Life Put Into Words is a continuing collection of creative nonfiction essays and personal short stories that explore the challenge, heartbreak, and beauty of life with honesty and self-reflection.
LISA BUTALA
Lisa is a creative nonfiction writer who earned her Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies at The University of California, Irvine.
ARCHIVES
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BIRTHDAY WEEKENDS
2019
Sliding Doors. A metaphor for alternate realities. For the last six years, I have created an alternate reality for myself while away for my birthday, escaping my real life circumstances to frolic and play in the coastal towns of Orange County each year since 2014.
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2019
In bed reading last night in the last few hours of being age 46. In the year while 46, I had to help save a family business from financial ruin, preserve my father’s professional legacy, and prepare him to retire after 60 years of performing on stage... evacuate from the worst fire on record in my Malibu community…
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2018
For the fifth year in a row, I went away alone for my birthday weekend. It’s my ritual, and usually, my saving grace. In previous years upon my return, I have felt renewed, light, free, and more connected to myself as a woman, rather than exclusively a wife and mother.
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2018
a poem inspired by my 2018 birthday weekend getaway
Leaving town,
Can't get out soon enough
Traffic building,
Too late, it already sucks.
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2018
Standing in front of my university’s library right now, and memories are rushing back. I walked in and out of this place for the three and half years it took me to earn my Bachelor’s Degree in Film Studies in the School of Humanities here at the University of California Irvine.
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2017
headed south on a thursday to start my annual birthday weekend a bit early and i couldnt wait to get it underway as soon as possible and reach the island hotel in newport beach on the dot of their check in time because i didnt want to miss one minute of my stay yet it seems the 405 freeway and its slew of accidents and infernal congestion had another plan for me…
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2016
Birthday Weekend Away. Time to pack. Escape. Plans. Can't wait. Overpacked. Oh well. Typical. No worries. How I roll. Kiddos. Goodbye kisses. Hugs. Will miss you. On my way. Down coast. Overcast. Holiday crowds. Already here. Beach. Traffic. Turn inland. Drive freeway. More traffic. Music. Always music. Forever music. Freeway clear. Sailing along. Almost there. Finally. Exit toll road. Before tolls begin. Familiar road. College days. Recent days. Along the coast again. Different coast. OC style. Different vibe. Memories percolating. Slowly. Miss. Sigh. Love and light. Be here now. Gratitude.
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2014
I went out of town alone this past weekend for my birthday. Three mornings in a hotel to sleep in as late as I wanted, two long days in the middle to do as I please, and three relaxing nights to spend however I wanted to spend them. I had a wonderful time, being pampered at a spa, practicing yoga, going for a run, shopping, and being taken out to lunch. It was blissful and exciting, with some unexpected surprises...
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2014
Saturday night. I am away for my birthday alone in a hotel room and loving the fact that I have absolutely nothing I have to do tonight, nor tomorrow morning when I wake up. Not particularly the vision of how I expected I would want to spend a Saturday night during my birthday weekend, say, 15 years ago.
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DAUGHTER & SON
It was my oldest’s birthday today. My daughter turned 14 on the 14th, her “golden birthday.” It was a lovely day, until around 5pm. A knock on the door brought a firefighter on the other side with the scary news that a brush fire was now burning essentially in our backyard.
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My daughter turned 13 years old on January 14th, six months ago today. I didn’t write about her back then because we were a bit busy... in the finishing stages of remodeling the house we bought over the mountain, and packing up to leave our home of 17 years on the coast of Malibu…
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My son loves balloons. Every time we walked into a supermarket when he was a baby, he would cry out, “Bah-uhn! Bah-uhn!” while desperately pointing up at the helium filled, mylar balloons tied to the checkout stands. I didn’t buy one for him in those stores, seeing as the dolphin and cupcake shaped ones were $10-15 each in our local markets, where convenience overrides savings.
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Last night in Santa Barbara. UCSB Arts & Lectures event with World Cup Champions from the Women’s USA Soccer team, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe.
At the close of the hour + talk, a Q&A session began, and I was shocked when my twelve-year-old daughter stood up to ask a question.
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This was tonight’s sunset. Upon putting my eight-year-old son to bed a few hours later, we said a prayer aloud to one another, as we do each night before we cuddle. His prayers are often tender and thoughtful; but tonight’s was especially so...
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UCLA Junior Elite Softball Camp. Her 2nd consecutive year attending this 3 day/2 night sleepover camp at the UCLA campus. The UCLA Bruins softball team just won the 2019 NCAA Championship a couple months ago. She will be coached by alumni players and the championship head coach. Girls from all over travel from out of state to attend this camp... we drove an hour.
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Blanket, umbrella, snacks, puzzle game book, me and my little one. He bolted away to fetch his water bottle and my hat from the car; and as he ran back toward me at full speed, joyful and free, I felt grateful for him...
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June in the ‘Bu... cold and overcast. Still we had a fun day today staying local, checking out summer reading books 📚 at the Malibu Library, stopping for açaí bowls at Sunlife Organics, and playing at Malibu Country Mart. Haven’t played here for ages; although we used to come all the time when the kids were babies and toddlers.
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My eight-year-old is an artist. His drawing is currently on display at the City of Malibu Student Art Exhibit; so we attended the Artist Reception last Friday night. Yes, he loves to draw and he’s good at it, but the simple drawing he quickly made at school and submitted to the show is not why I call him an artist. He is an artist because he has the soul of an artist.
