known that I am basically twice your age” and that was the first moment of true disconnect in my mind. I thought there’s just no way I’m gonna be 47! At 28 I had so much to learn and those are such beautiful lessons, its a whole lifetime in itself, but this man did not look that young. He even said it was a genetic shock that he since 20 years old has looked like he was in his 30s and now at 28 I wanted to tell him he look like he was in his 40s but I didn’t want to offend him, so our energy started to disembark, and I could feel it, so we continued on making jokes and somehow the conversation led to the fact that he thought babies were sweet but kids overwhelmed him and I said “well there’s our second strike because I have two young children” but then I joked and I said “well it’s not like we’re getting married or anything” and he laughed so hard and said “I’m so glad that we’re establishing that” and the energy of our tête-à-tête was very positive. Just then the woman who I noticed earlier came walking up to me and she said “are you Drew Barrymore?” and in my head I thought well this adds another layer to this man’s experience of having a woman follow him, then stop him, then ask his status… and now this element. I looked at her with a big smile and said “yes I am” nodding sort of sheepishly but excitedly and she said “I just heard everything that you did and I just have to say that it is so awesome that you asked him if he was single!” and I said “yes, I figured I’m so tired of dating apps and technology and the upcoming meta-verse that I wanna kick it IRL and from now on I’m going to encourage myself and anyone else to be brave in person!” and then her friend came running over and started squealing too and they were both so cute and they asked the guy “what are you gonna do?” they probably weren’t thinking about the uncloseable age gap and the fact that he doesn’t desire children at this point, and I covered for him and I said “well I think we’re all here to just make ourselves proud and he once again confirmed that he was proud of me and then the girls screamed we’re proud of you too and I thanked them all so very much and said “maybe the four of us should go out and do some thing that makes ourselves proud today?!” and as I slowly and sweetly extricated myself from the situation the girls realized that maybe this man and I would like to say goodbye in private and waved and they quickly walked away. I looked at him and I said “well thank you very much by the way another important question I forgot to ask what is your name?” “Richard” he said I said “I’m Drew” and I smiled the two of us looked at each other not exactly knowing how to close this moment out, as I think both of us know that this really wasn’t going to go anywhere, and I appreciated that we weren’t doing the obligatory bullshit- save the ego in the moment, and ask for anything further than what this was… a lovely exchange. The last thing Richard said to me was “if I’m in the first today you follow how many more will there be?” and I said “oh Richard, I haven’t done anything like this in as many years as I can remember” and he said “well will you do it again?” and I said “this could possibly sustain me for a long time” but as I walked away I realized that maybe this was actually the beginning of some thing. Why don’t we walk up to people and get to know them? Take a chance? Why are we not bold and daring why are we constantly hiding behind the swipe left universe? I’m sick of it! I used to be so bold when I was young, like I had nothing to lose. I miss that girl, and in that knee deep snow on the ground… I think I actually got in touch with that younger braver bolder girl! I walked away, still not exactly knowing where I was going, i’m sure a small part of me wished he was older or the scenario went possibly slightly different, and yet I really had meant what I said, it was less about the outcome and more about trying to make myself proud. I’ve had a revelation in life recently about what bravery really is… bravery is an act, and it is not a result. We just have to try regardless of the outcome and be excited about our efforts. Bravery for me right now is about the act of doing some thing, not what it warrants. And I knew I had just been brave and gotten out of my comfort zone and the truth was it made me feel really good. And so i kept walking. I walked down a different road. I did things differently. And just like with the group, I say to all of us, maybe we can do something to make ourselves proud today. Be brave. With no expectations of the result, and just to be proud of ourselves. IRL.

The Pursuit of Happiness

I AM AN OPTIMIST. Optimism is my outlook. It is my constant magnet, forever drawing me to hope. Happiness, on the other hand, feels like it’s been a bit more elusive. It can be a downright slippery little sucker if you know what I mean.

In my teens and 20s, I was happy because I was convinced I was immortal. Drinking, eating anything I wanted, and never sleeping. Going to every concert I could. Dropping everything and traveling anywhere at a moment’s notice. Doing donuts in the parking lot? Yes, please. Jumping out of a plane? Me first. No one could tell me otherwise. I didn’t think—I knew for absolutely certain— that I would always have my health. My problems could seem really big, like they were insurmountable, but I really just believed that I was never leaving this beautiful planet. A lot of my happiness came from thinking that I had all the time in the world.

AND THEN I HAD TWO BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTERS, AND EVERYTHING CHANGED.

All of a sudden, my mortality came right into focus. I care about these two girls, my Olive and Frankie, much more than I care about myself. The fear of not being here on this earth to take care of them became a reality for me. That “blissful ignorance” style of happiness I used to believe in was no longer available to me. But what’s interesting is I realized my happiness was more important than ever. I needed to be strong to raise my girls and give them everything they need and deserve. I wanted everything to be as good for them as I could possibly make it. I wanted life to look and function a certain way for them—a way that I had never known, but I could appreciate fully.

BUT THERE IS THAT SAYING: WHEN YOU MAKE PLANS, THE UNIVERSE LAUGHS.

When my plans fell apart, for what was not the first nor the last time,
I felt like all of the promises I had made to myself in honor of my daughters were being broken. And in that time, I felt really broken myself. I couldn’t even figure out what happiness really meant or how to get it, let alone keep it. All I could do was put one front in front of the other. I don’t know why, but it feels like it is completely taboo to feel like you don’t know what your next move is supposed to be.

My children are my North Star. I have always known in my heart that if I did what I thought would be in their best interests, everything else around me would be OK. And to my surprise, it was. As their well-being guided my decisions, we began moving in a new direction, literally and figuratively. We headed from Los Angeles to New York, where their father and I would work tirelessly to create a co-parenting dynamic that would nurture them. And we continue to give it our all. It took years, but life finally started to fall into place. The kids started going to school, life began to resume, and I started to work a little bit again.

Over time, the rhythm of life felt less like a crazy interpretive jazz number and more of a sweet beat. It is possible that it was the sound of my heart actually settling from the stress and the nerves that I had experienced in the last few years. Even so, I must admit that I felt like a failure because I couldn’t actually get to the state of happiness. I could be happy with my kids. I could be happy with my friends. But I knew I wasn’t truly happy inside.

But I reached the point where enough was enough. I had life on the outside in a good place, so it was time for my interior life to catch up. All of a sudden, I started to be really honest with myself. What were my coping mechanisms? What was I relying on that wasn’t working for me anymore? Which of my behaviors weren’t doing me right? If the choices are to stay the same or take the journey to your better self, is there really much of a choice at all? I just want to ask anyone who has been kind enough to take the time to read this right now: Do you have that little inner voice, a Jiminy Cricket conscience like mine that kept repeating that something needed to change?

With time and effort, I have finally found my way to a new, more authentic happiness and to a little more peace. At this point in my life, happiness is believing that I can handle whatever comes my way. The false sense that I had my very own cloak of invincibility has been replaced by knowing I have earned the capability of making it through the day. Some days are great—too good to be true—and others are just really crappy. Either way, it’s going to be OK.

As a 46-year-old woman, a mother of two young girls, and a professional person just doing my best, I’ve
come to understand myself a little deeper. Maybe my feet are a little more anchored to the ground, but it doesn’t have to make my head any less in the clouds. I do appreciate my mortality and every day I get to be on this planet.

I’ve learned that five minutes alone can change your state from code- red-stress-level-11 to sailing the calmer seas. Now I reach out when I need to. Speaking to someone smarter than me, seeking solidarity, or asking for advice really helps. And it benefits everyone around me too.

I have accepted that being optimistic is who I am, and I will constantly strive for happiness. Happiness is more of a hard-fought battle. When I win and I actually feel that true state of joy, I cherish it because I know that at some point—maybe not tonight, tomorrow, or even next week—I’m probably going to have to go and fight for it all over again. True, the usual state of my juggling act of kids/work/life tends to skew to the rather frenzied side, but no matter how bad things get, I always remain positive.

I may be a lot of things, but “stuck” is not one of them. I will always find my way, even if I need more patience with myself about what time frames are realistic for growth and change. There are truly no shortcuts, and I’m not sure if I believe the easy road would be worth taking because I might miss some very important parts of the ride.

All of our happiness comes and goes. When you are holding it, hold on tight because it is not to be taken for granted. It’s a fleeting manifestation of your own hard work. Every day is a true gift. My happiness lies in waking up and knowing that I took it for granted in my younger days, but I don’t now. Growing up is not overrated. It’s actually awesome.

How I Learned to Embrace My Tradition of Being Untraditional

Oh, the holidays. For some, they’re the greatest, full of ridiculously fun family memories and warm, fuzzy feelings. For others, they can be a trigger.

For many years — most of my life, actually — I felt like the holidays were just a series of months that didn’t apply to me. It was, simply put, a time to get through.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love celebrating. I believe just being alive is a call for celebration. My absolute favorite holiday is Halloween: no gifts, no family baggage, no strings attached. It’s the one day when we get to express ourselves, free of charge. The sun goes down, the night lights up, and every-body gets to be whomever they want to be. That’s my kind of day!

But for much of my life, as soon as November 1 would roll around, that was that. Party over. I would retreat to my holiday shell and wouldn’t come out until December 31 — just in time for New Year’s Eve, which I’ve always liked. Just think of the possibilities! Is there a better reason to whoop it up than a fresh start to a brand-new year? And possible kisses? Yes, please!

But growing up in an unconventional household, I only got that Peanuts Christmas charm by exchanging sea-son’s greetings with others. I’ve always loved that we have a short window when we all feel compelled to say to one another, “Happy holidays!” (Why don’t we have a cheery, universal salutation all year long? Come November, we can use “Happy holidays” as a friendlier hello or warm goodbye, or both. It’s great. It lifts everyone’s spirits — and then poof ! It’s gone.)

I also like that, during this part of the year, we’re supposed to be a little more giving, aware, and gentle. But this is also why the triggers can seep in. The holidays are about everyone but you. They’re about loved ones. And when you don’t really have family, it’s easy to feel like a Grinch-y old fart, no matter how old you really are.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love celebrating. I believe just being alive is a call for celebration.

Growing up, there was a certain point when I realized that when my mom bought me gifts, it was my money she was spending. That was confusing. I used to look in windows as I drove by houses during the holidays and see families around the table, twinkly lighting, merriment — all the things. And as much as I would idealize these settings, I would also wonder who was truly being themselves. Who was happy and comfortable and not stuck in an awkward conversation?

At least, I thought, I didn’t have to fake anything. I could just keep my head down between my nondenominational party bookends of Halloween and New Year’s and get on with it.

Over time, my tradition became to spend the holidays on my own. There were a few years when, to my surprise, I would be invited to my best friend Nan’s house for a holiday, and I love her family so much. Since I was 19, I’ve been a squatter at their holiday gatherings here and there, and they’ve always, always been fun. But for the most part, I just read.

I read so many books. Every year, I treated myself to another classic. And another. And another. I would read David Sedaris’ stories about the holidays and laugh and feel my heart warm. He was someone I didn’t mind spending the holidays with. He lightened up a heavy time for me. (Humor, I love you!)

The season became a two-month window in which to get smarter. Most schools would let out, and I would dive in deeper. This was when I pushed. I could escape and educate all at the same time. I wanted to have something to show for the season. “Look at all the books I read!” And that stack on the table would heal me. It was tangible. When I got older and busier than words can explain, the holidays became a time of travel and R and R. Over time, I found my way and became less dam-aged about the whole thing.

Then, at 37 years old, I had kids.

