We're all walking on the hot pavements trying to avoid the cracks, jumping hopscotch through what is going on in the world and not sure what to do. I keep wondering about Mr Rogers' helpers. Where are they? Senator Chris Murphy, sure. Robert de Niro in Cannes. Now Bruce Springsteen. The people who pop up on my Instagram feed with advice about embracing the world as it is, not as you would like it to be. (It's good advice, I'm not knocking it). Mel Robbins, I'm glad to see that you've taken off in the world, spreading love as you do. But we are all a little off, aren't we? How can you not be when the barometric pressure of angst in the world has gone up to ELEVEN. There is a LOT going on and if you're not feeling it you're probably living in an enchanted dell in the middle of a sylvan forest inhabited by sprites and fairy folk. I haven't written here because I've been second guessing everything. I'm struggling, and as far as I can tell, so are you.
I've decamped to Los Angeles for a couple of weeks for work, yes, but mostly to see my family here. As I gathered my things at home the day before my flight, I realized I find it impossible to fly without getting my whole world into order, as if death is imminent. I can't just pack, I have to organize each drawer. I pulled a piece of paper out of my work notebook, something I'd written hurriedly during a zoom meeting on a train:
Now couldn't be a more important time to experience, create, promote lovely things. More than ever, this is what we need to fill our souls. I'm staring out of the train window and yelling "thank you, thank you, thank you" in my head (as the dappled trees whoosh by). Everything will be all right.
The mistake we make is waiting for someone else to say something, to do something. When actually the saviour is you. And it always has been.
My friend has lent me her guest house. It's huge and beautiful, with white sofas and white curtains and seagrass rugs on the floor, naive paintings on the walls, and blue and white porcelain lamps in pairs. The kitchen is stocked with good English tea bags, jars of biscotti, local honey, a fridge filled with salsa and hummus and tiny organic carrots, a piece of ripe cheese under a glass dome, yogurt and snacking tuna in pouches. The bathroom has a mountain of fluffy towels and malin+goetz essentials. She has thought of everything. The first night I'm too jetlagged to pay attention but this morning I'm marveling at her thoughtfulness. I have my own little haven in the the middle of LA with a smart speaker that plays Aad Guray Nameh miraculously while I look out at white roses and lavender in the garden. I'm in Los Angeles at I'm sitting at a table in a white wood-panelled house with my laptop and I'm powering through emails and there are humming birds in the garden, and on the street there are gardeners with leaf blowers who say "good morning" as I walk past. I'm taking pictures of bottle brush trees and gingko trees and pink bougainvillea flowers scattered over a sidewalk, and a veritable field of rose-scented geranium that brush against my legs as I walk. I pick a leaf, crush it in my left hand, drop it in my pocket. I want to make scented sugar with it, use it in a Persian Love Cake.
LA has all the bullshit and all the brilliance one would expect. The effortlessly casual Loro Piana clad and earpodded writer sashaying down Larchmont and speaking too loudly, virtue signalling into the phone. The private school mother and daughter in matching black work-out lycra. The daughter orders another coffee because a fly has dropped into her cup, annoyingly. The mother looks into her phone as her daughter speaks for her. The parents in the bookstore with their distracted three year old son, his face painted like a tiger; they patiently deal with his tantrum as other parents nod with knowing appreciation. There is kindness too, the lovely server who tells me with the greatest diplomacy that I can't have Danish Rye bread with my eggs as they only sell that by the loaf, but would seed bread work? (It does). The local cleaner where I take my pile of shirts (seven for each day I've been here). "Name, please" he says as he counts my order, "Emma" I say. It's my Starbucks name. "Let me find you in the system," he says. "Oh I haven't been here before," I say. And I look up at the string of Christmas cards above his head and see a beloved friend and her family smiling into the camera. I feel immediately at home.
I read a piece in the New Yorker this morning by Michael Pollan about a psilocybin study by Johns Hopkins on spiritual leaders, a Buddhist, and Episcopal priest, a Rabbi, an Iman...you almost know the punchline although they don't walk into a bar. The playlist that was piped into the headphones of the participants as they lay comfortably under a blanket, their eyes covered in a mask, is available on Spotify and I'm listening to it as I work. Lovely lovely transcendental stuff. But here's the thing, the overall takeaway from all of them, each one of those people in the Johns Hopkins study, is that LOVE IS ALL. That's it. That's the simple truth.
I was lucky enough to learn transcendental meditation on April 26 (thank you E). I'd been meditating on and off for a few years, but TM always eluded me. My friend Karen Taylor tried to bring me to a class in Oxford when we were there. It was in St Giles. I remember we had our bikes and we were walking and there was a sign on a lamp post. I don't know what stopped me. The death of David Lynch brought so much more awareness to it, and suddenly the socials were flooded with the benefits. I've been doing twenty minutes twice a day for almost a month now, and everything is changing, in a very way. The initial benefits are interesting: there is space between things, things taste more, colors are brighter. I am kinder. But where I would be a bit hesitant before I'm now an eager beaver to get to my chair, to sit. Before there wasn't time for it, and now everything has shifted around so that there is time. (If you are interested, do let me know and I'll introduce you to my teacher). As my friend E said to me "it's the best high, everrrr." Perhaps these ways of softening ourselves, of coming back to our higher selves, of trusting and allowing are the only ways we have to spread love in the world. There is a ripple effect, because your edges become smoothed just a little and the way you react out there is just slightly softened. You become less judgey...just a little...and more able to step into another person's shoes. And the cumulative effect (one hopes) is that those rings of ripples spread out into the world.
By the way, there is nothing more irksome than someone forcing you to be calm. Have you ever wanted to punch anyone more than when they say "just calm down"? Thankfully, it's not like that. Apparently everyone has thoughts that float in. The point is just to be easy with them, not to overreact, not to judge yourself (how many times have you heard "I can't do it" "my brain's too busy" or "i can't clear my mind.") No-one can. That's the point; it's coming back every time, realizing that you're thinking about scrambled eggs for breakfast, and coming back to the mantra, easily, without fuss.
The morning birds are waking outside my window. I saw finches in the jacaranda trees yesterday, playing. The birds are still here, thank God. I've sat on this post for days so I'm just going to put it out there, and I have to walk before my work day starts. Wherever you are in the world, I'm sending you love. Let's be strong (soft) together.
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