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From birth, she had the most expressive eyebrows I had ever seen on a baby. Not that I paid any attention to babies’ eyebrows, or to babies, for that matter, before I became a mother. I was not someone who ever dreamed of having kids. The closest I came to enjoying the company of children as a young adult was when I worked as a camp counselor during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college.
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My kids are at the center of my world. Not as they were when they were babies - when they had to be for their mere survival - but rather because, intrinsically, they point me to my greatest purpose. They are the catalyst to every good or hard decision or change that I make. They rely on me to make sense of their world, and look to me to show them how to live a good life.
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Three months away from turning eight years old, and my son still takes the liberty of crawling onto my lap to cuddle whenever his heart desires. He likes to nestle in and rub his face on mine, his mop of hair blinding and tickling, while he says “purr purr” like a kitten looking for pets.
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My kids were playing ping pong in front of James Perse this evening while a nice breeze swept through the Malibu Lumber Yard courtyard. The building loomed over the ping pong table to keep it in perpetual shade; so I moved away from watching their game in order to sit in the sun to warm up.
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My heart, joy, heartache, destiny, and purpose, all wrapped up in a little boy. Cocooned in my bed today with a 101 degree temperature and a tummy ache, he wished something would come up and out of him to give his tummy relief. No luck. An easy patient, he was calm and quiet, almost peaceful, and didn’t complain at all about feeling yucky.
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The magical 🎈 balloon lady storytime event with Annie Banannie at the Malibu Library one week ago was targeted for kids ages 4-10. My son (7) and my daughter (10 but three days shy of turning 11) sat there amongst an audience of mostly toddlers and were skeptical it was going to be worth their while.
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Best friends. Balloons. Easy like Sunday morning. Groovin' on a Sunday afternoon.🎈This photo I took of my son and his best friend at Malibu Bluffs Park is featured on the table of contents page in the current issue of Malibu Times Magazine.
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A couple weeks ago, I took my son to H&M to exchange a pair of shoes that didn’t fit him. While there, I saw this scarf and asked him if he liked it. He took the scarf from me, immediately put it around his neck, smiled, and asked if he could get it.
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Apparently, I now have a ten-year-old who's old enough to see films that don't involve animation, musical numbers, or talking animals. My daughter and I watched her first romantic comedy, You've Got Mail, and I am a bit beside myself about it.
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He came, he fought, he conquered. My son gained a new sense of confidence in the ocean yesterday after he challenged himself to keep up with his big sister while they both boogie boarded in a more aggressive than usual shore break.
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Party in progress at our house right now. My daughter turns ten today and her three best friends are over for the small, exclusive birthday party she requested. As all of the girls were dropped off, there are no other parents here, and my husband took my son out of the house to give her the freedom to be with her friends without her six-year-old little brother in tow.
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This was the first New Year's Eve my son managed to stay awake until midnight. Since he had never been a part of the festivities before, he didn't quite understand why we were all at his grandparents' house wearing silly hats and holding bubbly drinks.
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My son turns SIX today. A gentle and kind soul wrapped up in an energetic and hilarious character, he is a kid who likes to shock and amuse just as much as he likes to cuddle and love.
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My daughter is growing and changing, like she always has, but these last couple months seem different somehow. Her growth from little kid to big kid feels much more pronounced than that of her transition from toddler to little kid; or maybe now that she's nine and a half, I simply can't believe she will soon be ten years old.
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My five-year-old son loves to drink tea with me... he absolutely LOVES it. Loves everything about it. Apart from dousing it with raw honey and enjoying its sweetness and warmth, he especially enjoys ripping open the small paper envelope, retrieving his aromatic bag inside, and anxiously asking me to read the pearl of wisdom that's printed on each Yogi tea tag.
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Today is your birthday. You are now nine. Or at least you will be at 3:19pm this afternoon. I know you are a stickler about that fact, declaring to your dad when he wished you a happy birthday this morning that you aren't actually nine yet. I thought I'd share with you what I wrote last year on your eighth birthday.
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Wearing a robe ready to jump in the shower, I was confronted with a distraught four-year-old, his arms reaching up and crying, "Mama, pick me up." Now almost five, I hadn't seen him this way in a long while. As I scooped him up, he buried his face in my neck and clung to me tightly.
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When my daughter was a baby, I loved her feet. Of course, I still love them today; but when she was really little, I couldn't get enough of them. I would kiss them and squeeze them and pretend to gobble them up, all the while exclaiming, "I grew these feet!" over and over again in gleeful animation.
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FOOD
Since he first appeared on his debut televised cooking show, "The Naked Chef," I have adored Jamie Oliver. His infectious enthusiasm for food and his no fuss, simple to make recipes defined his appeal; while his unique food lingo and one-of-a-kind food prep demonstrations kept both me, and the world, wanting more.
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In its 29th year, the Malibu Cook's Tour, an annual fundraiser hosted by the Malibu Methodist Nursery School, offers attendees passports to explore the grounds and expansive homes of four Malibu residents while sampling the latest culinary offerings of local chefs and restaurants.
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When you have children, feeding them is one of the most important matters you face from the moment you discover you're pregnant. In utero, what you eat, they eat. And then when they are born, the same responsibility remains, starting with the decision to either nurse or bottle feed them.
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GRIEF & LOSS
I have written a lot about death and losing people I love. I write to make peace with the fact that they’re gone, and with why they are gone. I write to process how I feel about it, and about them, and how their words and actions affected me.
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We grow. Birthdays are celebrated, or missed. We love. Anniversaries tally up (today’s my 14th wedding anniversary), or cease. We live. Spring break trips bring joy and make memories (as they have for us over these last ten days).
