Today is the Day

Today, after a half year of interviews and months of transcribing, editing and refining, I ship my book proposal off to my dream agent, Jill Marsal at the Sandy Dijikstra Agency. In doing this I am ignoring every piece of advice I have gotten. Every person in publishing, and every person who has gotten a book published, says connections are everything. And, for once, I actually do have connections. I have a lot of friends who have written amazing books. And yet, after I saw Sandy Dijikstra on a panel at the UCLA book fair, where she sat before a packed auditorium of desperate author wanna-bes like myself, and dared to say not only that her agency reads through their slush pile (pretty much unprecedented at a big, successful agency) but then went on to pass out profiles of her sub agents and what they want to see in a book proposal and query letter.
Not only that, as I sat in that audience and listened to these four top boutique agencies talk about books, publishing, editing and authors, I realized that though I might respect ALL of them, the only one I would want near this opus I am slaving away on, that means sooo much to me, was Sandy Dijikstra. She felt smart and strong, but also compassionate and open. I love everything about her agency. First off, I loved, and have read most of her big authors--from Amy Tan and Lisa See to Chalmers Johnson. Second, I love that she is big-time, but dared to live on the West Coast. And not even in Los Angeles or San Francisco--no, in Del Mar. I love that she is training subagents--that she is grooming more people, and thinks that is worthwhile. And I felt that she was tough--but also visionary.
So, I am ignoring all conventional wisdom and going for it.
I shook the trees and the incredibly talented and generous Sarah Shun Lien Bynum (Miss Hempel Chronicles and Madeleine is Sleeping, National Book Award Finalist) hooked me up with her friend Ali Liebegott, a talented poet and now graphic novelist, represented by the agency, who then did an e-introduction for me.
And now, I will send my passion project off into the universe and wait and see. If this fails I will return to more conventional methods. But for today, and the next six weeks, I will cross my fingers and pray that Jill Marsal loves my project, and that I love her.

Look Ma, No Teeth

Look at my boy! Two weeks ago Theo lost his first tooth. Today, he swallowed his second while eating a bowl of familia. I feel as emotional as a mother watching her child enter puberty. He is losing his sweet, perfect baby teeth. He is growing man teeth. He is growing up, away, into the person he will finally become.

The Power of Words

My parents never said what they wanted us to be. When I was younger it drove me crazy. I just wanted someone (my parents! God! a teacher! Buddha!) to tell me what i was supposed to do with my life. I guess I would still like it if it happened--but I no longer have faith that it will, and I look most of all to myself to find out what it is exactly I am supposed to be doing here on this earth. Often, I am lost.
Anyway, the other day I was in the car with my boys, and Theo asked about predictions. What is a prediction? I said it was someone guessing -- with some knowledge -- about what would happen in the future. I used a weather example. And then I predicted what they would turn into. I said I predict Theo will become a great builder and architect, and Benjamin will make movies. I just threw it out as I drove too fast down an L.A. freeway.
Two days later I overheard him talking to Jonathan while curled up in his lap. He said, "I am a junk food junkie (what self-knowledge!) and Mommy said I am going to grow up to make movies. Pirate movies!" He was so pleased. So happy. And he has said it several times since. As parents we speak off the cuff. But our words are so incredibly powerful. I feel like I have planted a tiny seed in him. And now it might grow to be true.

One Perfect Wave

I love to surf. It may be the one thing that just never, ever lets me down. Whether I catch a wave or no, it just brings joy.
When I moved to California, I had myself a borrowed surf board and a too-small scuba suit to go out in within days. I managed to fineigle the surfing essentials out of some older, native Californians on the LA Times staff in Ventura. I surfed a couple of times a week for years. It took me a long time to get off, and I still can't call myself a great surfer. But life is good when you are out on a surf board.

Since kids it has been harder. I live too far away from the ocean. It is hard to add a surfboard to the mountain of necessities I already need to lug down to the sand for my two boys--food, towels, umbrella, sand toys, sunblock, water, shoes, and often, the boys themselves.

I only surfed twice last year--once with Natalie off the spit in Bolinas (perfect break, all to myself!) and once in Ventura, with Jonathan.

This whole summer went by and I never got on a board once, though I did some awesome boogie boarding, and even got my head inside the green room once--a first for me!

But we went out to Leo Carrillo this weekend to go camping with our favorite adventuring family--the Marcos. We camped, told stories, roasted s'mores, and on Sunday morning I got to head out into the surf on my board. The waves were huge--intimidatingly huge for someone who had not been out for a year and a half. The entry was rocky and rough. You had to walk across a hundred feet of barnacly rocks you couldn't see while waves crashed and your board got thrown around and pulled you over.

