Back to the Sun (Part 2)

So here I was again. This time it was an honest-to-god vacation, a week's worth of time spent and enjoyed with two of the people I love most in this world. My first morning here, I woke up to sunshine and cool air. Padding out to the kitchen, I made coffee (or technically, I made Nespresso. I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Keurig, but I don't love you anymore and I've found someone hotter and slimmer to better fit the new me I want to be. You can keep the house and the kids), and then spent a few lovely, lazy hours on Erica and Chris' couch, meandering through posts and articles and updates. Vacation, I told myself. You are actually taking an honest-to-god vacation for probably the first time in your life, so actually take one. No work, no busy stuff. Just freaking relax for once. 

I got the e-mail around noon. My professional life right now is a series of opportunities and negotiations. For instance, I negotiate three days at a job at a local brewpub so I can spend the rest of my week writing books and building stuff like Girl from the Northwoods. Because of that freedom during the week, I'm also available to a number of opportunities. Some of them are ridiculously lucrative, but can also conflict with my other everyday negotiations. 

The e-mail put me at a crossroads. I could give up my freedom and opportunities to write and build something of my own in exchange for a professional title and a lot (a lot) of money. You would think that the more I make this choice, the easier it would become. But it doesn't.  

After re-reading the email, I told Erica I was going to go take a nap (a.k.a., lie on my bed and watch a bunch of Tokio Hotel videos), and retreated to my room with my laptop. I felt like I was 16 again, trying to self-calm and think things out so I didn't make a mistake I would regret later. 

Later that afternoon, Erica and I jumped into her car, grabbed coffee, and then began making our way from Culver City to Echo Park. Slowly snaking through downtown rush hour traffic, I told Erica about the e-mail. I've been going through a bit of a mid-life crisis, lately. I didn't feel weird about turning 35, but it felt like...the moment I did, things got real. All of a sudden, I felt like I was running out of time to do all the things I wanted to do (have kids, build an empire, become the ingenue star of a dystopian blockbuster trilogy), and being a little behind on peer milestones started to bug me in ways that they didn't before. 

So I began to flounder a bit. I started entertaining opportunities...like the one I mentioned above. Opportunities that would be lucrative, but would also minimize my writing time and potentially suck out my soul because of it. But they seemed attractive because they would set me on a clear-cut, straight path to where I felt like I should be, at 35. 

Then Erica and I began to talk about writing. And I realized that I had forgotten that...the way my heart swells up whenever I get to talk with her about the struggles and triumphs we both feel about it. Writing is my true north. When I'm not focused on that, things get messy. I get upset. I get distracted by things that should only matter in their relation to how they do or do not help me write. I let other things take first place in my life, and then I begin to wonder and worry about my direction, my progress. When I focus on writing, though, all of that becomes easy. Things fall into place. The compass lands exactly where it should.

And that afternoon, that conversation, was a memory maker. I remember being in her car a year and a half ago in that very same spot, stuck in rush hour traffic and listening to the Nerdist podcast (it was the Aaron Paul one, for the record) after dropping her and Chris off at LAX. And that's kind of where I fell in love with Los Angeles...just that sense of being in a city where there was so much writing, comedy, creativity. 



Fuckin' magic making, kids.

Sitting in the car with Erica, staring at the above scene, I felt it again. That feeling you get when things suddenly become so clear, and you're just kind of elated at the magic of your surroundings for having the good grace to be there when you finally got it again.

I know that people have very different takes on LA...and I know that the above photograph doesn't contain the type of scene that you'd automatically think of when you're thinking about how and why LA is beautiful to someone. But this is now one of my favorite, favorite photos of all time. It's writing and Erica and magic for me. Of things becoming crystal clear.