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I sit at my home office desk trying to rid its surface of what's suffocating it... Kindergarten school work brought home before the break, health insurance paperwork, clipped box tops for school fundraising, and health and fitness coupons, race flyers and vitamin samples from the swag bag I received for running a 10K race just before leaving town.
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I just found out you died. Died of cancer. The same lung cancer that almost killed you a couple years ago. I didn't know it had come back. If I did, I would have flown out to see you. I would have called you to see what I could do. To talk to you again. To say I love you for the last time.
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I was five years old in 1977, the year Carrie Fisher first took on the role of Princess Leia. As a toddler, I didn't see Star Wars when it first came out; so my earliest visual memory of Leia was not in a white robe with side buns, but rather in this gold slave bikini and long braid from 1983's Return of the Jedi.
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From the time I was three years old, she was there... in the background of my world. Her presence was constant, familiar, comforting - and it had a large part in defining the narrative of my life.
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My one day road trip to Santa Ynez this week had me facing an all too familiar task: dealing with stuff left by my mother when she died. It's been almost nine years now, and many of her keepsakes and photos are still waiting to be addressed... what to save, what to toss, what to preserve for our kids as remembrances of her, their grandmother they never met.
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GROWTH
February 24, 2020: One year ago today, my father received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame near Hollywood and Vine. It was an unforgettable ceremony, and a day of great celebration for him, his colleagues, me, and my entire family.
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There are, and always will be, things we love and things we hate... about situations, opinions, people. We can even feel love and hate for a person, circumstance, or reality simultaneously. I try so hard not to use the word hate, and constantly tell my kids to express this strong emotion using “I don’t like” instead of “I hate.”
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We can’t expect to grow and evolve if we don’t fail and learn from our mistakes. Consider your life a success if you have already learned this lesson; but if you haven’t, know that there is still time to adopt this viewpoint, forgive yourself for your failures, and learn the lessons they are there to teach. I myself have been learning a lot of lessons lately…
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Thirteen years ago, I had a dream job, dream husband, and dream lifestyle by the sea. Happiness was on the rise, and its expected trajectory was limitless. I was living a perfectly charmed life, despite mild insecurity and self-doubt; and the formula I had created for it centered around pronounced wellness... in health, fitness, discipline of mind and body, and professional success.
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It’s National Read Across America, so books are on my mind; which, truthfully, is no different from any other day. 📖 I recently color coded my library, with inspiration from my sister’s 🌈 rainbow book display... these are just two of several shelves in my house filled with books curated over many years. The oldest in my collection is the big red coffee table book on the far left entitled “The Movies.”
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Lying on the hammock on our bedroom balcony, I stared out at this view, as if in a trance. I snapped out of it with just enough time to snap a photo of it before the vibrant colors dissipated; and just long enough to be reminded of the splitting headache I was enduring. My son was in the bath and my daughter was finishing up her homework. Bedtime was soon, and couldn’t come soon enough.
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This time of the year is a challenging one. Growing up in a big family, the holiday season for me has always meant weeks and weeks of activities during the months of November and December... like going to friends and family gatherings and baking cookies at grandma's. In my youth and throughout my adulthood, my mom also had her unique way of making Christmas time so warm and comfortable year after year...
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This year, my sister and her husband hosted Thanksgiving. It was an extra special occasion, not only because of the long awaited and beautiful new setting - their newly built home - but also because my siblings and I haven't spent many Thanksgivings together in the last few years, all more often attending our respective spouses' family gatherings.
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I fell in love this past spring. Hook. Line. Sinker. You know when you don't want to do anything but talk to, be with, or exist in the presence of another? That is how I felt. I started writing for this website in March after not writing consistently for many years. As I began the endeavor, life was as crazy as it could get.
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Life had been extra challenging these last two months for a myriad of reasons, all of which have to do with various degrees of love, loss, and the challenge of acceptance. Oh, and a day at Legoland. It's not that I suffered some big, horrendous tragedy. There was no monumental disaster to overcome - nothing catastrophic to bear.
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As a mother of two and wife of one living for the last thirteen years in Malibu, California - "the 'Bu" as I never actually call it, but as many affectionately refer to it - I spend my days driving up and down the coast highway to and from school, ballet, violin, soccer and cartooning classes, with food market, public library, state beach and park visits sprinkled in.
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HEALTH & FITNESS
Life will take you places and show you things you never planned or expected. It will put you in the paths of others you didn’t choose or imagine. It will amaze, astonish, hurt and disappoint you. It does this, not to make you dread or tire of living it, but to implore you to rise above the challenges, find the joy that is to be had, and make the good parts count.
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Don’t do it to look hot. Don’t do it to get other people’s admiration, envy, or approval. Don’t do it so those you think are hot will find you hot too. 🔥 Do it to take care of yourself, be strong, move free, feel good, and live long. If “looking hot” is a residual effect, and admirers let you know it, don’t let that define you or your self worth.
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When you are challenged to the breaking point and are weary of the climb, remember it’s not going to get easier when you decide to try again... in an hour, a day, week, month, or year. The only way through any kind of discomfort is *through* it... not around it or away from it.
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Flashback to when I was down in Newport Coast visiting my Aunt Jan on 10/5/14, four years ago today. I started publishing my writing on my new website earlier that year, so that new creative outlet and my new lease on life really helped fuel me to stay fit.
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Bryan Kest is a unique human being in that he is a man who is totally honest, exposed, and vulnerable; yet still retains his masculinity, charm, strength of character, and self-confidence. In my experience, this is not something many men are willing or able to do. It's an amazing and rare combination not often seen...