It’s true what they say: having kids changes everything. Now, the holidays mean something totally new. We do the Peanuts Christmas for real! I have a big box of ornaments that comes out of the garage every year. My kids and I decorate to the soothing sounds of Vince Guaraldi, and I am filling up emotional buckets that I never imagined I would.

I try to create an experience out of their winter break. I pick a flight on the last day of the school calendar, and we book it out of town. My kids always ask why they don’t get presents, and I always say, beaming, “This trip is your gift!”

I know they don’t get it sometimes, but they will one day. I say, “You won’t remember tearing boxes apart in a blur one morning, but you will remember grabbing your bags and having this adventure!” They stare at me, and I secretly spiral over my lack of tradition once again, if only for a moment.

We’ve gone to Tulum, Mexico, to be super-boho in our bare feet and swim in cenotes with catfish. We made it to bucket-list Italy, learning to make pizza from scratch and walking through town squares at night like happy tourists. There was a trip to beautiful Idaho, where we stayed in a wholesome, cozy town while snow fell all around us. We even hauled it to Costa Rica, a trip that felt like it took days, where we woke up to howler monkeys scrambling on our roof and adopted a few stray dogs for the duration of the trip.

During the pandemic, we were fortu-nate to be able to stay home and be together. We did the presents-under-the-tree thing, but that was not the best part. I felt pressured and stressed. The magic was in watching my girls make lists of what they wanted to give their friends and family. Wrapping the gifts was a highlight — the paper, the tape, the handmade gift tags!

But I’m ready to go again. As soon as we can, as soon as the world is safe, we’re out of here, off to make another memory. That is so worth every minute of energy, effort, and cost. And for this, I give my girls credit: If you open a car door or say the word “airport,” they are game for anything and anywhere. I like adaptable people.

“I’ve found my way around the holidays. In fact, I truly love them now.”

I’ve learned that our tradition is to create our own traditions — to do what feels right for that moment, on that day, in that time. I try not to stress too much if the hot cocoa gets cold, but to remember whom I’m sharing it with. My tradition is being present — not neces-sarily opening presents — in the little things we do, like sending postcards, or the big ones, like piling into the car and hitting the road.

Through the ups and downs, the solo missions, the gatherings big and small with relatives and chosen family, the books, and the flights, I’ve found my way around the holidays. In fact, I truly love them now.

It’s still a time to educate, expand, explore, and see the world. It’s still a time to see life from a new perspective, whether in the pages of a book or on an expedition. I still want to get out of my life and into another. Only now I get to do it alongside my kids.

We get the tree. We deck the halls. And then we get out of town, shouting, “Happy holidays!” to every person we see until January 1 rolls around.

Africa

One day in 2004, I was sitting at a coffee shop by myself having breakfast. We were making the film Fever Pitch , and it was a really happy time. The Red Sox were winning and about to make history. I was single and enjoying reading the New York Times when I came across an article. It said “Children line up to get into classroom,” and it was accompanied by a picture of tons of kids neatly lined up in rows, sitting on the floor looking toward the head of the class. These kids had this eager and beautiful look in their eyes. It could not have been more contrary to the look I saw in the classroom in my own experience. These kids fought to be in there. And as I read on it had to do with the fact that the World Food Program was providing meals. My heart broke.

I couldn’t have felt more humbled at that moment, and something took over. I was so overwhelmed with empathy and curiosity. I wanted to be transported there right at that moment so that I could better understand the world of this tiny school. Something was moved inside of me to the point where I went home and picked up the phone, only to realize I had no idea who to call.

So I started calling people I worked with. I then was transferred to the UN. When I started my inquiries with them, I was presenting myself more as a volunteer who wanted to learn. Not wanting to take on some celebrity who wanted a photo op was their concern, and I truly appreciated that. I explained that I was allergic to that as well, and this was not that. This was me, just a tiny human trying to educate myself on how their programs functioned. They thanked me for my interest and said they would get back to me. One year later I got the call.

It was actually from Marie Claire magazine. They had heard somehow that I was interested in going to Africa, and they had a contact at the UN. If I would write an article about my trip, they would help me get there. They were my liaison and my funding. I had an assignment and I was so excited. I was to take a trip and go directly to Kenya and meet a UN aid worker at the airport. His name was Ben. He was British and immediately had that air of “I hate celebrities.” Oh dear. He might as well have said, “Listen, Florence Nightingale, don’t try to make it seem like you care because this is a full-time job and not the swoop-in-and-snap-a-picture-and-leave situation.” It was similar to when I called. Again I really respected this.

We started right away by going into Kibera, which they called a slum, and it was one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Africa, let alone Nairobi. We went in UN vans with the two UN letters painted on the sides of the cars. Ben said that was to let the people know who we were because the UN was seen as friend, not foe. The UN had no agenda and usually was a symbol of help because if you were thought of as a threat in these parts, you could be killed. Simply put, these were incredibly dangerous places to be, and my first wave of “what am I doing here?” washed over me. There was trash piled up so high that it was the height of a two-story building. Dirty water everywhere. Tiny little storefronts that were ten by ten feet with a mattress on the floor, and these were what people lived in and worked from. There was a whole world inside of these places, and many people only left to go work at other jobs. The infrastructure, as dire as it was, was very insular. I had never seen such a world.

When we got to the school, the few people running it came out to meet us. We all shook hands and introduced ourselves. But then, a wash of bright colors sailed through my vantage point and the kids started piling out of the small structure to line up. It was obvious that something of a greeting ceremony was choreographed and they were about to perform it. All of the outside world and pain fell away, and the brightness of these kids changed my life forever. It was a Technicolor wake-up call. We spent the whole day with the kids. After their dancing and singing, they took me into the classroom I had fantasized about for the last year. It was shadowy as the only light that came in was from cracks and a few cut-open spaces in the walls. The flags and tiny quilts that the teachers had made by hand on the walls were educational and poetic. There was warmth to this room, and I knew I was in the right place.

I sat in on a lesson and watched these kids practice their English and math. I asked all the kids what they wanted to be. One kid raised her hand. “A pilot.” “Really,” I said, amazed at her answer. And I said, “You can take everyone to see the whole world.” The next one raised his hand. “A doctor.” “Wonderful,” I said, “you can take care of everybody,” and when I said that they laughed. Not a ha-ha laugh but a hopeful laugh. Another kid raised a hand. “A scientist.” “Well,” I said, “you will solve all the problems.” Another laugh.

It astonished me how they were all practical and ambitious occupations. There were no artist or mother or singer aspirations. They wanted to do important things in the world. Again, my heart shifted and grew bigger. At the end of the day they took me to the tiniest closet, which was the kitchen: a wood-burning makeshift stove on the ground with a giant tin pot on it. The pot had porridge in it that also had oil placed in it, and the oil was full of nutrients and vitamins. This was where the World Food Program came in. Ben explained that the kids got one or two cups, depending, one in the morning and one for lunch. It was a red cup made of plastic. Sometimes the kids even saved some of their meals to take home and share with their family.

But without this program many kids had to struggle to get any food at all. It was one of the reasons they came to school. To get an education but to be fed as well. I was acting like I was taking it all in because I didn’t want to break down. I thought Ben would have killed me for being a weak starlet who couldn’t hack the harsh realities of these surroundings. I just stayed stoic and kept writing things down in my notebook and making notes. I was taking a journalistic approach. After all, I had told the UN I was here to learn. And I would do just that.

After we went home that night, I couldn’t sleep because of jet lag and everything I had seen that day. When the morning came, I was eager to go back in to Kibera and learn more. We were now joined by a man from the UN headquarters named Lionello, an Italian man who lived in Geneva and ran the offices. We would be going to a different school that day. This school was more focused on the issues of girls. Rape and genital mutilation were giant problems in this area.

Again, I took out my notepad and asked questions, but inside I was dying. I was feeling in over my head again. I wanted to tackle kids in school, and what I was learning was about the food they fought to eat and the circumstances in which they were living. This was more about how to survive, and the schooling was a great luxury. I was almost catatonic. But I saw Ben looking at me for a reaction and I stayed strong. I was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break like a little bitch. I was among people who dealt with this every day, they were the heroes, and I just wanted to be quiet, respectful, and keep up.

We went through the school, and at this one the kids sang us another greeting song. It was beautiful. When they had started, I was so shaken up again, wondering what I thought I could ever do here. How could I help? I felt out of my league and totally inferior when these kids’ voices overtook the self-doubting ones in my head. Their song and joy completely wiped the slate clean, and I told myself, it is about them. If the World Bank could not solve the poverty issues and I could not protect each and every one of them the way I wish I could, because no one could, I could just try to help individual schools. I could try to help these places function one at a time. Maybe even just start with one.

Ben said it was not that simple and the money anyone donates goes into the blanket surplus for all the schools or emergency situations. The UN and the WFP are usually some of the first feet on the ground in crisis situations around the globe. I knew I had definitely found the right place with the WFP; the question was, what was my part in all of this?

I spent the rest of the week there going to several schools in a few areas. Eventually we went far outside the city into rural places. We passed through a huge vista that is an indented crater in the ground as far as the eye can see, and I sat there on the side of the road, marveling at it. The schools outside the city were a complete shift in landscape and facility. A lot of these schools were live-in boarding schools and had actual land. Although it was arid or not as hospitable as you would like, they had a quieter and calmer feeling. Space. The dangers weren’t ten feet away. Yet they were no different in what they needed and that they functioned on school lunch programs and donations to stay afloat.

Next I was taken through a few villages of the Masai Mara tribe. This was where I was seeing a part of Africa that looked epic and familiar. They were dressed in bright red plaid that was wrapped around them. They had giant wooden hoop earrings in their lobes, tribal markings on their skin in black and white, and beaded necklaces up to their chins. It was beautiful and incredible.

I was being taken there to learn about where a lot of the traditions come from and to have a better understanding of the way these people lived. They lived in huts that were made by the women. And the men frequented different ones every night. The boys were sent out into the Mara to have warrior quests where they would become men. And the girls had a path that was set for them long ago. Again, this was tradition dating back at least hundreds of years and was not to be questioned, certainly not by me. But I understood how the girls who were able to go to school were getting to have a different way of life indeed. It all seemed a world away out in nature. And yet that’s where the girls came from. So it did truly help inform me.

Lionello said we would go to one more place on our way home. It was a hospice for sick children. As soon as we pulled up and got out of the car, this particular little girl started walking by my side. I smiled at her and we kept looking at each other, a sweet cat-and-mouse game of glances. We went into the building and it was a little hospital, but it had actual concrete walls as opposed to mud or wood. It was small and and I was so happy that the kids had a nice place to be, until I realized why they are there. All the kids had different ailments, and I met them and learned about their stories.

The little girl who was following me was now sitting next to me. I watched her. I had been around adults my whole life, and without siblings or cousins, I just didn’t have a relationship with little children. In fact I knew they could smell my fear. And then I was a bit undesirable because I just didn’t know how to relate to them. Kids are pure instinct as well, and I could tell they could always read my inability to engage.

So I was playing it cool with this wonderful little girl, but then I dared to ask her name. “Edith,” they told me, as she only spoke Swahili. But not having to use words probably helped us. And within a few more minutes she was holding my hands. Even when I did try my hardest with kids, they didn’t like that I was trying so hard. I just was a failure at being what kids wanted or needed and eventually by my twenties I stopped trying. I just kind of wrote myself off and hung out with the adults. But Edith was giving me the biggest compliment of my life by wanting to be around me. Not only was I humbled and honored in a way I had never known, I was so grateful for her unspoken bond.

