Ooh LaLa

Tonight I'll board a bus that takes me to a train that takes me to the BART that takes me to San Francisco. Tomorrow night I fly back to Los Angeles.

With each visit home my heart beats faster upon arrival, the magic of San Francisco comes into sharper focus and I dream about moving back. And yet, there are days like today, when the sun is shining bright and the smog is light and not a cloud is in sight and I wonder, are you trying to woo me LaLa? My love life continues to be complicated. Two cities, multiple personalities and no idea about anything other than the beauty of life. Every moment is a gift.

The cafe is quiet, the possibilities are endless, the next few weeks will determine the next few years of my life. Go back to school? Go back to San Francisco? Settle for a bit in LA? Or none of the above!? Will this lunar new year bring good fortune? Love? Art? A puppy??? The shrinkage of some bills... ?

Elliott Smith croons to me:

Drink up, baby, stay up all night
The things you could do, you won't but you might
The potential you'll be that you'll never see
The promises you'll only make
Drink up with me now and forget all about
The pressure of days, do what I say
And I'll make you okay and drive them away
The images stuck in your head
People you've been before that you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still
Drink up, baby, look at the stars
I'll kiss you again between the bars
Where I'm seeing you there with your hands in the air
Waiting to finally be caught
Drink up one more time and I'll make you mine
Keep you apart, deep in my heart
Separate from the rest, where I like you the best
And keep the things you forgot
The people you've been before that you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

Sit. Breathe. Sit. Breathe.

The day-to-day is good.

I don't save lives

but I put love into lattes

and give smiles to strangers

and send support to sisters and friends

and receive it in abundance.

The day-to-day is great.

Following my heart (and crazy whims) has always brought me to the exact place I need to be. When I arrive it's usually different than what I had expected but always surprisingly right. This week has been one of those times when things began effortlessly clicking into place. Letting go feels so amazing! I'm free!

Moving to a new place has given me a lot of perspective on my life and what I'm doing with it. Old desires are gently falling away like the skin of a snake and a new kind of clarity is emerging. It must be a "life-phase-thing" or "quarter-life-crisis" moment but I feel some major changes coming on and they are both surprising and yet make total sense to me.

I have finally realized that I'm an artist with no desire to climb any ladder or fit into any box or "type". I don't need to succeed by anyone else's terms to do what I do. I no longer feel the need to pursue acting as a career but rather to nurture all of my artistic tendencies as creative endeavors that require no compensation or recognition apart from that of my closest peers. As far as work and career goes I'm overwhelmed with the desire to help people in a more specific and immediate way and my interest in psychology, art and the human mind are leading me towards a slightly different path...

My womanly nesting desire is starting to bubble up but not in the way I thought it would. I don't want to nest with a guy and make babies or anything but for the first time ever I actually want to live alone. I want to settle somewhere for awhile, without the plan to move, and I think I have an idea of where that place is, but I'm going to meditate on it. I feel the want for a little tiny home and a plant and maybe a 3-legged old dog or something, but I finally feel like the most important thing to me is to be a contributing member of a community. A community is like a family and I want to be a part of one. It's just interesting to notice these thoughts and feelings because I've been searching for a few years now without any solid goal and it's just funny to watch it shift around. Who knows where it'll be in a week.

It's scary to accept change and it's hard to let go of attachments that we've had for most of our lives but when it happens the reward is a sense of inner peace and freedom. I don't want to struggle anymore to "make things happen" in my life, I just want to go with the flow, help others around me and continue striving towards living in the moment. It may seem like an obvious realization but the impact is huge, something is happening, I think I'm on the verge of a new chapter, maybe even a new book altogether! Buckle up, here we go again.

Really good advice to me from a trusted source: "Don't just do something, sit there".

Gotta go meditate.