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When I was a kid, I wasn’t much of an athlete. I never participated in any team sports, nor did I have any kind of athletic goals. I think the reason was the not-so-unique combination of shyness, insecurity, and a fear of taking risks. Yet these qualities only reared their ugly heads when I was around people I didn't know.
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Every day, we all are confronted with situations that have the potential to unhinge us and render us temporarily crazed in the heat of the moment... Like driving your daughter twenty miles down the coast highway to her ballet class, only to discover that it was canceled without warning or notification; or realizing your son just pooped in the last clean diaper you had available while you are miles from either a store that sells them or your home where you have a case of them…
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INSPIRATION
I seem to be posting a lot of #tbt and #fbf on social media recently; but that doesn’t mean I’m looking to the past or I’m not concentrating on the future.
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This photo is special to me for many reasons. I was in my hotel room during my first annual birthday weekend away in Orange County at the end of May 2014. When taken, it was a statement. A record of me in that moment...
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This one spoke to me deeply. Always looking for further knowledge on a myriad of subjects, I draw strength from learning and growing and knowing that every day provides me with an opportunity to surpass what I already have experienced or learned.
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At a time when feeling empowered is challenging, I appreciate and honor all the women who inspire me to persevere and be stronger than I often believe I am able to be…
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As a creative nonfiction writer, it is in my innate nature to share the human condition as I see and experience it; and I rarely have any reservations about laying bare what I am feeling, or the thoughts that fill my head at any given time. I am in Vegas right now…
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Don’t give up, give in or be apathetic to the insanity, because then insanity wins. We can’t let it…
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When everyone around you is marching to a different beat, keep time with your own drum. Don’t let the pull of the majority sway you to abandon your instincts on what you believe is the right path…
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Life will continue to surprise. You never know exactly what will come next. The not knowing means there is always hope that what you want will come; but the unpredictability means there is no guarantee you will get it. No rushing results or controlling other’s actions.
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Every day is a new beginning, and a new opportunity to show up, be brave, do better, and love more.
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I sat alone on the beach tonight at sunset, before I went for a run, looking out at this. It only appeared exactly like this for a matter of minutes before growing dimmer, duller, and eventually darkening into night.
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Rough start today. First day back to school after a two week spring break. Kids. Moods. Attitudes. No more explanation needed. After they left for school with my husband, the house was quiet and peaceful again. Hallelujah. I needed to just sit for a minute. Breathe. Regroup…
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We are not our faces. Our physical beauty. Our smooth skin. Our flowing hair. Our yoga poses. Our professional accomplishments. Our bank accounts. Our cars. Our houses. Our jewels. Our reputable names. Our extra pounds around the middle. Our gray hairs. Our dark circles. Our wrinkles…
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Any given year can either be an equal mix of good and bad, or can tip the scales drastically to one side or the other. For me, 2017 was a hard year... 365 days of good, bad, and ugly…
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When the world seems out of control, and you don't know what you can do to make it better, you continue to contribute to the wellbeing of your family and community, and you keep working on improving yourself as a person, family member, resident of your community, global citizen, and member of the human race...
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Looking out the window of my sister's guest bedroom tonight, the bedtime prayer I said as a child popped into my head: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take."
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It's been a while since my last Hot Tea Inspiration, so I got a good one for ya that struck me deeply: "Love has no boundary." 💛 It's true, it doesn't. It really doesn't; although it often feels like it does. We seem to create our own boundaries out of fear. Fear of the unknown. Of being vulnerable, hurt, taken advantage of, mistreated, led astray, disillusioned, disappointed, taken for granted, and on and on and on…
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From my bedroom balcony, I watched this evening's stunning sunset unfold. With each passing minute, with every second even, the slightest shifts occurred, and the sky morphed from light blues and soft oranges to deep purples and intense pinks…
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Date night out to the theatre last Friday night. I snapped this pic before the show began but didn't share it instantly, as I didn't feel it was worth taking even one second of my attention away from my date or the beautiful architecture of the Hollywood Pantages Theatre to do it…
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Thursday, January 29th, 2015, 5:15pm.
Inside: I prepare dinner, while my 8 year old works on her book report and my 4 year old plays with his Legos strewn all over our living room floor...
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I had a conversation with a friend today that affected me in such a profound way that I couldn't continue the conversation. Granted, this conversation was via text, so I actually just stopped typing. I was overwhelmed by many feelings communicating with this friend…
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LOVE
Happy 82nd Birthday to my dad. I’m not great at singing in public like him (maybe a few attempts at karaoke), and as a shy little girl with a microphone shoved in my face put on the spot to sing, I did not budge when I wasn’t feeling it.
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Happy 50th Birthday, Rebecca. You are an amazing woman who deserves to be celebrated for all that you are.
Reposting what I wrote about her on September 8, 2016 in honor of her 50th.
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I am the middle sister. When the three of us were kids, my bedroom was in between each of theirs. At one point, when I was about 14 or 15 years old, my hollow bedroom door had two large holes in it... one made by my younger sister and one made by my older sister.
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I shared this image and message over three years ago, but I think it bears repeating... Love is everything. It is all there is and all that truly matters. At times humans are hard to love, but mostly they are so easy.
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Self love is the greatest and most complete love you’ll ever know. No matter the obstacles you surmount to be with your supposed “true love” or the fortune that shined upon you when (or if) you discover your “soul mate”…
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It is harder to love oneself than it is to love others. We can feel so much love for and have such a passion to give to those whom we love most; and still not give that same love to ourselves.
