when it rains...

on finding ease (even when it's hard and everything sucks)

After nine dangerously parched months here in Los Angeles, it finally rained last week. Rain is perhaps too mild a word to describe the deluge of water that rushed and gushed down every city hill, wide-lane boulevard and Spanish-tiled nook. There are few terms that feel viscerally in real life exactly as they sound, but the “atmospheric river” that hit L.A. from last Tuesday through Friday could not be more apt. The wet permeated everywhere, on every thing. Post-January’s scorching, this should have come as a relief. But Los Angeles is a not a city built for extreme weather of any kind. And so, with the watery torrents, came the leaks.

We first noticed ours Thursday night around 10pm. I was headed to bed when Alex came up from the garage to break the news: It was raining in the room where we’d stashed all of our unpacked boxes, drip drip dripping in a storage closet too; splashing against files, a TV we’d yet to hang, half a record collection we were still sorting where to display. It took minutes to place the buckets, then hours to transport assorted items up a flight of stairs to our living room/dry land.

Predictably, we turned on each other right away, exactly as you do with a partner in an annoying, but not life-threatening crisis; desperate to point fingers when there’s no one to blame.

“Fuck, I think we need a tarp!”

“Great, I’ll just pick one out from our in-house tarp store!”

The sniping began. But, on my fifth trip up the stairs, instead of letting things escalate, I took a breath.

What if I tried something new? What if I stopped being the way I always am, ready to fight? What if I brought the ease I’m trying out in the rest of my life to this absolute suck-fest?

I stopped engaging with my obviously stressed-the-fuck-out husband. I sat down in a chair in the garage and looked up at the ceiling, got myself still. I examined the pattern of the leaks, traced the drips to their origin, tried to assess how disastrous the situation could actually be. I moved everything I could out of the water’s path. I calmly acknowledged Alex’s feelings, “You’re upset, this is upsetting.” When he wanted to argue I said, “I think we’re both too upset to talk.”

The whole thing kept us up until 2am, but the next morning I woke up and wrote 600 words of my novel. I made breakfast and tea and packed lunch and swallowed down my vitamins and took the kid to school.

When I finished work in the afternoon, I made a spontaneous appointment at the salon and (inspired by my friend

Edan Lepucki

who I recently saw in a photo looking sexy and luminous with short hair) I asked the stylist to lob off 8 inches. I bought a new lipstick at Walgreens. I went to a vintage shop in Echo Park and scored a perfect $8 top.

When I got home, I made dinner while listening to Tag Team’s 1993 classic “Whoomp There It Is!” and dancing on my new (surprisingly bouncy!) kitchen mat.

Before we ate, I moved the mat into the living room and asked my family to join too.

Life is complicated, terrifying and annoying. Our shit was wet. But it was Friday night and we had this.

I danced and jumped until my shins cramped and my knees felt as if they would give out.

The movement felt like a gift and I took as much as my body would give.

Other things:

• Speaking of coping with the horrors, this week on Everything Is Fine, I had a most excellent talk with the great

  Karen Walrond
  about staying grounded, about integrity, curiosity and compassion in these times and, also, somewhat radically, finding joy through activism.

• Hot news: I’m still reading novels! Big, plotty novels! Right now, I am extremely into The Last List of Mabel Beaumont which is a twisty story told through the POV of an 82yo British lady with a lot of regrets.

• More hot news: I’m watching The Pitt and it is amazing and also — fuck — I don’t remember Noah Wyle being this sexy?

• While watching The Pitt, I’m slathering my scrotal neck with serums and expecting this red-light-therapy collar to de-age it. I don’t really think this is possible but it sure does look cool.

Until next time, friends.

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