As the day went on, I can honestly say I fell in love. Her calm charm and affection woke something in me that had lain dormant inside since I was a kid not understanding what a kid is. We were like two peas in a pod, giving each other something we both needed. I asked Lionello why she was here. “She has AIDS,” he said. “Oh.” I nodded. And I held her hand tighter.

When it was time for us to pack up and leave, I was shaking. I didn’t want to unlatch from Edith. Unwrapping my fingers from hers was a violation of what we had formed on this life-changing day. I said my good-byes and hugged her over and over. We got in the car, and I waved to her as we pulled away until she wasn’t visible anymore. I turned around and looked out the windshield and lost it. I felt so many feelings. Hopeless. Hopeful. Changed. Clear. Convicted. I turned to Lionello. “I want to sponsor her.” He asked how I meant and I said, “I don’t know, but I need you to help me. I need you to help me set up a trust for her and have the money get directly to her. Can you do that?”

After weeks of hearing how hard it is to get funds to actually make an individual difference and yet how the UN is saving lives with fifty cents a day, I saw there was such a chasm between miracles taking place and there still being too much to do. Somehow starting with her was a way for me to figure out how to give money in a productive way that was so personal and meaningful. I would get to the bigger economic issues once I learned more. Lionello looked at me and said, “We will get it done,” and I breathed for the first time since we left that children’s hospital. I stared out the window and took in a country I had no idea I would be in one year ago.

I ended my trip having felt like I really experienced different landscapes. We took propeller planes and long rides through the terrain for hours and hours on end. Marie Claire even sent me to a safari camp for one night just to say thank you for writing this article. When we returned back to the bustling city of Nairobi, it seemed like a surreal mecca. And yet there was conflict there. I felt confused and yet awake. We all decided, our little crew, to go have a drink that night, as I was departing in the morning.

We recounted the last ten days and asked questions about each other’s personal lives; we were getting to know each other a little more. It was nice to decompress for a moment. And that’s what amazed me. These UN workers had a great sense of humor. They didn’t want to wallow every second. I guess they wouldn’t survive if they did. They were matter-of-fact about the problems because they were in it, doing something about it the best they could, instead of cowering at the vastness of it. They seemed like superheroes, and yet they were taking off their masks and having a drink and revealing that they couldn’t be more human. And fun humans at that.

The next morning when Ben took me to the airport he seemed different. Less judging and more relaxed. But when he walked me to the check-in desk he said, “You know when you got here—” I interrupted him: “I know. You hated me.” “No,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “I just didn’t know if you were full of shit, and it seems like you’re not.” Phew. Ben was giving his own brand of approval. He even said, “Come back,” all of a sudden. I knew that there was a part of him that was also saying, “Because I bet you won’t,” and I looked at him and smiled now. “I will,” I said, with a side of “Watch me, fucker!” And with that we silently dared each other and I left to go to my plane. I wrote my article all the way home as I had ample time and I wanted to write it very fresh off the experience.

After a few days of being home, I was amazed at how much abundance we live in when I entered a grocery store. I got really depressed and felt guilty and totally disoriented. I felt like I couldn’t look at anything the same. And yet I had only scratched the surface. What did I know? I knew this was my life out here, but I knew something else now and I couldn’t shut it off.

After a few weeks of wandering around, I got proactive and called the UN again—“I’d like to go back, please”—and a few months later I was flying on a return trip. I walked through the airport and saw my greeter. Instead of being shy, I walked right up to Ben and said, “Did ya miss me?” because we didn’t need to discuss the fact that I had taken his silent bet and I was back. And this time for a few weeks!

“Let’s do this” was my feeling this time, and we went straight into a refugee camp. And as much as I was nervous, I felt like the training wheels were off. There was no one sponsoring this trip, and it was time to go even deeper into the world I had come to care about so much.

The refugee camp was huge. Our bunks were in a fenced-in secured makeshift UN compound, with tiny concrete structures, about ten by ten feet, that each had a single cot and a small wooden table and lamp. That’s it, and yet it was very hospitable. Again, in comparison to what other people are living like, it is a great luxury. And you are well aware of every gift you get. We were given dinner, Ethiopian food and a beer. Tusker beer. And we drank one under a tree that had falling bugs. They would cascade right down on your head. The bugs were so large that you would get up out of your folding chair and run at least ten feet, and everyone would laugh at you for getting so scared. But these bugs were the size of small bats, and I couldn’t help but flip out, even though they said they were harmless. 

I will never forget that night. It was a moment to decompress and yet be accosted by giant raining insects.

The next day we got our start. I was on a tour of schools again, as I wanted to refine my dedication. Schools specifically are what I was passionate about, and they were a contained target. I felt like I could be effective there. It was ironic that I didn’t have school as my main priority in my own life, and was so moved by how these kids needed. What they were lacking. And what it was that was making them thrive.

Some kids had to walk too far, and that made it dangerous or difficult. Villages that didn’t have water were a major issue. Schools that had a boarding aspect were more desirable in more desolate parts, and yet in the dense, overcrowded cities the problem was sanitation.

Again, it can get very overwhelming very quickly, but I went around for three weeks really studying what needed to be done. The World Food Program introduced me to an Olympic athlete, Paul Tergat, who was a product of the school feeding program. It was because of the food he was able to train and have the energy to run, and because of the education, he understood what it was going to take to get himself to a place where he could have opportunity. He took me to his original school, and he and I planted a tree there. It was a very happy school with a little bit of land, and the kids were so vibrant and fun. We went to his old house nearby and I met his family.

It was amazing to now be working with someone who was proof of what was possible, and he had important things to say about how it all functions. We moved on to several areas of Kenya. And I fell in love with the village of Kiltamany. I could see that building a borehole here would transform the entire place, and bring water where people had to walk at least five miles a day to fill up a small pitcher. And there was a school, and lots of kids, and it seemed like a wonderful place to build upon. The people were so kind and informative. There was a community. And it affected me and made a lasting impression.

When I was leaving this time, I spoke very seriously to Ben and Lionello about what we could do first. How much it would cost, and what were the priorities. First, it was money to sustain schools in the areas for a year. Then it was helping build these advanced boreholes, which brought water to places in need. Then it was consideration of building my own school and, if so, where. 

 Again, I had been to so many places at this point—where did I feel a connection to laying down a foundation that could be sustained and monitored? It was a lot to process and I didn’t want to just give money and not see where it went, but I also understood that so much money was needed. How could I be most effective?

And when I went back to America, I went to the UN in New York and got my full ambassadorship. I worked with a woman named Bettina, and she and I planned out ways to bring awareness to the program. I got a UN passport, and it was the greatest day. I felt so proud and excited to be part of a place with such meaning and effectiveness. And so I went out touring places on the World Food Program’s behalf and tried to get the message out. I wanted to fulfill my position by trying to not just donate my own money but also to get others involved. But I liked my groundwork the most. When I was actually there, and no one knew where I was, that’s when I really thrived. I decided to build my school, and I picked Isiolo as the location. I started getting plans and blueprints. I was so excited I couldn’t stand it. Things were actually happening and I felt so grateful.

About two years later, when I started dating my husband, Will, who was just my boyfriend at the time, I got a call that the school was ready to be visited. It wasn’t fully up and running, but it was ready to make the decisions to finalize it. I had never taken anyone with me on these trips. They were very solo for me and I had yet to share any aspect of this with anyone. But I took a risk and asked Will if he would like to go with me and see it. He said an absolute yes, and off we went, back to Africa. This time I had something to show, and I was very excited to bring him into my world there.

After many days and hours of travel, we went to the site of the school. There were already children there. I played with all the kids and we served lunch. They walked me over to a little painted sign that said “The Barrymore Learning Academy” in hand-painted letters, and the whole thing seemed so real and brought so much joy at that moment I could have burst.

 Just then, Will took out his camera and took a picture of me with the kids under the sign. Click. And I knew right then and there that my fears and apprehensions about my energy and how kids perceived it was officially over. Through my learning what they needed, I felt healed of something that had always been painful. A kid who didn’t know how to relate to kids. But not anymore. I could love freely. My heart was as open as it had ever been in my whole life. 

 Before we left, I made my way to see Edith. She had grown so beautifully. She was taller and healthy. I ran right into her arms and introduced her to Will. We had all met at a park, and her caretaker who was funded by the trust brought her. I spent the afternoon putting my fingers through hers and holding hands with her. I was so happy to be back with her. I was so happy to see how happy she was. And yet there was still that calm in her. But her smile was exactly the same. I am so glad she chose me in this world. I feel lucky. And I can only hope to continue the favor. And this time when we said good-bye I wasn’t a total wreck because I knew she would be OK. We hugged for ten minutes straight.

When I went home after this trip, something had shifted inside of me. I thought about getting ready to have my own children. It was time to start learning and investing in what it would mean to become a loving mother. And I knew I was ready. This decade changed me. If I hadn’t read that article that day in the diner, my whole life might be different. Or are we set on paths we must go on, and there are little bread crumbs out there to lure us in? I don’t know, but I now know a lot more than I did.

And these are the lessons and values I will instill in my girls. They will have to find what it is that’s important for them, but I am glad that our house will be so encouraging of that. Every Mother’s Day now, I make a Hallmark card for the girls to tell them what I did in their honor. I make donations, or I go and drop off gifts, or we do a volunteer day. It’s always for children-related charities. That is what speaks to me. It’s what moves me. And until my kids are old enough to figure out what their cause is, I will do it for them, so they get a jump-start on all of it.

It is crucial in my life to do this. I hope I can inspire them. I will do my best. And this is where I put my faith in the rule that kids follow by example. They won’t learn a lot from my silly dances. But hopefully I can be of help to push them toward thinking outside of themselves. Africa was my wake-up call. And I am so glad the UN actually took my call.

Forward

#DREWBARRYMOREBLOG...It is live and ready to read! These are a few stories for the first round and more to come. I have always romanticized blogs. It was also an amazing new budding art form of human expression after one of the most difficult times in our world. When everything dramatically changes, the normal routine is forced to stop and almost a new life comes into focus. Our time is shifted into new areas. Life as we know it goes into a hibernation. Then...new things bloom. The reorganizing of how we spend our day can actually make space for new  creations. It didn’t have room before in our busy distracted overfilled life. But today I am going to get my JULIE AND JULIA on! I have found the place to let new embers burn inside me, the same ones that were extinguished with daily running to get it all done, and be left with very little in the tank. 

Please read knowing I am rebellious to grammar. I try to write as I feel the cadence how my head hears it and my heart feels it! There is no chronology. It is not the way we remember things. Memories are a shuffled deck in no order. But to journal in this unprecedented time, well it is a way to make sense of it. Be reflective about my life as a whole. This is a global collective moment. I want to have record of it. But I want to make it personal. It’s the only way I know how to do things. 

Anyone who finds themselves here, I write for you. Thank you for hanging out and I am sending my very best to you as well! I hope to help you escape, relate or reflect! There is no greater thing than to write! I feel lucky to get back to it. I haven’t written anything since my last book. I had no way to sit down and do it. I was frozen. I was in a massive transition. Dramatic life changes. And it took a long time to make sense. But like life right now, things look so bleak you have to fight for the sun. And in nature it is dark and hidden until it springs and blooms. I can see the light. I can see the hope. I can see all our new superhero’s. And I just know incredible things will come out of this. But there will days that will be tested with unknown moments which will extend uncertainty. And so I write again...trying to fit right in with everyone in this collective experience. Because we are all in this together. And for that, I am grateful. 
D.