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It’s hard to live life sometimes. It’s hard to keep it all together when it feels like it’s all falling apart. It’s hard to be consistently responsible, helpful, kind, and generous, while also feeling happy, joyful, and sane.
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She was born on August 4, 1977, when I was five years old, all chubby and delicious, with big blue eyes and a whisper of thin blond hair as golden as straws of wheat…
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When I was eighteen years old and my sister was twenty, our mother took us on a whirlwind trip to Europe for three weeks in the summer of 1990. We bounced around Italy, France and Spain...
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Celebrating birthdays these years, in this age decade (40’s), is unlike previous ones. They are not celebrated in the same way or for the same reasons as they were before.
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Maya Angelou died today. She was 86. I have liked and been inspired by her, her message, and her poems for many years. Her passing is quite a loss for today's world.
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MARRIAGE
When my wedding anniversary rolls around each year, I peruse the photos from that day and pick a new one each year to mark the occasion on social media.
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It was April 17, 2005. I woke up in a hotel room at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica with my two sisters. I was getting married today.
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“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” - Eden Ahbez, Nature Boy
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My husband and I fell in love hiking. We met on April 20, 2000 while both living in Burbank, and for the first few months of our courtship, we would meet almost every day after work to hike and trail run through Griffith Park.
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A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a determined young woman who was interested in learning more about my husband and my "how we met" story. It seems she had found my Instagram post of the napkin he gave me on the night we met over sixteen years ago and wanted to know where and when it happened.
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... bliss. That's what you were thinking, right? The word that most often ends any sentence containing "years of wedded" is BLISS. It's ironic that bliss is the word we expect to fill in that blank when bliss is not the word most people married more than a year would use to describe their marriage being full of.
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The Pacific Northwest is sometimes abbreviated to simply "Pac NW" and pronounced "Pack- En-Dub". Maybe you already knew this, but I just learned of it because my husband and I recently returned from a trip up there. Our ten year wedding anniversary is this month, so we decided we were going to take a trip…
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MOM
2022
I was wearing gardening gloves and wielding a shovel, working to excavate the vessels inverted in the ground around the grave marker… the heavy, muddy, metal cylinders that remain upside down and caked with soil until you, the mourner, unearth them to hold water and the grief bouquets you bring with you…
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2021
My mom has been gone 15 years today. Yesterday would have been her 75th birthday, if she hadn’t died at age 60. Three-quarters of a century. A milestone many people expect to reach, but one she didn’t.
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2021
It’s getting harder each year to find new ways to honor you. To find new words to describe you, what you meant to me, and what your absence has created. You were my mom. You were the one person in life I could turn to when I needed to feel loved.
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Today would have been my parents’ 52nd wedding anniversary. It is also International Women’s Day. This wasn’t a thing back when my parents got married; but it’s somewhat ironic that they share this day.
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I unexpectedly found myself within a mile of my mom at the close of the day today, and I felt a strong pull toward her. Not sure why. Maybe because it’s been a rough couple of days and I was feeling especially fragile. Maybe because the vulnerability I was feeling led me to yearn for comfort, safety, and unconditional love... often a mom’s most precious gift to her children.
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2020
Hi, Mom. I know this isn’t how it works. I know writing a play-by-play of parts of my life, or putting down on paper a purge of emotions about how I feel about missing you, isn’t going to equate to an actual communication with you. This letter will go unread by you… only read by my readers when I share it.
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Overwhelmed with gratitude right now. I asked my family not to buy me flowers today, knowing I was going to clip and arrange a Mother’s Day bouquet for myself from my very own rose garden. We’ve only lived in our new house for three months, so this is the first season of blooms my rose bushes have yielded...
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2019
It has become a sort of routine, a tradition… every year on October 10th, I pick the kids up from school and we begin the drive. We stop for flowers at the same Trader Joe’s along our route, where they each pick out the bouquet they want to give their grandma…
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2019
My mom, the early 1970’s, Waikiki. She was in her mid-twenties, married, and already had a couple kids. She had style, grace and beauty. She was strong, funny and kind. I am in awe of what she accomplished, how she lived, and the challenges she survived. She was amazing…
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This is the face of a new mother. Not new, as in minutes new; but new, as in ten months into it new. This is the face of a mother without a mother. A woman who was a bit lost in the world, after losing her mom and birthing her first child, almost simultaneously.
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2018
Without the kids in tow, there is a different kind of peace. I can sit here alone and say anything I want to you. I can talk and cry, and there is no one to hear me. I also can sit here in silence and feel the intimacy of the moment without words, knowing words don’t actually need to be spoken aloud to be heard…
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So much of her is in me. So many ways I am, and things I do, stem from her. She was thoughtful and creative, with an open, vulnerable heart and a vast artistic sensibility.
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Decorating our Christmas tree is always emotional for me. There are so many memories associated with the act itself, as well as with many of the ornaments I have amassed over the years…
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A deep breath and this breathtaking view at Zuma beach jump started my day this morning. I then arrived at a breakfast and poetry gathering with a tribe of empowered and beautiful women, all of them devoted moms who are living, fighting and thriving in the trenches of parenting young children right now.
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And Why It Is So Important to Own Our Pain
2017
I am still thinking about the people who lost their loved ones in the Las Vegas shooting massacre last Sunday night, October 1st. Yes, still. It has only been a week. Those left behind to grieve lost loved ones are on my mind because I was them. I know what they are feeling right now.
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My mom loved the beach. When we were kids, she took us to Paradise Cove in Malibu to play in the ocean and sand all day while she relaxed and soaked up the sun. This Mother's Day morning, I took a run at Zuma, as I so often do, and I snapped this photo with my mom weighing heavily on my mind.