Then, the best spot at Leo Carrillo, where all the real hard-core surfers take off, is a narrow spot between a mountain of jagged rocks. The hotshots take off right behind them and surf within feet of these sharp outcroppings. Some of them you can't even see. As I was about to get in half a surfboard washed up on shore--without a rider. It felt like a bad omen. (The guy, who eventually floated in, said he had to throw the board onto the rocks to save himself) But we had lugged the board out to Malibu, with the straps whistling for 60 miles. I was determined to go out, no matter how scary it was.

So I paddled out, with my little team of Theo, Benji, Jonathan, Violet, Vivian and Jill all watching from the beach. Jill wanted me to surf to inspire her amazing girls. How could I let them down???? It took me forever to get out. I almost got decapitated a few times by some crazy shortboarders. The rocks scared me. I didn't know the terrain. And legends of mean local surfers in Malibu kept running through my head. By the time I got out to the lineup I was so tired I didn't even know if I had the strength to paddle for a wave.

I kept paddling and missing and getting thrashed, and I even bonked a good surfer on the head with my board, but he was cool. Finally, an old dude on a board gave me the tip of the day. Paddle hard, he said. You have to get on it when it is really, really steep. It has to look like it is breaking on top of you. These are the scariest waves to ride, but I knew he was right.

The weirdest thing is, although I never knew it, I guess facing towards the wave, riding the wave, diving into the wave, are all metaphors in Buddhism, and gestalt therapy. At least in the gestalt and Buddhism my friend Natalie practiced, and the books on Buddhism I have been reading since her death. The idea is, even if something huge is coming, you have to face it head on. You have to look at it, know what you are up against, and dive through it. And, of course, you have to give into the wave on some level, and let it carry you--whether you are riding it, or trying to get to the other side. When Natalie was going in and out at the end, she kept saying, I can't ride the wave. I thought she was talking to me because we had surfed and boogie boarded together, but Chris said it was a gestalt thing...

Anyway, these thoughts kept running through my head out there. I have to go through the wave. I have to ride the wave. I am scared to wait until the wave is on top of me over a rocky bottom, but if I don't have faith, I will never ride a wave here, today, on my one day of surfing for 2008. I got on my knees a few times, and the waves were so fast I was startled. But I remembered the old dude's words. A big wave came and I got right under it, in the position where you must commit or you will be thrashed beyond belief. I paddled. I was scared, but I was committed. And I took off, and it was perfect. It was one of the most perfect, longest waves I have ever ridden. I went up the wave, then down, then up, then down. Time slowed down. It was just me on top of the wave. There is nothing like it. I rode as far as I could--I didn't want it to end. I turned and my whole posse of supporters had seen it. I was glad, because I didn't know when I would get a wave like that again.

And here is the amazing thing about a perfect wave: it sticks in your mind. You can hold it. You can hold the complete experience, and play it over and over again and still feel it--what it is like to have the water under your feet, heading towards shore, going up and down the wave. For me there is no other physical thing like that...

I didn't get another wave like that. It was my one perfect wave. But what a lesson. You do need to commit in life. You just have to go, you have to take off and commit. You can't think about what is going to happen if you fall, and you get tangled in your leash on top of a bed of barnacly rocks. Because if you do not commit 100% and believe that that wave will carry you, you cannot ride it. So I am holding that feeling today--not just the joy of the wave. But that memory--that I have to commit to those things that scare me. And if I don't go all out, they simply cannot happen.

A Shock of Recognition...