Ice Cream

I feel lonely tonight. I am not alone, I have my girls. I take them for ice cream after a week of school accomplished. Me as their teacher, them as my students. I am proud. I think an ice cream will be the reward, a Friday night treat. We pull our car up, we look inside the ice cream shop, the bright lights and the the glass cases with the tubs full of different colors calling to us, we start gearing up with gloves, masks and I think… how is this becoming so normal? If we were to walk in the shop without gloves and a mask we would be so in the wrong! Then I think “How is ice cream non essential anyway?” I start to spiral and then I look at my kids ands I realize that I am just glad my kids are accepting of these conditions. That they are becoming routine rather than rebelling against it. How do they have it so together during this time of corona virus? All I can say is as long as they’re not losing their shit I have no right to either! “The kids are all right?” “Yes” “The kids are Alright! And if they are, then I have to be as well.” As we are walking in, two girls are just leaving the shop. They are in their 20s and I don’t want them to leave. Their presence would make me feel more Friday vibes. now it’s just us, and a girl who works here. My girls order ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. I tell them how proud I am of them for being so great with school all week again I keep thinking “how is this all normal”? as a turn to pay the cashier and she too is in masks and gloves.  I say to her “wow crazy world huh” and she looks at me, and our eyes are only form of communication. She nods her head in agreement “Yeah” she says with a heavy sigh. I want to tell her that I feel alone. I want to tell her that I have to run home to write, because my laptop is the only person I can talk to right now. I get home and my friend Vanessa has dropped olive oil from her vineyard and a 12 pack of toilet paper. A sign of life. And the perfect care package in today’s world. 

Most Embarrassing Moment Ever

I can barely see through the tears as I wrote this. I don’t even know what else to do but write. Screw the schedule I have to get this out… 

So I'm on a Zoom conference with one of the worlds largest businesses. I am trying to do this important meeting with about 20 people! Maybe more. This is such a crucial moment. A make or break one. An opportunity that could be a game changer, and much more, it's an opportunity to help people. It’s for a giveaway program. We have this big pitch for them that we have written. There have been documents. I have made videos speaking to these people about the concept of our integration potentials! This conference was the moment that months of work was teed up for. The big Zoom call… 

So start it, and I'm pitching and trying to be eloquent and personal and thoughtful and just sell this whole idea that is actually a truly philanthropic endeavor. So it feels even more high stakes, because its about giveaways!!! I'm telling everyone how much it means to give on the show and make people days-weeks months- and as I am conducting this symphony and giving it my very very very best… my daughter Frankie runs in the room, screaming and crying, and yells in front of everyone on the meeting … “Olive just peed on the rug!!!!!!!” Whether Frankie is lying or not, doesn’t even matter at this point. She is hysterical. It’s loud and messy and uncomfortable and I just die! Worse. I sink. Lower than the Earth’s Crust. I want to crawl in the deepest hole… and as I turn my neck to reface the 20 faces on the zoom, I just smile. Uncomfortable laughter starts to come out. Now Frankie is screaming even louder. It’s bloody. It’s bad. Like “go deal with it” bad…so I excuse myself to take her out of the room. I turn the corner to the tv room where my sister girls are and I start promising them things if they will just keep it together for 5 minutes and then I think in my head “screw that! I cant reward bad behavior, that is our big rule” the girls even repeat it back to me! It’s our family mantra! “Bad behavior does not get rewarded”. So even though I am so mortified, I am just asking them to please just give me 5 minutes of quiet.

I slither sheepishly back into the room where the Zoom Room is, and the screams and fighting start again between Olive and Frankie. It’s shrill and awful and I see these people staring back at me… and I can feel tears coming… Oh my god NO! I try so hard to hold it in. Picture a cowboy riding a horse in the wild west and the horse is crazy ands won’t stop galloping. The cowboy pulls at the reins to stop him yelling “Whoa Whoa Whoa” yanking at the bit. Well that is me with my tears. I'm trying so hard to keep it together. So of course, I then over compensate by saying “Well this is real life and I am sorry but life is messy” I take a beat and no one says anything. My tears are now welling again, and i’m back up to that cowboy on the out of control horse. Except now the cowboy sees a huge cliff, a chasm, a death fall up ahead! The horse keeping running towards it, and my tears just start falling down my cheeks. No one will talk. No air is filled. The horse goes careening over the mountain and the silence on the other end causes my damn to break… and I just start crying. I am so embarrassed about this whole thing. This big important moment that means so much to me is just a huge disaster. 

I once again try to fill the silence and say “Well you know laughing and crying are a lot alike…twins…, so hopefully this can become really funny really fast?!” Nothing again but silence. Do they hate me? Are they sad for me and don’t know what to say? Are they writing me off as any person they will ever want to work with? I keep talking, and I don’t even know what I am saying but Frankie runs back into the room totally apoplectic, and now I don’t even know what to do. I explain I am here alone at this moment , and I usher her out of the room again. I am gone for a while and I come back, and yep, everyone is still there. I try desperately to pick up where I left off which is ironic because I am spiraling so hard I don’t know where I was or where I'm going and I am pretty sure this whole group is silent because they are watching a one woman show, where the woman, me, becomes unhinged! And then in my head “ I say No! No friggen way am I going down like this” I start to speak with peace and articulation once again. I am the cowboy who just fell off a cliff but I am, getting back up! Dusting myself off. I’m battered and bruised and feeling as naked as it gets, but screw it! ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER” I finish my big diatribe. An oral presentation from the crazy lady who cant control her kids and who just burst into tears… “Yes! come do business with me, its going to be great” I now resort to feeling like a gross old shady car salesman who might as well say “Trust me!” as if I try to convince them. 

Well. I don’t know if I will ever know what they were thinking? It was a situation that left them a bit dumbfounded. The reason for this entire high stakes zoom was not for these people to have to make my messy life OK for me. They are not therapists. This zoom was not scheduled so they could make me feel like I’m doing a good job at anything! It was actually to convince them I was a good fit for them in business, and I'm going to guess I didn't do that? We shall see. Maybe, as shocking and awkward as that was, maybe someone feels better about their own life today and hey, that’s a win! Maybe I won’t loose this account. Maybe I will. The thing is we don’t really always know what people are thinking and feeling. Funny enough a lot of us feel the same way. Vulnerable. It’s just so unimaginable that anyone could ever feel like you, when you're going down the well. But I promise, you won’t find yourself alone down there. We have all been there. 

I am going to have to pull myself together and go back to math with my daughter. I have a story for the blog now at least, and that may be about it. Now, ironically, the house is as quiet as can be. Not a stir. Not a mouse. You could hear a pin drop… 

An hour later, my partner Scott wrote me an email telling me it was going to be ok. He got emotional as he was writing saying that this is such a hard time right now for everyone. Everyone is unchartered water and having to take this meeting from home wasn’t anyone’s plan on the whole Zoom, and it's true, everyone was doing this from home. None of what is happening in our world was anyone’s plan.

The thing is, as a mom of two girls, when you give birth you move into a new town called “Guilt City”. You build a home there, and you stay there. I am assuming for the rest of my life as I care about my kids first and first period. Normally if I was at work, I would feel guilty that I was away from my kids. Now I feel guilty that my kids are being disruptive, and let’s face it…. this whole  episode was a defcon five in embarrassing. Olive will be mortified one day when she reads this. But as of today as she is clearly too young to even understand, hence the bad behavior. And again, I don’t even know if Frankie was lying to get her sister in trouble. But jeez.

When you are caught with badly behaving child, I assume that the person who catches that moment, also assumes that is the whole picture. The picture is I am a bad mom with out of control kids. This is not my ego talking, I pray. It’s that so many people, when your child is having a meltdown just don’t know how to act. And they are not at fault. It’s an extremely personal moment that happens to be on display and the fear is that you are being judged. And that is a hard feeling. You can apply it to anything in life. When you are being judged…it is hard. The funny thing is, we don’t really know what is going on in peoples minds. We jump to conclusion about what people are thinking and yet I want to ask myself is it my own inner voice I am hearing. My own judgement of what this actually looks like? Is it ego? Is there something more wrong here? Is there actually a problem and now I cant’ turn away from it? Am I a bad mom? Why do I hate myself so much aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!! And there I go down the old rabbit hole, beating myself up all the way down down down. 

When my kids are with me and there is no one around, I am not holding myself accountable because I do actually see the whole picture. My kids are awesome and I am trying my very best, and there is so much love. We all work so hard on manors and school and friendships and behavior and life lessons and healthy food. Then we also scream sometimes and they eat Cheetos and they fight like sisters and I want to vomit when I think I am supposed to make a life lesson out of every second of the gosh darn day. So I rebel and give us all a break. We rot on the couch and watch movies. Sometimes quality ones sometimes junk. It’s all a balance. A see saw going up and down. One minute I fell like I got this! The next, well you know…

Life is hard. Beautiful. Complex. Worth fighting for and truly a gift every moment. Yet it can never feel like every moment makes sense! That is not the meaning of life. Take the wins and run with them. You’ll get kicked down soon enough and the question is…can I laugh at myself? Fix what’s broken? Am I grateful for everyone and everything I have? 

Later that day, I was gearing up to play outside with my girls on the lawn. Forcing broccoli on them, and trying my best. I had a heavy heart. I just did. I was writing in my head and trying to make sense of not all, and then I opened my email…

Scott said they feel like the company have a good understanding of what our project will be in terms of content, structure and priorities.  He also said we did a great job illustrating integration possibilities, the components, structure etc. He said the email the sent read “We feel she is genuine and authentic.  They are also confident she has sincere passion for the brand and would not disappoint them.  The situation with the girls was so relatable.”  One of the woman on the zoom had her two kids crawling all over her, and another mom had to mute her line to keep the volume at her house from distracting the meeting. “I'm sure Drew didn't feel this way because no working mom could, but they thought it was hilarious.” In the end, the whole thing was just endearing and lovely. "It’s pretty poignant, though, if you ask me….Drew’s just as subject to the strains of living the COVID life as any of us – especially people with little kids at home."

I started crying happy tears as I read it. The entire ending to my story, no matter what happens on the business end, the story is that people were kind. Empathetic. Saw the humor. And most importantly, they reached out to help me not feel so alone. WE are all in this boat right now together. I wish they could know how much it meant to me. Maybe one day if we meet in person, we can laugh with each other about life! 

And for that evening, thanks to this amazing group of people, I will be pulling out of guilt city, and taking a nice care free drive. Grateful for everyone an everything I have…

Fanny Pack Needs to Be Tightened…

Its gonna be a good day.

Olive Becomes a Photographer

I am always trying to find a way in which two make life a little more beautiful for women. On our face and above the neck, so that we feel our best (THE ONLY WAY TO LOOK OUR BEST IS TO FEEL OUR BEST) I suppose you could fake it here ands there, and there are moments, when we must carry on, with one foot in front of the other no matter how we feel. But I love the idea that we build our selves up, so that we can go out into the world and do what it takes to earn the ability to go to work, or to make a home, or to have a family. I also love the romance of the time in life where we are going out to find “the one” to share in all those goals and dreams or maybe you are just doing it just for yourself, which I am such an advocate of. However you can motivate the romance of life, well that’s the key! 

So the Sunday times UK asked me to do a cover story for them to promote Flower Beauty and Eyewear. I asked if I could write the piece, as tone is everything to me. But then they asked if they sent a bag of clothes and some cameras, could I also shoot it? Then I thought,. instead of a bunch of a selfies, what if I made this a mother daughter project? I looked around at the surrounding of where we were. Things were fighting their way to come out of winter, and it seemed to me like the perfect backdrop for this photoshoot. 