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2016
When my mom died, so much came up in me that I was not prepared to deal with. I had my first child three months later, and my delay in fully grieving the loss of my mother until my daughter was safely outside of my body meant I was faced with embracing overwhelming joy and tremendous grief simultaneously.
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2016
Dear Mom,
Today would have been your 70th Birthday. But you're not here to celebrate it. The weirdest part of that fact is that I don't know how you would have looked or how you would have lived as a seventy-year-old woman. Since you died the day after your 60th birthday, ten years ago tomorrow, you never got the chance to grow older and wiser, to right the wrongs, to make your peace, to hold your grandchildren.
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2015
Nine years ago today, the day after her 60th birthday, my mom was killed in a car accident. I was six months pregnant with my first child, her first grandchild, and I was the first one in my family to get the news. On this day last year, I decided to finally write about it, and about her.
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2015
My mom would have been 69 years old today. Random thoughts on her and her life have been flooding my brain since I awoke this morning. I decided I would tune into them and write down whatever comes to mind…
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2014
Eight years ago today my mom died. In an instant, a car crashed into another car and she was gone.
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As a new mother, many of the decisions I had confidently and unequivocally thought I made while pregnant were turned on their heads by LIFE. Life happened, as it so often does, in such a way that unexpectedly altered the course of my existence, and my mothering journey, forever.
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OPINION
Sitting on the side of the road in my car. PCH. Appreciating Mother Earth and so many of her gifts on this Earth Day 2019. The air, the sea, the land, the sunset. The quiet stillness. The majestic beauty.
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There is no filter on this photo I just snapped a couple minutes ago; so there will be no filter on its caption either (which is the norm for me anyway). It is inconceivable to some that one could look out at this view from their front door and not be grateful every moment of every day. Yet, sadly, it doesn’t work that way.
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I hosted my son's Lego birthday party today to celebrate him turning seven. And now is not the moment when I am supposed to state any variety of, "Where did the time go?, The years are going by too fast!, or Slow down time!" But I don’t. I don't subscribe to this mode of thinking that most parents do.
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I've been thinking a lot about communication recently, and how much our relationships hinge on it. The health of a relationship *the sheer existence of it* relies on communication (verbal or otherwise) between the two people engaged in it. Engaged, as in actively participating…
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A two week vacation from your regular, daily routine over the winter break can provide immense perspective on your life... on the aspects for which you are grateful, the parts of it you really like (or would like to do without), the areas in it that fulfill you, and those you wish were more fulfilling.
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This is what I look like most days... baseball cap, yoga or running clothes, sunglasses, no makeup. No glamour, no glitz. No sign of professional success or status. No power lunches, business trips, or expense accounts. No coffee dates, happy hour hang outs, or peer camaraderie.
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I write what I feel. Always. At times, what comes out is encouraging and inspirational to me (and maybe to those that read it) and other times it is just... not so much. Still, even if I am in the muck for a minute or two, admitting to myself, and to you, that life just ain't all that and a bag of chips sometimes, I always seem to glean some insight from the process and find some positivity in the end.
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This is what I look like most days... baseball cap, yoga or running clothes, sunglasses, no makeup. This is what I do most days... DRIVE. Whether it is up and down the coast highway or over the canyon to the valley, I live in a place where I have to drive quite a few miles to get anywhere.
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Bedtime. Reading. Tired. Alone. Contemplative... Wondering if the person I was thinking of at this moment could read what was on my mind if they were looking at me. How accurately do our thoughts register on our faces? No matter what we say we are thinking, no one can truly know what's going on in our heads but us.
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Ah, our local pumpkin patch... appearing every year in the same empty dirt lot in the neighboring city just over the canyon from Malibu. My kids were so excited this September when it came to town, once again situated along the main road we travel so often to the many conveniences not afforded us on the coast…
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It is something that is not hard for me to do... sharing without a filter, that is. In general, I don't have a problem talking to people about my feelings, and I don't usually feel the need to edit myself or hold back what I'm feeling or thinking, especially not with those I love and trust.
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I just saw the new film Begin Again. Both the film's tagline: "You're only as strong as your next move" and a lyric from its song "Lost Stars": "Woe is me, if we're not careful turns into reality" support this notion of your destiny being dictated by what you do NOW; and your survival being determined by your ability to rise up in the face of adversity.
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PARENTING
We are all products of our pasts, at least in some ways. We are also products of our mothers’ pasts. They bring into our present the wounds and lessons of their own childhoods, and impart all the wisdom, inspiration, anger and sadness they have collected onto us as they rear us from babies, toddlers, kids, and teens into young adulthood. They make their pasts an inevitable part of our futures.
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April 1st. A date in the year like any other. And like the others, it signifies different things to different people… The flip of a calendar page. A birthday. An anniversary. A new start. April Fools’ Day. A made-up holiday celebrated on April 1st by practical jokers, and dreaded by non-jokers. A day to get Punk’d. Bamboozled. Hoodwinked.
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I began writing this letter in April 2016 while my children were nine and five-years-old, intended for them to read when much older. It remained an unfinished draft until completed in June 2020, the kids now thirteen and nine-years-old. I’m posting it here as a virtual timestamp of composition, it still being years away from them reading it.
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I was nearly full term pregnant with my son when I attended my 20 year high school reunion in 2010. I contemplated not going in my condition; but since it was taking place so close to where I lived, I decided to go and bask in my pregnancy glow.
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I just saw a viral video of a man with his young daughter doing their morning ritual of looking into a mirror and repeating positive affirmations.