and not entirely pleasant.
My sophomore year at Wellesley a huge hurricane blew up the east coast towards Boston. We taped the windows of our glorious old, gothic dorm and hunkered down to wait out the storm. We walked by underground tunnel to the dining hall (so we wouldn't be blown away?) and basically hung out in our dorm rooms experimenting with interesting new kinds of alcohol. (kahlua! midori!) There was a group of five of us, tight as only new college students can be, who decided to play a game to pass the time. We would make predictions about our own futures--and where we would all be in 20 years.
This was the game. Each person got a prediction. While the group was coming up with the prediction the person had to wait in the hall--no campaigning or complaining. It was what your dearest friends imagined. We would throw out our ideas, settle on a narrative, then store it somewhere safe and check it in 20 years when of course we would still be best friends.
We have lost the predictions, and we have lost touch with at least one of the people there completely. Last I heard she was divorced, had a child, and was a lawyer for the EU in the Hague.
It was not entirely comfortable.
But we were eerily on the mark for some things. We predicted one friend would marry a doctor from Harvard medical school. She did. We predicted another would marry a doctor and stay in New England. She did. We predicted a third would never get married, but would be best friends with her boyfriend for years and years and live in a super cool loft in Boston. Well, mostly true. They did eventually get married, and they do now have a child--but she did live with him and remain best friends with him for about 15 years before that, and he did have some kind of super cool architectural pad in Boston, though I have never laid eyes on it.
As for me: they predicted I would marry my boyfriend at the time (a world class sailor and mechanical engineer from MIT) and that I would have kids and run the PTA.
I was soooo repulsed.
The rules said we couldn't argue the decision, but I did. I swore I would NEVER run a PTA, and that I would never marry Dave Lyons (who was a really nice guy, but marriage was the farthest thing from my mind at that point).
I said I probably would not have children and I planned to travel the world and make a difference. I was huffy and sullen, but they wouldn't budge.
Well, I did not marry Dave Lyons. And I waited about as long as one could to have children. And I did travel the world and I think I have made a little tiny bit of a difference. But, this morning I received news that I will be the parent representative for the Board of Directors for Larchmont Charter West Hollywood. Were my friends right?
I remember how their prediction filled me with feminist rage. It was so fucking traditional! It turned my stomach!
And yet, I am thrilled that I will be on the Board of this school. I am humbled, and in awe, and excited. I can't believe I will get a front-row seat to watching and building this school, which we hope will be a model for educating children of every socio-economic class sucessfully. I still plan to travel more, and I plan to write lots and lots. And I do not see this as my main thing. But it is funny to note: what they predicted came true. And it doesn't seem so bad any more. Life is so strange. And unnerving.

My Sweet Boy

I forget how sensitive my boy is. Theo will never talk about school when I press and interrogate reporter style (a lesson here for me?) But often, later in the day, post-bath, or curled up before going to sleep, he dumps out his daily triumphs, dreams and worries from school. Yesterday I learned that he secretly longs to be the teacher's helper. He knows that the teacher has let Alison, who cries for her mother every day, be the teacher's helper for more than one day, because it helps her not to cry. But he wants to do it.
Then he told me that he read a book at school that made him sad. I was confused. I can't imagine that the kindergarten room is full of sad stories. He said the teacher read a book about a hospital (they are learning about community) and it made him really sad. Still I was confused. He said it reminded him of Natalie, and how sick she was. I wondered if he was just saying this to say what I want to hear, because he is hyper-perceptive and does try to meet you where you are, and he knows I have been sad. Then he said, "Mommy it made me so sad I couldn't listen. I wanted to put my hands over my ears so I didn't have to hear. But I knew my teacher wouldn't let me."
Oh. what have I done? Is it wrong that I let him love someone so sick? That she was so much part of our lives? Has he seen me too sad? Or is it good for him, to know that you can love, and still hold someone in your heart. And for him to know that he made her extraordinarily happy while she was alive.
These are things I never thought I would have to deal with until he was older. I love him and his big, sensitive heart.

Reflections on Art

Long, long ago, when I was a globetrotting twenty-something struggling to find my place and role in the world, we stopped our travels in Indonesia. We had been traveling for four months, my friend and I, and when we hit Jogyakarta, we just stopped. We needed to put down roots, if only for a week. Jogya, as the natives called it, is famous for its fabulous fabrics and batiks. They make most of the sarongs in the world, or at least the beautiful ones. My friend and I signed up for a batik class. We studied with a guy who was pretty famous. He did amazing sculptures and showed his work all over the world. And yet, he invited us into his run-down colonial courtyard to teach us art. Like everyone in the world, he was curious about America. And we were agonizing about what to do with our lives. He said I was talented. I had to make sure I kept doing art. I said my parents would never let me become an artist. He looked confused. He said, everyone needs to do art. I said people in America are artists as a profession--otherwise you didn't really have time. He said Indonesians believed that it was essential for the human soul that every person have some art they practiced, whether it was dance, music, drumming, painting, just something beautiful. When I said people in America were artists full-time, that was your job, he said that must drive them crazy. It must distort the art. Art is simply something everyone must do, to feel alive. You are not supposed to do it ALL the time, that is just as crazy as no art at all. It made me think. It was such a balanced way to look at the world. And he was so talented. So it was extra powerful from him.
Last night I started a new art class at the Barnsdall Art Center. It is a class in collage. For some reason the people in this class are so much more serious than those in the figure drawing class. We looked at artists, people took notes, we practiced new techniques. It is conceptual. And so fun!!!! I felt so overjoyed after the class.
I was reminded so vividly of the Indonesian artist and what he said: Everyone does need art in their lives. It is part of being human.