In nature, things have to go into hibernation. They have to become a totally different form, and then, miraculously, they come back to life. Rebirth! and that became my inspiration  They sent me a bag of disposable cameras, color and black and white, and a bunch of Polaroid film (talk about coming back to life!!!! Polaroid and Film! Yaaaas!!!!!) I also asked if I could write it, because I am extremely sensitive in my wording of everything at the moment. Things change from day to day and what was funny yesterday, might be not appropriate today. I want to come at this with a complete respect to what people are going through right now. I also hope to bring a little escape and hope, as doing this piece did for me. I went from feeling like “I can’t figure out how to do this right now”, to “you know what, I cannot think of a more beautiful activity for me and my daughter”… and with that, I asked my almost 8 year old Olive to join me. The dialogue went like this… 

ME: Olive will you take pictures for the photoshoot. Its for a magazine people work for years to shoot for! 

OLIVE: Why are you asking me to shoot you mom? And who normally shoots you? 

ME: A photographer. But right now, the world is in a crazy place. Everything is an opportunity to do things differently! So what do you say? Do you want to be my photographer? 

OLIVE:I’m honored to be your photographer. I like taking pictures, so thank you. 

ME: Do you promise not to shoot me from below? 

OLIVE: Yes. And then you won’t look like you have a very big chin 

ME: Oh no, I’m worried about looking like I have NO chin! 

And so we were off (with the help of Christy Doramus, my social media partner in crime, who happened to be out where we were, and kept her distance, but gosh we were all so excited for this assignment) 

The first day we went to the beach at sunset. Talk about the lighting of the Gods! It's like having a million candles all around you and it’s why filmmakers wait all day for “Golden-hour”. We brought a trunk full of clothes that the magazine sent. I changed right there on the chilly sand, and looked to see if anyone was around, but no! The world is very quiet right now, and you can feel it! One minute it’s haunting and the next minute you feel like the whole world is a playground. And for me and olive, it is just that. Our shoot is about to commence! Olive pulled out the cardboard boxes made by ILFORD and KODAK!

 

OLIVE: We’re shooting on these cameras?

ME: Yes they want to shoot it on film God bless them !!!

So we began. Olive has an eye. She has style. That very morning she had found my black eyeliner and drew all over her face in the coolest formation. Like alternative rock star cool. Purposeful, the way if a pop star did it, other girls would emulate it with a stamp of iconic identification! She gets it. She alters clothes on a daily basis with scissors (I’ve got my own Little Edie!) and she safety pins and draws on herself. Her hands are always fun of some type of colorful residue… which brings me to her hair. Olive always has different colored hair. She lives to change it and the bluer to pinker the better, as if there wasn’t a pigment that existed that is rich enough in depth. When she plays Billie Eilish music and looks the way she does, she is comfortable. I in no way encouraged or influenced this. THIS is who she is! (ps I am in love with Billie Eilish so right on! and did you know she ands her brother, Finneas, made their album in their house? It could be a new frontier they are leading. A new way of doing things)

Back on the beach, at times I would tell Olive to come closer or crop within the frame, but for the most part she knew what she wanted. She would say RUN ACROSS ME! or LOOK BACK! I would go for the sultry look and she would just say, dry, SMILE! as if she wasn’t into my posing and wanted something more optimistic. She also paid very close attention to the styling. She insisted I put on heels. 

ME: It’s sand, I'm not going to be able to

OLIVE: You just have to try. Heels will look great here

ME: I can’t! 

OLIVE: TRY!

So I did, but decided to sit and hold my legs up, very Varga Girl, only to realize that my legs were unshaven. I quickly pulled my dress down and then it looked liked shoes were popping out of fabric with no legs. Gosh darn shoes! Ever since I had my two daughter and my feet grew three shoes sizes, and the weren’t back does two sizes, leaving me unable to access my old Carrie Bradshaw life. That said, is there anything more powerful than heels and a statement lip? It will bring me back to a rebirth in seconds. 

The next day, we went around the neighborhood catching moments of the evolution of the nature around us. it was a lot of bare trees and sprouting flowers. I thought it was a good juxtaposition to the angelic shoot the day before at the ocean. I put on black lipstick in honor of Olive, I put on a slick long black patten leather trench and threw myself into a pile of dead branches. I also looked at the trees above me that were fighting to grow leaves, and asked Olive to shoot up at me. She looked at me

OLIVE: You said never to do that

ME: I know but I think it will look cool

Let's just say the trees looked cool. I looked like a saggy hanging old fart. This was a grey day and lacking the gorgeous lighting. Let’s also say there is a reason a lot goes into a photo shoot. However, the shoot must go on! I wasn’t feeling as confident when saw the polaroids. But it was certainly telling a story.  And it was so economical. Make up? 10 minutes. Hair? Zero minutes. Shoot time? Well two days and multiple looks and locations, but, it made me think. On the one hand, I loved how easy this was. We got to save on time and money. Less of everything. Which I believe the world is clearly screaming for. In many ways I hope this teaches us all a beautiful lesson. LESS. We need to do things with less money. Less time. Less fuel. Less distance travelled for work (NOT holiday travel. That must continue). We must save time. We must save energy in every form. How inventive can we get? What if fashion and beauty and shipping and work travel and runways and gatherings could shift? Not end, but become truly more provocative and conservative about how we all create and be creative. We should not  go back to business as usual. A rebirth on the approach we take for everything. I want us to come out of this never more celebratory and expressive. But I hope that comes with a conscience inventiveness. (I should ask Stella McCartney how? She is a beacon and has been for as long as I can remember.) And I want to ask that of magazines and fashion houses and retailers and factories. I promise that I will come out of this a more thoughtful person. But I will still want us to make the world a beautiful artistic place. What humans create move me to no end. It is a source of inspiration that truly keeps all my fires burning. And here in this shoot, Olive and I are trying our best with our very paired down supplies. She is also getting tired and grumpy. I may be working with the worlds smallest and moodiest of photographers. I am lying here in a pile of bright yellow daffodils that have just sprung. Even though Olive ands I are starting to argue, I cant help but love that things all around me are coming to life with color and glory. If humans create great things, well nature might out do us all. And here in the soil, we are putting woman and earth together, in a jean jacket from the latest collection of course!

I have always loved fashion, but I loved it in accordance with photography. I lined the wall of my rooms growing up with Helmut Newton and Revlon’s “The most beautiful girl in the world” campaigns. Old “Interview” magazine covers and “The Manipulator” (a huge old school black and white art mag) because when it came to art the bigger the better. It was like making my own wallpaper that were created for us to learn not only how clothes could be put together, but come to life with lighting, styling, cropping, and the model in them. I loved the make up and hair as much as the clothes. I loved the total package of creating characters. When it came to my personal style icons, I always loved the chameleons. Talk about rebirth? Once they were done with the invention of their latest look, it was dead and on to the next life! Bowie- GaGa- Fonda-Streisand- because they go for it. you fall in love with their new look, and then It’s gone and we wait for who they will show up as next?

I have myself experimented with every hair color and style. I would put eyeshadow to my temples at my tenth birthday party. Fashion for me wasn’t about expensive clothes and looking put together. It was about HOW I put it together. I wasn’t ever the classic girl. its sadly didn’t suit me. But mixing and matching and vintage put with labels. Or pattern on pattern on pattern. Kicks with pajamas pants from a local chinatown with a Dries van Notten sweater with white eyeliner across my face and a shiny wet maroon lip with a father in my hair! 

Although life as a mom and in my mid forties, I now have my hair color I like that is drama free and more natural. It takes 30 minutes to do the base of grays that only barely covers them, so they can actually function as light grabbing follicles as it grows out (yes your grays can double as highlights with the right tint!) I use flower beauty when I need to step it up in a minimal or maximum way. Our make up is so carefully crafted  and that makes me so proud! Because I have studied beauty my whole life!  I don't feel about make up formulas the way I do about fashion. With fashion I will be wacky, but when it comes to how that lipstick functions? I am meticulous about the formulation. It should not clump, or feather, or run, or coagulate in the corners. The pigment should be able to suit any age, skin type and hair color! And until it does, I will not give up! Let me have your back ladies, so that you can be worry free at price that doesn’t break you. My whole life has been an “All ages party and everyone is invited” The same applies for economics! 

So when we all come out of our rebirths here, in this moment that will be very defining, when we come out of this winter, how will we express ourselves? I may have to safety pin a flower on myself everyday this year, to remind myself everyday to think different. Maybe we could all put a little piece of nature into our wardrobe. Think of it as the new pocket square! Let's take a thoughtful approach to what style means! Let's make it our own, and let's go out there and show em what we’ve got. Eye candy? Yes please!!!!! 

I believe we will want to peacock and dress up. We will come out in full energy and more appreciative. More excited to be out in the world, and I say go for it. Use the good stuff that you save for special occasions just to go do a random errand. Strut as if the world was your own personal runway. I hope street style explodes with color and prints as if we were human billboards. When we emerge back into Society… LETS GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO LOOK AT! 

Kauai, 1993

Kauai, 1993. It was late at night when I landed from California, and rain was coming down in a torrential, impossible-to-see kind of way. I was 18 years old, too young to rent a car, so I had to have someone else rent it for me. When I finally got in and read the directions on my paper map, I saw that after 30 miles of winding, unlit roads, I was supposed to find the address written on a pine tree. Okay, the entire island is covered in pine trees. There is even a beach called Pine Trees!

Why had I decided to do this to myself? Well, I had thought traveling alone would prove I could be independent. I have been coming to Hawaii most of my life, and I am so fond of it. The mere word Hawaii puts me in a trance. But none of the islands' poetry found me at this moment of panic. I took a deep breath, cranked the gearshift, and drove into the pitch-black night.

An hour later, between the rain and my tears I had zero visibility and was contemplating just pulling over and sleeping in the car until dawn. “No!” I screamed. “I can do this!” According to the map, my pine tree was approaching. I kept getting in and out of the car to check different trunks. I must have looked like Rambo—soaked and determined, with crazed eyes. Finally, I found it! I literally danced! I shouted like a caveman who had just invented fire! My map said to park the car and walk half a mile. I grabbed my suitcase (no wheels and a muddy path) and trekked through the forest, imagining all the terrifying things that could be coming up behind me. At the house I MacGyvered the lockbox and went inside, flipping on the lights as fast as I could. On the kitchen counter was a giant avocado, a size you can only find on these precious islands, and next to it was a note that read, “Welcome home.” I smiled.

I have been an independent traveler ever since, seeing places around the world without fear. So go ahead and get lost. It's the only way we can find ourselves.

This article appeared in the April 2020 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.

She Loves Me????

What If one day, you had been married for many years, and your wife comes home and tells you she is unhappy. That it had been a long time since she was happy. She is thinking about leaving…

You don’t go back to  business as usual. Your whole life just changed. You are shaken to the core. This news haunts you everywhere you go. You are uncertain. This has completely invalidated your reality. There were signs of unhappiness, but it was easier to make nice and get through the day. Now things will never be the same. It’s out there and can never be put back in the bottle. 

