Going Through Changes Now (Also, a Trip to LA)

Recently on trip back to Princeton, N.J. for an appointment for my Invisalign braces, I dropped into a class with my favorite yoga teacher, Gemma. A greeting from Gemma is to be encompassed in her lavender-scented warmth and I’d missed her so much in the months since I’d moved away from Princeton. I told her things weren’t good and no doubt I’d cry during class. She told me to sit front and center, facing her, back turned to the rest of the class and she began by reading a meditation on how we cannot fight change so we might as well lean into it. Embrace it.

Then, during a writing group I’m a part of, this quote from the stoic Marcus Aurelius was referenced: “Be like a rocky promontory against which the restless surf continually pounds; it stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet.”

You can’t really fight change, just as a rock isn’t actually fighting the sea, or lulling it even.

It’s no coincidence that my most-listened to song this past month is “Changes” by Langhorn Slim. The lyrics that really hit: “Things could be stranger but i don’t know how/going through changes now.” And “There’s many reasons we are what we’ve become/I’m going through changes/rippin’ out pages/I’m going through changes now”.

Being accepting of these changes has been a shift in me during these past few weeks. I feel less scared about the future, more open to new experiences. I’m getting back into exploring DC in the ways I used to — seeing lots of live music, going on a ton of walks, meeting new people. I’m starting to envision a future that looks different from the life I had before (married to a diplomat, living abroad, headed to Istanbul next) and I’m feeling that this new life could be pretty great too.

So that’s me now, in late October 2023. But a little more than a month ago, I was coming off a weeklong yoga retreat in the hot Texas desert and feeling raw and exposed and so ready to fly on a plane alone and be with my longtime friend Evan, an entertainment lawyer in LA who was one of my very first friends when I moved to Washington DC at age 21. My trip from an eco bubble in Terlingua Texas to Evan’s stylish Hollywood condo was 16 hours door to door and I was gassed when I arrived. We had a glass of wine, I told him parts of the story about what’s been going on with me, and we went to sleep.

I’ve visited Evan a handful of times over the years, and each time he shows me such a great LA time that I always leave thinking “Why don’t we all live in LA?” The perfect weather, the fresh produce, the natural beauty, how strip malls are sort of charming there, how the people are so pretty and dress so cool. On Sunday, we sipped a lavender lattes and bought berries, carrots, fresh flowers and salmon all under the shadow of a massive Scientology building at one of the best farmers markets I’ve ever experienced.

I went to an Orangetheory workout class, then we drove to the gay beach Santa Monica, and it was one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen – a perfect long paved boardwalk, tall palms, cliffside homes, mountains in the distance, and of course the chiseled bods of the LA gays.

After, we drove to Malibu and had dinner on a pier covered in twinkling lights. It was my wedding anniversary. Twelve years to the day since Adam and I got married in Las Vegas. Not many people were there for that wedding, just my beloved Gramps who was a longtime Vegas resident, my best friend Lauren, my closest cousin Gary, and Evan, who flew in from LA for the nuptials. To toast a slightly dirty gin martini and commemorate an important day in my life with longtime friend, who was there at my Vegas wedding, and the Michigan wedding too, it meant something. (It meant I cried!) I basked in the golden glow of that day and was reminded that life can be so beautiful and so confusing and hard at the same time.

The following day we hiked up Griffith Park and it would be hard to think of a city hike any better – the observatory, the views of the Hollywood sign, the wavy mountain peaks in the distance. We maybe blasted cheesy Rascal Flats love songs and sang along, just as we used to do after breakups in our twenties. On the drive home, the sunset was out of this world sherbet colored and we raced up to Evan’s roofdeck to watch the color explosion.

The next day, we hosted a dinner party for a few of his friends. Evan baked a peach pie and I made my stuffed mushrooms, butternut squash carpaccio with sage butter and creme fraiche, honey harissa carrots on whipped feta, and a kale ceasar salad. I haven’t cooked like that in many months, and while it wasn’t exactly something I’ve been missing, at least I know that part of me is still in there somewhere, and it can make an appearance now and then. The dinner party was a delight, and it was exactly how a dinner party in DC would be except for a few things: One, a guest walked in – blond, thin, hot – and immediately apologized to everyone for “being so fat.” That wouldn’t happen on the East Coast! Also we all had a nuanced conversation about celebrity gossip rather than discussing the latest political news. Many people in my friend group go to therapy but truly everyone in LA goes to therapy and when the group turned to my current crisis and offered an array of therapy-informed perspectives, it was actually a surprisingly good time.

After five nights with Evan, I relocated to the home of Conner and Atia, two good friends from the Jerusalem days. Being with them, both so smart and warm, was really comforting. One night they made Afghan dumplings and seeing how they worked together in the kitchen, him folding the dumplings while she made the sauces, was really beautiful. I walked on the chilly and cloudy Redondo beach on the morning of Yom Kippur and a female rabbi, her back facing the gray ocean, was giving a sermon in which she said “When we turn east, we’re facing toward Jerusalem” and I thought that was perfect thing for me to hear while I’m having a visit that included a lot of recollecting about that time we all lived in Jerusalem. (This was a month before the Hamas attack in Israel, the subsequent siege in Gaza. I have many thoughts and feelings on this painful time and how my living in the region influences how I think about it, but I’m not ready to write about it yet).

When I arrived back to my attic apartment, after being away for two weeks, I did what I have always done (what we have always done) upon returning from a trip. Poured a gin and tonic with Nordes gin (a lovely herbal and floral gin from Galacia in Northern Spain), lit a candle, turned music on, and unpacked. My body just knew to do this a few minutes before my brain put together that I was in a ritual. Even when I realized what I was doing, I continued, I leaned in. I embraced.