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I didn't think about it. I just pulled out my phone and quickly snapped a single frame of my son holding my hand as we walked toward his new classroom on his first day of Kindergarten today. He didn't see me take it, nor did I want him to, as my phone went right back in my pocket a second later.
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It's happening. My youngest starts Transitional Kindergarten tomorrow. Although it is a transitional year for him between preschool and actual Kindergarten, there is no transitioning for me. He'll be in school for as many hours and days as he would be if he was starting Kindergarten, AND he will be attending a new elementary school that neither of us have been before.
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Why do some dads today behave as if they are only temporary substitutes for mom when they are in charge of their kids? It's like they act as if they are seat fillers on an awards show... you know, those individuals hired to fill the seats of the actors and musicians who get up during the broadcast for a bathroom break…
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Yes, I was one of those moms that started out believing that my husband should do and say and be just like me when it came to our children. When they were babies, I thought I held the premium on knowing how to care for them and I wasn't shy about making sure he, and everyone else, knew just that.
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A couple weeks ago, my sister sent an email to me and two girlfriends, our childhood best friends, with the subject "we are not alone..." and included the link to a blog post that she had just read on Scary Mommy entitled Motherhood: The Big Fat F*ck You. She accompanied the link with a simple message: "nothing left to say. enjoy. xo"
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As a parent of young children, I can honestly say that the most important thing I strive to impart to my children is a sense that they are not the center of the universe. In this egocentric society in which we live, I hope to foster a desire in them to consciously and deliberately help others in need and make it an integral part of their development as humans. Tall order? Yes, probably. But that is no reason not to try.
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Lately I have been bewildered that some parents of toddlers and elementary-aged children, many of whom are my close friends, are watching an enormous amount of television, despite being busy, full-time parents. Since having kids, I had come to the conclusion that watching television on a regular basis, or following any particular TV series religiously, was a luxury commodity, and one not afforded to a person like me... a parent.
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Over the last several years that I've been a parent, I have attended MANY birthday parties... most of them for people under the age of seven. Parties for my nieces and nephews, for the kids in both my son’s and daughter’s classes, or for the kids of my or my husband’s childhood friends…
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QUARANTINE
On March 2, 2020, my sister and I took our young sons to Universal Studios Hollywood to spend the day with their Grandpa Tony (our dad). We had fun on that cold winter day last March, while being blissfully unaware that just ten days later - one year ago today - the state of California would go on lockdown due to the Covid-19 global pandemic.
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Me practicing yoga with my two cuties at ages 6 and 3... a scene that didn’t happen often, but one I relished when it did. I hope to replicate something like this again soon for all of our sakes and for our collective wellness.
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Thanksgiving 2020. Covid-19, 3rd wave. So many cases, so many deaths. Devastating. New house. Much anticipated first holiday season living here. Finally have room to comfortably host family holiday gatherings after 15 years of not; but can’t have any guests over today. Doing our part. Household only. Sad and disappointing.
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I dropped off my mail-in ballot for the 2020 presidential election a week before Election Day. This consequential election will definitely have a huge impact on the future of this country, and in the midst of the hardship of this year and the pandemic, it feels even more dire than ever.
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All glammed up for a Target run... hardly. Uggs, leggings, my favorite comfy sweatshirt, and stylish face mask of course. It’s definitely not the jet set life, but it’s a good one. This Covid quarantine, and all of its’ devastating results, brought so many things back to basics and reminded people that simple wellbeing is a luxury for which to be extremely grateful…
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I’m drinking a full glass of organic aloe vera juice every day now, in the same double old fashioned from which I sipped cocktails (almost every day) during the first six months of this Covid-19 quarantine. We were told it would last a month. It didn’t. We thought our kids would be on campus this Fall. They aren’t.
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I volunteered in my kids’ classrooms almost every week of every school year for the last seven years; i.e. before this school year. I usually chose to help out in ART or their class library time, since those are my favorite subjects and past times; but I would also help out during math and phonics, if needed.
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We cleared away my son’s “summer desk” - his own personal arts and crafts, engineering, tinkering workbench, littered with stacks of pencil drawings, glue bottles, black and colored sharpies, dissembled remote control car parts, and his homemade clay model of the sunken Titanic - to properly set it up for the start of the new virtual school year…
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It’s the last day of summer, and today was my 4th grader’s turn to pick up his textbooks, workbooks and folder of class instructions for his first day of virtual school tomorrow…
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Flashback to August 2000 at my ten year high school reunion, exactly 20 years ago this month. I was supposed to attend my 30th this year…
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Middle school orientation/materials pickup for my 8th grader today... new district, new school, new community. We know no one, and never stepped foot on her campus before today... and that will be the first and last time until school resumes in person, if ever, this year.
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As an artist, sometimes it’s hard to feel your purpose. It’s become even more difficult in these uncertain times, during this quarantine, when so many artists are prohibited from expressing their art in any live, public forum. As a writer, I can share my art anytime, virtually, but the question is... is anyone listening?
There is something simple and comforting about what we are all going through.
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SHORT STORIES
It’s one hour into 2022. My 11-year-old son is sleeping next to me in my bed while our cat is asleep on his lap. My vintage ceramic Christmas tree - made by my grandmother in the 1980s - is my night light…
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Driving to my sister’s house in the pouring rain yesterday to drop Jake (who took a power nap on the hour-long drive) to hang with his cousin while my sister, our oldest childhood friend Kyle, and I went to see the film…
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Me seeing the film Wonder Woman in a movie theater, solo. Haven’t been inside a movie theater for six months due to the Covid quarantine, and I wonder when I will ever be in one again. Strange…
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Loud and live music has been infiltrating my ears since I was just days old. My mother’s distinct speaking voice and my father’s amplified singing voice dominated the soundtrack of my childhood, and are my most potent audible memories.