You walk through the days contemplating your options… do you fight for her? Restore your partnership? Is it too late? Were you ever really that happy? Has she made it all about her and you are forced to ask yourself if you actually could live without her after all? Maybe you were not as happy as you thought you were? Maybe life without would be better? Wait. No! You can fix this. You can romance her. Put in the work. You can cultivate the garden of your love. Maybe you took her for granted? Don’t take the easy way out! Make every day count! This love is not dead and an EKG is needed to bring it back to life, maybe even stronger than it was. Your history is the strength you need and not a weight holding anyone back from the energy you need to save this. This is worth fighting for! It wont be easy but what is… Run to her! Run like the end of a movie when you realize you can’t live without her! A montage plays, as you run to her, playing out images of the past when you were happy. Now you run even faster, and as you finally get to her, you promise things will never be the same! That you are here. You hear her! And you tell her that from now on things will be different.  Your wife’s name is Mother Earth. And she is worth it! You will live out your days knowing you have to work at it. She is not a sure thing. But if you take care of her, she will love you back. And you can live realistically Ever After.

I Believe in Pasta Water

I believe in pasta water 

I love… 
Honey 
Cumin 
Saffron 
cracked black pepper

I hate …
Truffle 
Goats cheese 
Lamb 

I love cookbooks 
I collect cookbooks 
I love eating and reading cookbooks 
I love ordering cookbooks 
I love shopping for cookbooks
My cookbooks have come from one to another home with me 
I’ve learned to dog ear the pages instead of post it’s sticking out everywhere 
I can recognize a cookbook where ever I go 
I also think every cookbook has ONE recipe that will change your life! 

I love creamy pasta 
I love making soups 
I am a one pot girl 
Multi tasking/I’m a bit screwed

I can’t cook for large groups 
I’m a personal chef 
I like to cook for myself without judgment 
 Why does so many recipe’s have to be for 4 to 6 
Solo by Anita lo helps

That said my home IS A TEST KITCHEN 
we are ALWAYS cooking. Pilar Valdez and I are always deconstructing food and figuring out new ways to make things in healthy ways. 
But we also love the classics and our mission is to have two options, the most decadent one and the most conscious dish as well. 

for those lucky to have food…
I have heard comfort food is through the roof. 
everyone is trying to sooth


food…
I think of chefs as rock stars 
I geek out 
And the thing that has come out of this unprecedented time is that people in food banks are super hero’s
They deserve all  the support and the cheers and the donations and the attention 

That said... 
next in line for superhero 
chefs and grocery chains and food delivery! 
I love that our hero’s are them! 
The people providing food on the front line 

And that one thing people can feel somewhat safe about is food itself
That is ok and you won’t get hurt from it. 
but it is a luxury 
so many people still need it. 
that is why we must support food banks
and treat grocers and chefs and delivery people with such gratitude 
and recognition 
they should wear capes

the next time you see one, remember they are superhero’s 
let us never not treat them as anything else 

I love food
I appreciate food
I don’t take it for granted

and I will say
that anytime I am in need of comfort
I turn to 
kraft macaroni and cheese 
DELUX 
not powder 
with cracked black pepper 
and dumb and dumber 

this will always make me happy 

Angels

At the very beginning of the Corona Virus outbreak, something happened. I was driving down the road with my kids, we had just gone to the bicycle shop and I bought in them brand new bikes as they had outgrown their old ones. Frankies was now too small. I also backed over Olive’s bike in my car that morning, mangling it beyond repair. 

It was just another day of this quiet new normal time we’re all spending with our families and as I drove down the road all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. I thought “oh my God I am dying of the Coronavirus I can’t breathe. I got dizzy. i  thought “it starts in the lungs” so I pulled the car over and then I got out and walked around. My vision went completely blurred and the more I thought about the scenarios, my throat closed up. I couldn’t swallow. In this moment nothing in me could get to my breath. I couldn’t catch it. It was water running through my hands, and then I started talking to myself “there’s a graveyard I’ve seen before before” a marker of the familiar. Then my eyes saw a man walking his white dog, and I said out-loud  “ I see the man and his dog, I’m walking on grass I see bicycles” I would tell me myself about logical observations all while the dizziness and the blurriness and the short of breath-ness got  increasingly worse. 

I sent myself back in the car and I thought if I just headed home …I know the route it’s like second nature. I got back in the car. I kept driving and not being able to breathe and I didn’t want to endanger my daughters, so I pulled over again on a different road and I walked up and to a field of bushes and brown leaves and then I asked “what I f I die right here on the side of the road in a big brown pile of leaves?” I just thought “I can’t die I have daughters to take care of but maybe I need to go to the hospital”  “A hospital is a safe place” and then I started thinking about the hospitals right now being overrun with Coronavirus. I not only didn’t want to bother anyone if I wasn’t really dying as there were far more important cases. And all the news was saying don’t got to the hospital… And that was it. I went into a deeper panic attack than I was having before. Now I was certain I couldn’t catch my breath at all now ands was gasping. I started to flag down cars for help. All the sudden there were no cars in the road for about two minutes and that made me even more scared. I finally flagged and down a woman in a blue Land Rover and she was very angry  and started yelling at me. I wanted to plead with her but the more I kept waving my arms, the more she kept yelling at me. and then  she peeled out and kept driving until her car was smaller and smaller. I have to take care of my girls. Olive and Frankie need me. I was almost chocking at the point. 

just then, I saw a white truck pull up and over. it had 2 adults ands one kid. A women got out and walked over to me. I struggled but I managed to say “Hi I’m mother of two girls and I’m having a panic attack so I don’t want to drive them… I’m struggling right now can you help me…” and these words weren’t easy to get out, and  she looked at me curiously (this is at the height of everyone nervous with what is happening) I mustered out a question with tears in my eyes… “Are you my angel?” she smiled and said”I don’t know but my name is Frankie” and the damn broke. I burst into tears. This woman has the same name as my daughter! She MUST be my angel. Through my tears I said “I believe in angels” 

She offered to drive my car while her friends in the truck followed. I trusted her. We drove in silence and then Olive said to her “thank God we found you because that other woman wasn’t cool. she just yelled at mom”  I said “yeah man she was dark energy. It turns out Frankie is a farmer “I build vegetable gardens” and right then and there, knowing she cultivates the earth I felt even more safe. She said “with everything that is going on, now is the best time to do some earthing. Earthing is where you work in the soil. shoes are optional”

When we got to our neighborhood, I asked for her contact so I could try repay one day.

After, the kids went in the house, happy as clams. I walked around my street trying to calm down. I was beginning to breathe more regularly. Or so I thought because at moments I would start to convulse tears and then I would laugh hysterically out of sheer nerves and the ridiculous nature of this episode. I always love when we laugh and cry at the sometime. It is possible to the two as twins. They are such similar creatures. It’s a seesaw between such comparable sounds and physical exertions. I also have the word BREATHE tattoo’d on my arm. I thought it was quite ironic in this moment. 

I then started walking through my house 

I also took a sedative 

This was one of the worst panic attacks. This was the heavyweight boxer champion of panic attacks. This was the Wonders of the World level of freak out. 

So, weeks later, I am now building a vegetable garden in our yard. And it’s in honor of all the earthing angels! Believe in angels… for they are on the ground and all around! 

Amazon Boxes Arrived!

Amazon packages arrived!!!!!! When was the last time, we as a society, got up and found a package and felt like it it was Christmas morning? 

I am guilty myself of being like, where in the F#&K! is that thing I ordered! I am just straight up peeved when it hasn’t arrived yet. Prime my bottom I think, grunting “its been three days” under my breath! Well, nothing like a plague to cool us all out! How spoiled I was. How impulsive I was. Now when I order, I know it will take days. I am patient and grateful. I have realized that I got too comfortable with everything at my fingertips. And this compulsive-impulsive-impatient-expectant-way of life is one to run away from and evolve away from and make a positive shift. From consumer to industry, we should have the client know that everyone is working miracles! I should be happy with that I get when I get it!

When I woke up and looked out the front door and saw two brown boxes stacked on top of each other, I marveled in awe that they made it rather than indigent that they took time to get here. Never again. The new normal is going to make me a better person. For these things I am thankful. I see a see the world wide reset in side myself. How about l just take step back in my compulsive and entitled ways, and get excited about packages taking days and not a day. I can live with that. And to think there might be a Lego set inside this box for Frankie, and a tie dye kit that Olive can destroy the house with… it might be waiting outside our door??????? Can someone say best day ever!!!!!!!

And, god forbid its a cleaning supply, well then, Christmas really did came early. I can scrub another layer of my epidermis off in the hand washing in the corona virus manual of life. PS I am too terrified to order toilet paper for fear of Amazon telling me I am truly shit out of luck. Maybe that’s where the joke comes from? 

Slowing Down to the Speed of Life

These lists are killing me. The whole get dressed. Do this at 9 am. I’m just not there yet. I hope I will get there, but I’m just not. I am too trying to get things to break up the day for my kids. Truthfully I don't know if I am excelling. I am surviving. Sometimes I go on social media, and I’m like guess what? I am not an end of the world expert, and I feel like a failure at all of these suggestions. My kids are not hitting things on a list at certain times. The first two days of the quarantine, I survived on a diet of Tylenol, salmon, and NyQuil. I mean what list is that on? I’ll tel you what 9am looks like? Me, grateful that my kids have not figured out that this is “Lord of the flies” and that they are not running around our yard with my head on a stick!  

Then, I think of this book I read when I was a teenager, it was called “Slowing down to the speed of life”. In someways, I am proud of just that. I am proud my kids are not paralyzed with fear in the corner, or have my head on a stick. I am proud we get outside. I am proud there is food on the table. Turkey sandwiches every single day for lunch. And they are not questioning it? Amazing. They will soon. Kids question everything especially food.

 I take them on drives and give them a lesson in music. Van Morrison one day, Janis Joplin the next. then my daughter Olive, who’s nickname is “DJ bear bear”, grabs the phone and blasts Billie Eilish, and I’m like yeah!!!!!! I am so in love with Billie! Hey, did you know billie and her brother recorded their whole album, (which happens to be like the most important album in years, they recored its in their house?! very corona virus savvy! and a great example of how we can do things differently)

I love that the world is going to be forced to see that air quality is better and dolphins are now cruising the Venice canals again fr the first time in ?????? and I love Venice! it is simply the best. One of my very favorite places. It’s  a marvel and yet I see it screaming for change. When I went there when I was a kid it was not thriving either. So I got conditioned into thinking Venice is sick environmentally. But its not. its us. but, we could do things a different way. we could not pull cruise ships into the harbor, and we could limit the way people travel into it. we could monitor how it all functions. and we could do this with so many things!!!!!!! Venice has become my beacon of change. It’s a symbol for me. As is the billie eilish album. And slowing down to the speed of life. And turkey sandwiches for lunch. And not trying to “slay the day”. On my list today is not to freak out. If I can do that, well, then I check that simple little box. Just live. It doesn’t have to look a certain way. It doesn’t have to function by the hour. It just has to be slow and patient. Maybe we will ride our bikes. Take a drive. Play music. Maybe I will try to set up Olive with some paints on the lawn, like she is Van Gogh. At the end of the day, I will see what we did, and that will be our list. We will have checked it. We won’t tell anyone or prescribe what the day should be for you. You get to do that for yourself and without judgment from us. 

My Usual Morning Routine Was…

My usual morning routine was to wake up to the alarm and drag my alterna-girl Olive out of bed at 640 am, and get her ready for the bus. Turn on the kitchen TV. Then her sister Frankie would usually follow suit, as If she could smell the commotion. Frankie likes to yell at me for starting the day. I get an early morning gripe fest from this little blonde chicken. “why did you get out of bed?????” and I say “because I had to get your sister up” and she looks at me angry and indignant. Frankie doesn’t want to leave her nest in the mornings, as she is a cozy little bug. Olive sits there at the tiny kitchen island looking like central casting from some billie eilish video, agro and cool. I run around, the bus is coming, and the time melts like a Salvador Dali clock. I even had to show the girls a painting of his with the clocks falling over like liquid on the branches of trees in the famous artwork, so they could understand what visual and feeling was in my body every morning. then I get olive on the bus, and kiss her ands tell her I love her. Some mornings are easier than others. Some mornings are hell. Some smooth. Some just machine like routine. But wow do I miss them now. We are on spring break anyway, so the school thing hasn’t really hit yet, but as a parent, when they said schools are closed due to the virus, well, that is when I got really depressed. 

