THIS MOMENT IS ENOUGH
Softening into the full bloom of what is / grief / birth / death / fullness
with Love for Lawrence
Saturday, against all odds, we (the self-proclaimed “Turtle Family”) made it to the beach. As a family of professional homebodies who move at -5 mph this is no small feat! I have to push us HARD to get. out. of. the. house.
(Brent my partner would say he has to push me the hardest, ha! )
The great schlep. Slowly and painfully we packed up our sprinter van, which is basically a mini house on wheels, complete with its own bathroom, kitchen, bed etc….. fully equipped and yet we still had to bring three XL tote bags of necessities for the day….. and our destination was Soho House Malibu which has everything one would need at the beach …. ridiculous.
Anyways the point is we made it. Hallelujah. My oldest friend on Earth Geneviéve Secular Sabbath joined us for a sweet moment, we caught up with our toes buried in the warm sand while the boys ate pizza as they played chess and Eden gurgled happily in the shade of our Lozi & Gabe tent.
Geneviéve recently lost her father and is doing her best to continue living and being through the grief. We kept our conversation pointedly lighthearted but the tenderness of his loss was palpable as we gossiped about ex lovers, mutual friends, summer plans and other girly nothings… I confessed I’d been off Instagram for three weeks and had zero desire to return to which she replied,
“Why would you? Your life is whole.”
This is very Geneviéve. A true Aquarius Sun / Aries Moon (funny enough she was born on my due date ~ hear the full story of our friendship on our soundfood episode) she can effortlessly switch gears from top layer chitchat to plunge meticulously into the core of things. Unapologetically direct.
“Your life is whole.”
Two days later and her remark continues to reverberate in my field. My life is definitely the most “whole” it has ever been. I have a gorgeous, harmoniously blended family, two healthy boys, a loving, sexy and devoted partner who works hard to provide for us so I can be a full-time mama, a beautiful and safe home, clean water, food, all my needs are met. My father is still fragile but healing. My mom is somehow thriving in her nor cal hippie bubble and for the first time I am not worried about how I will take care of her. The rest of our family is humming along through the ups and downs. I have a radiant community rich in fulfilling, diverse friendships. I have creative projects that light me up and allow me to be of service to others. I have mentors and teachers to lean on when I wobble.
Sure, there’s plenty of room for growth, improvement, aspiration. I have made countless mistakes that I would love to of course correct in time. I have dreams I yearn to bring to fruition. We have our own set of survival fears, like everyone. But the fact of the matter is we are also very very fortunate. As we were loading up the van outside Soho House a young man came up to compliment Brent,
“Right on Man this rig is epic! I am wanting to move from my apartment into one of these! Dream!”
Gulp. In that moment our good fortune was evermore magnified, and all my complaints about being landlocked in Beverly Hills and panicking about getting stuck in the comfort trap of convenience never getting back to my creative flow and never getting out of LA blah blah blah seemed stupidly privileged and trite. Someone’s dream home is our comfortable commute from Beverly Hills to Malibu. Ugh. Reality Check Nitsa.
We are blessed. Beyond blessed. If anything, my father’s recent hospitalizations and Lawrence’s passing should have crystallized that. Health is Wealth. Every breath here is a gift. And yetttttt, I forget!
In fact the past few weeks I’ve caught myself being very harsh with myself for not having/ doing / being more.
More successful.
More productive.
More financially savvy.
More organized.
More generous.
More smart.
More attractive.
More beautiful.
More fit
More graceful.
More patient.
More resilient.
More like xyz.
More more more….
More of whatever elusive chimera of a thing it is we are conditioned to believe we need to be happy and whole. I admit it: even with all my tools and teachers, the insatiable more more more you can do better not this that monster got me in a bit of a head lock.
Later that night after our beach visit Geneviéve wrote me “You feel so peaceful”
Another pearl. I actually started tearing up as I read the text. Me? Peaceful?
Many days I feel like the Anti-Peace. A wrinkled, chaotic, breast milk and throw up drenched cellulitic whale swimming upstream in a postpartum hurricane, spiraling through a storm of emotions and self-doubt every day, ashamed to admit a part of me feels utterly terrified and lost in our fast-paced superficial performative culture even though I know better, unclear on how to be the best mother and stepmother in a world changing so rapidly… oscillating from not giving an F about keeping up with culture, commerce and AI to trembling at the prospect of irrelevance, or worse, illiteracy.
Still, beneath all the noise, the conditioning, projections and flare ups of low self worth (I do partially blame the postpartum hormones) there is a deeper and truer frequency. I am…. Peaceful. I am Whole. I am Enough.
Geneviéve saw what I could not. At that moment, being seen by my oldest friend, really a sister, in this chapter of my life was suddenly all the recognition I needed to feel it. And own it.
Curiously, my last exchange with her father was equally generous and luminous. After a semi impromptu visit to their home in March, during which he got to meet my son Eden for the first time, Lawrence sent me this text:
Your power and beauty in full bloom. The fullness of your humanity is breath giving and invigorating to my heart. I am grateful to have lived to witness you and your child Eden, to witness you in a healthy household of loving relations. To witness your happiness in your life.
Little did I know that would be the last time I would see him or speak to him…..