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Some of the best parts of the human experience are the ones that defy explanation. Ones that seem a bit surreal as you are experiencing them. When you don’t have a logical explanation for the bliss or the beauty, and you don’t question or doubt anything in that moment and instead just FEEL it... 😌 those are the best moments in life.
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Driving on PCH one mile from home, the kids and I pulled to the side of the road to enjoy this, knowing these colors would be gone by the time we got to our deck. (They were.)
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This is me, my older sister and brother, and our mother at our ranch before leaving home for a school picnic, circa 1977. Yes, we are all wearing matching “HAPPINESS IS BEING CROATIAN” t-shirts, written in big, bold, blue letters. My dad and mom were used to being in the spotlight, so I guess they thought we wouldn’t mind it either.
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“It was called 'Textures', because you could see three different kinds of texture: the driftwood, the sand and me." - Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch (1955) For some inexplicable reason, I thought of this MM quote from one of my favorite films of hers when I was looking out at this view during my beach workout this morning…
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On the last day of 2016, my family and I visited the Sequoia National Park up in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. As we drove over thirty miles up a windy mountain road, the air temperature dropped from an already chilly (by my California coast standards) 49 degrees at the bottom of the mountain to a brisk 31 degrees at the point where we stopped amidst a winter wonderland.
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A two and half hour, traffic laden drive from the OC to LA warrants all windows down, sunroof open, bare feet, music playing, and a leg up while driving (even when wearing a dress). I drove down to Costa Mesa this morning for a dear friend's father's funeral, a fitting end to an already emotional week for me…
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Here in Malibu, we have a weather condition called June Gloom. It's when the inland heat traveling over the mountains meets the cold Pacific Ocean at the beginning of summer, resulting in cloudy, overcast skies and cool temperatures.
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I love our local library. Some days I wish I could stay here... live here. It's like in the Sound of Music when Maria returns to the Abbey and begs to stay and become a nun so she can avoid the dilemma of being in love with Captain Von Trapp. The Reverend Mother says to her, "Our Abbey is not to be used as an escape...”
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From the month I turned four years old until the month after I turned thirty-seven years old, my grandmother lived down the street from my childhood home in my hometown. Thirty-three years in the same house - in the same kitchen - cooking meals and hosting holidays for her family, she and that house were the rare constants in my life.
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TATTOOS
The day after my 47th birthday, one year ago tomorrow, I got my second tattoo… something I didn’t think I would ever do when I got my first. Five years had passed…
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About a month ago, I shared a piece I wrote about getting my first tattoo in September 2014. Many people liked and shared it, and a lot of the comments that followed were about wanting to see the actual tattoo.
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"I'm getting a tattoo." When I made this declaration to a friend some months ago, she quickly decided that there could be no other explanation for this insane notion than that I must be going through a mid-life crisis. Huh. Wasn't expecting that reaction.
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TRAGEDY
Two years ago today, the Woolsey fire threatened our home and our Malibu community. It was a trying time of anxiety, sadness, uncertainty and devastation. We didn’t know for days on end when or if we would have a home to return to.
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We couldn’t go to the 9/11 memorial today in Malibu because it is closed to the public this year due to Covid-19. Unfortunate, as we have gone 10 times over the past 11 years (in 2009 and 2011-2019). My daughter first visited at 2.5 years old in 2009, and my son’s first visit was in 2011, just ten days shy of his 1st birthday. We have gone every year since then, and we really missed being there today…
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Like many citizens in the United States, my shock, disbelief, and sadness over the death of fellow citizen George Floyd have been deep and pervasive.
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Today is the one year anniversary of the day the Woolsey Fire tore through Malibu and changed the lives of so many forever. Tragedy does that.
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I take photos of the flags flapping in the wind every year we visit. They are the same yet different. The sea of American flags are always dotted with flags of other nations, but spaced out differently and seemingly in new spots each year. My son runs up and down the grassy hills, a little more exuberantly than I would wish…
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November 2018 started off inspirational, but ended up in disaster, full of news and updates on the unexpected tragic events that took place that month.
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Thousand Oaks is part of an extended community for many residents of Malibu. My kids and I are over there often, most recently this past Tuesday, the day before the shooting, at a restaurant only four miles from where shots were fired and twelve lives were violently lost…
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Tragedies happen every day. A person dies in a car accident, another dies of cancer, and still another dies giving birth or while being born. Tragedies are ever present in our world, even if they don't happen right around us or we are not aware of them…
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Somewhere in California, a father helps his daughter learn to ride her penny board at a gas stop during their family's summer vacation last week. This father fell in love with his wife seventeen years ago, married her, and had two children out of that love.
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This morning we arrived at 10am for our annual visit... me, my two littles. I've been bringing them here since they were babies; going on nine years now. It's a tradition I cherish, yet it's one I wish didn't have cause to exist.
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I'm sick. My head feels like it's full of cotton packed in tight and my nasal passages are so stuffed that even after using half the tissues in the box to blow my nose, I still can only breathe through my mouth. My lips are raw and so severely chapped that they burn. Ouch.
2020
This is not a sob story. This isn’t “Oh woe is me, I didn't get to go on my birthday weekend getaway this year.” A global pandemic was ravaging the world that weekend. Is still ravaging. People were dying. Are still dying.
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