I didn’t go to school myself. I am completely self taught. I would go to schools when I was a kid that were basically totally lenient about me being in and out because of filming. I started working when I was 11 months old. My first commercial was a Gainsburger puppy chow commercial. When my single mom who was a waitress saw another form of income rolling in, she put me to work! I have been paying rent since then. I guess I’m self made too? Either way, I love the life I had/ have, so I don’t have baggage about it. I had some serious pitfalls and mistakes and crazy and insane things happened, but since I wouldn’t trade it for anything, I will spare us all from the boo hoo. I can’t tell you how much I love not being held back by the shit that happened. It was another life. A life that made me who I am today. If it was different, I simply would not be who I am. I have made peace with all of it, and maybe that took time when was younger, but I am the type of person who doesn’t allow a ton of excuses or be held back by what my experience was. Make it your strength. Make it your super power. I can pay rent!!!! I have been able to since 1975! I didn’t go to school! But that may be my strength and I will explain why…

I was always in and out of schools, I did the required three hours a day of tutoring on film sets, and when the teachers I worked with would turn the work back into the burner schools my mom would register me in, I tended to get an F grade for anything I did well on. The schools did not trust that I really could name every capital in the world. I must have cheated. I didn’t! I loved remembering capitals. I had a strong memory, and I see that skill in my daughter Olive, and I was interested in the subject of capitals. I loved the names. Tallahassee! Who doesn’t want to say that out loud and proud! I remember getting a fail grade on that (20 years later I would land in Tallahassee, and give the finger up too the sky! True story!) Name every bone in the human body test, the patella and  clavicle…FAIL. When I got constantly thwarted, it just made more rebellious. Ok I already have a huge rebel living inside of me. Seriously, it’s bad. The fires get stoked easily. I can often feel the waters rising inside at times, and no matter how optimistic I am, well, I also have this tiny spitfire that loves to just unleash! I literally go HULK and the clothes starts to shred on my body as the green giant starts to rip through the scenery, and boom! I am totally going off and trying to figure out why I am trying to take someone down for telling me something I don’t want to hear! When  I find myself morphing into this form, I often wonder… is this because I didn’t go to school? 

Not only did I not go to school, but then my mom threw me in an institution when I was thirteen. Too much disco not enough day care! I went basically off the rails. Look, I was paying the rent, going out to clubs, not going to school, hearing I was getting older and heavier by 9, and going through puberty wasn’t suiting me. I wasn’t getting hired anymore. I was a fixture on the 80’s party scene, and let’s just say obviously that was going to just explode at some point! And it did. It was then my mom hauled me in the middle of the night to a lock down facility in Van Nuys California at 13 years old. If you wanna talk rebellion? Well, try a full blown psych ward to fan the flames of my personal Hulk. I went from access to everything and anything, to getting locked in a room if I acted out! of course, did that teach me anything? No! Hell no! HELL NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would act out and that would get me locked up again for the day to cool out. For a long time it most certainly did not cool me out. it made me so much angrier. I would get all the other crazy girls to conspire to start riots with me. I thought how can they take 10 girls down? We would outnumber them. I would circle the wagons and convince everyone, especially the girls with good insurance, that we would be in here forever, so screw it! I was living in my own personal Wendy O’ Williams movie! Reform School Girls here we come! I would get them all riled up! I was like a coach revving up my team! “do these people give a shit about you?”  they aloud scream back like a team in a locker room “NO!” I would rile them up by screaming “are we going to be forced to eat on trays forever?” NO!  does anyone hate their insurance that keeps us in here? “NO!” “Do we want to be locked up forever?” “NO!” “Then LETS GO!!!!!!!!!!!” We would run through the halls and tear shit up until they basically took us all down one by one. Our own little personal storming of the psych ward beach, and then, we just got picked off one by one. I would see my friends get tackled in my periphery, and with each girl going down, I realized we were just not only outnumbered, the counselors were just bigger, and we didn't stand a chance. As they buckled me into stretcher restraints, I was secretly pleased that we ruined the staffs morning, sabotaging the schedule. For that alone I as pleased. No tray today bitch! Some days I would tell them to take the tray and shove it up their ass. They would look at me like, fight it all you want, but the rules are the rules (cue the Hulk) and to this day if I see buffet or a tray I get the serious yucks. By the way, my insurance was Screen Actors Guild, and it turns out that is very good insurance, and although I am so grateful now for it, when I was thirteen, I could have killed every member of the guild for keeping me in this place for a year and a half. So many of my fellow rioters would get out in 30, 60, or 90 days, but thanks to SAG insurance, I remained. My counselors would get that look in their eye of “don't worry, act out all you want, cuz you ain't goin nowhere!” and it was true. And I knew it. If I was never getting out, then why would I ever behave? Well after 6 months, I kinda just started to give in a little. I realized no one was coming to save me, and this was most certainly not a movie, but my harsh reality. I started to see the light. I saw that other kids that were the “good behaviors” would get to go on “store walks” which was to go with a counselor to the local convenient store and get goodies. When you got nothing that is something! The “good kids” would also get to go out on “day passes” which is where an adult could take them and they could spend the day on the outside. It turned out that no one was there to take me, so the very counselors I had been messing with all these months, started taking me out. Just like that, I softened. 

When I saw the people I originally saw as the “warden” bad guys were actually kind and not the enemy, it changed me forever. Maybe first impressions would not be my only marker on anyone! Maybe my own stubborn attitude would have to make an adjustment, and I could see these people as friends and not just wanting to kill them? It was an aha moment for sure. Also, this was the parent and the lessons I clearly  needed a crash corse in, and so with months of time, I became the old shoe in this crazy old place. To this day I laugh when i see places that flaunt a beach like setting for 30 days to fix you. Rehabs for the fabulous? This place was so not that, but I think this military like setting with severe consequences, and never ending insurance, saved me. Instead of fighting, I started to fall in line. When I saw new crazy kids filling in now, I woulds look at the counselors with a knowing eye. The same counselors I gave a hard time to, who were now my friends who I appreciated and respected! I had a new found calmness, like we all knew these rookies where in a for a rude awakening! Ha! I felt like a wise old hen now. A fixture. A vet! After one and half years, my counselors got me a date in court to get emancipated. Once again, they were helping me. They were a state owned facility, they had that power, and my mom willingly agreed that for me to live on my own would be for the best. Hey, I already knew how to pay rent?!

We went to court, and the judge allowed me to become a legal adult right then and there. He saw our case and felt it was better for me to live on my own as well. He also said that now being a legal adult, 18, by the state, I no longer had to attend school either. The hulk was pleased. Screw school and all the teachers who didn’t bother with me me. Good! PS see ya! Wouldn’t want to be ya.

After a few months, it didn’t matter that I was 14 and washed up. Blacklisted. Parentless. Living on my own with no clue of how to really take care of myself, other than paying rent. I was paralyzed with fear!!!!! I was absolutely terrified that naming capitals and bones in the body may just not be enough. I was street smart. I was human behavior smart. I was travel and film, music smart. I could disco and I could work my ass off, but what did I know in my brain ? I had never gone to school! What if I never got hired again as an actress? I spiraled big time. Then I asked the scariest question of all…what if I couldn’t pay the rent????????????????

I went straight to the bookstore, and went to the isles, and it was then and there that I fell in love. I think it was truly my first love too. the spines of the books were hypnotic. I was not just some 14 year old has been in Hollywood, I could now discuss a work of literature! So I asked myself what would I start with? My mind immediately got drawn into the classics. What makes a classic? Why is it such? I had recently read Catcher the rye when I was about to be freed from my cage in the institution, and it was certainly a book everyone could discuss. I loved with all my heart so then and there I started my journey. I bought something way less fun that JD Salinger, and quickly realized I didn’t know any of the words, so I then went a bought a dictionary. I had to read this novel literally with the dictionary, it felt like every other word. I was struggling. I would NOT GIVE UP.  In my hulk like way, I would show all those teachers that I was actually doing the work and not lying about it like they thought. When I finished my book I felt like Rocky mounting Everest. Like I was in a cap and gown, still with my middle finger in the air, and screaming SUCK IT!!!!! I did it! I believe it was the greatest sense of accomplishment  I had ever known at that point, which was strange considering all I had seen already in life, but who cares. I was going to be smart. I was going to teach myself, and literature was my salvation. I would go back the book store to over and over be to be smart. As in, thank you miss may I have another with a dash of catholic reform school gratitude. 

So I did that for the next 20 years. I also started acting again , I created my own production company. Found and met my partner Nancy at 19, and we hit the books together.  We started our company Flower Films. and we started kind of like a school. We read everything, swore we would not party with the pretty people, and would become friends with literary agents ands writers. Nothing exists until it’s written. To this day, writing is the most sacred thing to me. Reading is my heaven. I often hope that if I don't go straight to hell, that my heaven would be a comfortable chair and a large room of books. I could just sit there for eternity and read. 

Now as I write this my children are going crazy. I don’t even know how i was able to write this much.  

But before I am ripped back into my reality of no school, or structure for the time being, a space we are all stuck in together, (I still always think of together as being spelled TO GET HER, a way I was able to self teach that spelling) together we are all in this boat. This all leads me back to why I got depressed when the schools closed, as if somehow not only was that the temporary, it ran deep for me. My daughters school is an institution that has shown me that we do not have to do to our kids what happened to ourselves. 

When I first went to the school my daughter was in, I was in awe. It was the same school that their dad had gone too and Aunty Jill, so it was a nice tradition. I loved it. I am ending five years there this year, and both my girls have gone there, three years each with a one year crossover. it is my safe space. it is wholesome. it is joy. and they helped me and guided me when I started looking for schools for Olive, it was like the exploration of my life!!!! MY KIDS WERE GOING TO GO TO SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!! I looked and looked. I was like goldilocks. This school felt a little fancy. This school felt a little progressive. This school felt too arty. And then… I found it. 

The school is single sex, an asset I couldn’t believe I would be into? Hulk into tradition? Ok that was surprising. It has uniforms. I love it! They could scrape all that bullshit out of their mind of what to wear. This would not only be the great space saver for bigger and better things, it was the great equalizer. It went all the way through til 12th grade. Good! I wanted olive to see the older girls in the hall so she could see where she was going rather than just looking at only kids her age. Also the accountability of “make it work” because you are here for the long run was so awesome to me! She can’t trash this place and leave it in her wake. She would know this was hers to own and see through! But it was the brand of girl power at this institution that I loved. It was a School that touts the saying “BRAVE NOT PERFECT”. Yes. Hell yes. That is something I can get behind. The girls are into sports and academics and some  have uni brows and it is more about being a truly capable girl. It is everything I wanted, not for myself but for her. This isn’t about me, it is Olive’s journey. But I’m not going to lie, I see the Hulk in her too. She is rebellious and yet sensible. She also like to hair dye pin and blue. I look with wide eyes as my daughter presents herself not far from things that look way too familiar, even though her life could not be more different than my own upbringing!!!! She is who she is.

No mater how hard I tried to do everything different, she is still her. Her life is still so different than mime ever was. It”s a consistent life. Bedtimes -bath -meals schools -friends -medical. She gets to be a kid. She has a very structured life, and it does not include studio 54. I love that her school is one that you cannot mess around. It’s a serious school with strict rules ands guidelines. I am proud to co parent with them, and I hold olive truly accountable with it. I explain that this school is something we have to make work. That there is no option. If I see her truly suffering I will make an adjustment of course. But she is thriving there. She is a bull and this school points her horns in the right direction. It is a way for both of us to play by the rules. I never had rules, and it’s probably why I hate them. I have even started to feel the Hulk coming on in a few parent teacher meetings and had to leave feeling terrible because I realized I probably acted less mature than the students themselves. Hey! I’m learning too! Sometimes I think they expect too much from everyone. Sometimes I want to tell them that all of this is not life or death. Sometimes, they just stoke the fires of my rebellion straight up! Then I realize that this school is one of the best assets I have going in my parenting arsenal, and I need to make it work. I want to graduate here as well. a proud mom who’s kids are not going down the paths I had to. Again, this is not about me, but I’m sure as hell going to give them the best shot I can. 

So I got very depressed when the schools closed. I get it. It’s the right thing I know it. Then they said I would have to run the online schooling?????? whhhhhhaaaaaaaaaat? I’m the one who pays the rent! I’m not a TEACHER!!!!!!! BUT HERE WE ALL ARE! and this is so difficult fro so many families for completely different reasons. I was an ambassador  to the UN school feeding division, I worked in Africa for many years and I have seen first hand how schools feed children. This is all so devastating. And although I want to see change come out of this time, I want school to reopen for so many people fro so many reasons.  this is just so hard on so many families. I cannot tell you the tremendous empathy I have for everyone in this boat.  I come from such an unorthodox background and childhood and this is a surprise to me that school is as important as it is. I have seen with my own eyes all over the world why school is so important. Education, meals and the structure is invaluable.

I know this is not permanent. I know that this is a scary time where we are forced to look at the alternative of everything. but I can only hope that kids are able to go back to schools soon. The amazing thing is, this will bring more attention to on line learning. I got mine from a dictionary and every book I could get my hands on. I’m actually a small tiny member of the new library being built at my kids school. I want to put books into kids hands regardless. Books are the thing that gave me my education. I am self taught. But wow did I grow up to love school. I await the day we get to go back. Learn. Rebel. And thrive. 

Lock me inside! Don’t worry, I cant take it. Being locked up???? No problem, I got this! But school?! Oh how I miss that community! Can’t wait for back to school! And I am proud to finally be in a life, a chapter like a book, I’m here! And I love school!!!!!! 

There is only one thing for me to do right now, and that is to write…

And thankfully, my friend Christene asked me to write a piece for her, so here goes…

I don’t know how to conduct myself on social media. Which is a place I usually feel very comfortable. I have found my way over the past decade, and felt like we all have an outlet to shine in all the ways we see fit. And yet right now, it is so hard to strike the right tone. I am tempted to go down an insane post-apocalyptic rabbit hole and just use this as an opportunity to shut down. Shut it all down. I had mentioned in one of my last posts on Instagram, that after I gave birth to both my daughters, it took me several months to muster the courage to embrace anything else. Not only did everything become trivial, but the insane rollercoaster of fight or flight to keep my babies alive! the emotional pitfalls of never having been in a higher stakes situation was the best analogy I could come up with for a “new normal” I had experienced, I realized that if I stared at my little ones any longer without some type of distraction, I was going to bring all of us into a very unhealthy dynamic. I’ve learned that love can take us all down as much as it can be the meaning of life.

But that was almost a week ago.

As many of us are about to revisit those days of post-baby house-bound total dizziness, a lot of our kids are older now. And we’ve learned that to love them is to help them grow up and find their own way in the world. We have spent years nurturing them with love, friends, skills, classes, and activities, (in some way) paralleling our own diverse lives where we are balancing it all. But now we are forced back into the old days of staring at each other with a strange feeling of “how did we do this before?” How did we stay at home all day and all night with the sole purpose of taking care of each other? Of course, many of you reading this might not have kids. For a variety of reasons, and I applaud you in otherhood. I am so happy for everyone’s life choices, but kids or no kids, I am cheering you on always. There is no question for me that life is win win and so to people without children, allow me to now write in a different way.

I am scared too. I don’t know what to say or think. I am taking cues from things written and videos and on TV. I am looking curious and cautious to what people are saying. I love that Shonda Rhimes tweet about how school teachers deserve all the money in the world. I am watching national TV at night and seeing late-night hosts do their show from their living rooms, which is wild and interesting. I am looking at The New Yorker cartoons that say “did I really need to drive across town for that meeting?” I am reading articles about how the Venice canals are healing for the first time. These are images and ideas that just need to be seen. I am thinking and wondering if we need to treat Venice like the Galapagos? The earth is healing as we retreat. And yet as a business owner myself, I am trying to come up with new language about how eCommerce can still be fulfilled and we can find new ways in which to work and live and consume. I am glued to the news of how every step is being discussed and executed at the government level. I am watching businesses close on Instagram with such heavy hearts. This is why I don’t know what to do on social media. And, yet I believe social media will also be one of our greatest tools to help each other. Take care of each other. Get money and direct attention to needs. Then I am seeing the Jack Kornfields teach meditations and wondering if this is the moment we look within rather than vegetating on phones and in content? I also just want to release the tension and laugh!!!! I am the biggest promoter of comedy, and yet I have the “too soon” feel. When things land a bit, maybe I will know how to be silly again, but for now, in a world that is evolving more every minute, I simply don’t know where to land either.

It’s true that everyone is affected by this. It is the great equalizer. And this is becoming a worldwide reset. The question that burns in my mind is this: If we are forced to live differently, can we be inspired to think differently? Is this where the workout mirror/streaming and zoom conferencing become the norm? Is this where we recognize what we do and don’t need? Is this where we go back to pioneering a healthier way of life where we might not be traveling so much? I can’t tell you how much I travel for meetings around the world. I would be willing to give that up for a better, cleaner world. What if global travel became more of a luxury? Because for many people it is. But I am sure we have abused the privilege due to how abundant our options are. But then, that starts to be inconsiderate of the entire travel industry, of which I don’t want to dismiss in any way, because I believe it might be impossible to be worldly without seeing the world, right? (I think my endgame in life is to work at a travel magazine…) I am self-taught, and the two ways I’ve learned is by reading and from travel—two things that have made me who I am. So, please don’t get mad at me for posing the question “less of everything.” Less movement. Less stress. We are literally being forced to be quiet right now. Forced inside. We all couldn’t have predicted we would see this in our lifetime. And, yet I can see the future. A future that exists for our kids—whether they’re our own kids or not.

I’ve always been the kind of person who hates soap boxes. Growing up in an industry like Hollywood, I too felt the sting of why should I listen to privileged people talking about others’ needs? Or why is this person using their platform to take others down? I march in the army of optimism, and I’ve always refused to condescend or speak out negatively. But there have been so many humans who have used their voices around the world and changed it for the better. Maybe it’s the tone? Maybe if it feels inspiring and personal instead of righteous? Is that the secret sauce for humans from anywhere and everywhere daring to speak up? After all, it’s always been humans that have inspired us. Therefore everyone has the potential to be someone who will change the world in big and small ways.

What are other people thinking right now? What inventions and ideas and new ways of doing things are being thought up in the face of this crisis? What will be the outcome? The innovations? If we all make it through this, and I know we will, I almost hope people don’t over indulge in the return to life. Life moving forward should be altered. Wouldn’t it be great to live differently? Think differently? Work differently?

I myself have put my shiny tech things down and picked up writing. My partner Nancy, she always told me, no matter what I was going through in life, I should write. Heartbreak? Write. Lost? Write. Need to communicate with someone in a deeper way? Write! How about the way we communicate with ourselves? I was so lost after giving birth the first time. I was bent so out of shape the first few days I thought I would die of fear. I couldn’t sleep or eat and I was becoming incapable of thinking straight. And a package came to my door from a dear friend. It was a journal with small daily spaces to fill. Not overwhelming. And so I started writing to my daughter. I would say in a few sentences what the day brought. I wrote in it every day for three years. I plan to give it to her when she is 18, ten years from now.

What if we all just started journaling a few sentences of this journey? I always talk about collective experiences. This is a time where everyone is in the same boat. Staying home. Living this wild and terrifying time of struggle in our new normal. Great art and community can come out of the most difficult times. Change comes from times like this. Change in perception and behavior. I invite us all to write a few sentences every day. And we will be able to look back when we are all older and see what this time actually was...is. But that is a small and personal idea. How we take care of each other in this moment obviously comes first. Humanity has never been more sought after and will never be more rewarded, but maybe we’re supposed to take care of everything and have this newfound humility and respect for our surroundings? This is a health crisis that includes everyone, as if to say the entire planet is involved. As if there is a new frontier and we can’t look back and ignore what is happening nor forget anytime soon the earth is healing itself, and maybe this is a sign that not only do we need to save our planet but we need to save ourselves? I think humans thrive the most when we can take care of each other. If there is a way to include ourselves without being selfish, and our planet without being political, just a nurturing and cultivating of our world and our lives that feels empowering and lasting. Humans don’t take things lying down. We are proactive and inventive. I cannot wait to see the good that comes out of this. Yes, I march in the army of optimism, and while we might be marching in place for a while, it’s ok if we fall apart and put ourselves back together. This will be ongoing. And this is what I have for today. I don’t know how I will feel tomorrow. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Maybe this whole thing I have written will seem beyond trivial. I am just writing with my heart and my hope. And maybe I will have even more words to illustrate life to my daughters one day.

By the way, we bought six baby chicks (talk about going back to the old ways). We’re gonna have eggs. I am going to kiss my kids. I’m going to pray for healthcare workers. I’m going to try not to burst into tears as my TV tells me things are getting worse. I am going to help my friend Kate with a way to donate money. I’m gonna look at the baby chickens and marvel at their cuteness. I’m going to do as much as I can today to stay hopeful knowing I am going to fall hard and have to dust myself off again. I am going to be grateful to all of those people who are not overthinking everything they say or do. I am going to feel insecure about sharing this. I’m going to wipe the tears that are streaming down my face right now and then freak out about touching my face. I’m going to lose hope. And then I am going to reread what I wrote and realize that I was optimistic and problem solving when I began to write. Because it’s there. It’s there to look back on. And since no one can travel the world right now, I will hold on to reading and writing. And then maybe a little escape viewing later. Thank God for all the creators who do help us get a little lost right now. Thank God for all those who help us get found, too.

I am finding my words. Wobbly one minute. Full of conviction the next. But I am daring to put this into words. And just for today, I am grateful. The way I hope to be. Grateful for everything I have gotten to do. Grateful for my daughters. Grateful for my laptop. Grateful to know when to turn off my news. Grateful to go and search for bits of wisdom rather than 24-hour doom cycles. I am going to look within and go find that place inside that feels strong. That problem-solves. That believes in the high road. That knows my place in the universe. The place where I believe that something wonderful will come out of this. The world wide reset. It will not be easy. But it’s in motion. And hopefully, in the best way possible, a world that will never be the same. But also hopefully, a world that will be new. That is what a reset is: it takes everything away, and we start over. Stronger and smarter. I will go back to my earlier sentence. I cannot wait to see what comes out of this. And as soon as I can, I will figure out how to get dye, because the girls want to tie-dye. And tonight the world will be full of zoom chats and quiet moments, too, as we go back into our own private worlds. I will look for that infallible hope I own, and harness it. Maybe even find the words to get back to where I was when I first started writing here.

- D