Thursday, March 7, 2024

Our Joyful Winter

March! How is it March? In a few weeks we will celebrate a resurrected life and welcome the feast of Easter and usher in Spring and Eastertide. The snow will thaw (figuratively I mean come on I live in Los Angeles), the flowers will bloom. 

It’s been quite a winter. Our best ever! I took the bull by the horns and knew that if I didn’t set up a system in place to survive the winter and fight the dementors of depression that the winter would feel barren and dead instead of how the Creator intended it with hibernation and rest. I wanted to embrace the beauty of winter and surrender to its truths and rhythms. There is a time for everything and this was the time of preparation for growth and life. 


I started small and found a pinterest article on how to embrace winter and one of the ideas was to try some “Hygge”. Oh boy did I! It’s the Scandinavian way of embracing the cozy lifestyle during winter. I listened to the Little Book of Hygge and got the basics down and I was ready to begin. The Hygge Manifesto lays out the 10 basics of Hygge: Atmosphere, Presence, Pleasure, Equality, Gratitude, Harmony, Comfort, Truce, Togetherness, and Shelter. Listening to the book with the author’s Danish accent transported me and filled me with hope for a joyful winter. Joyful Winter, two words that I never imagined putting together.

I used to decorate for Christmas primarily using silver, black and white (except the colorful office) in a scheme I called Cozy Cabin with buffalo check, pine cones, camping lanterns, wood, cozy textiles, and so many candles. The past few years I craved red and green so instead we keep the Black and White cabin things for use post Christmas. It’s a nice transitional decorating scheme for my brain that likes her environment to indicate her state of life.


Not that the Hygge lifestyle requires any type of purchasing of things but we did find one item to be crucial to add to the whole vibe… a little electric fireplace. You should have seen the puppy dog eyes we pulled on Matt to get him to agree to it and how hyped the kids were when it arrived!

I have created tiny Hygge cozy monsters with my children and spouse. They have leaned into the cozy and it makes the long nights feel fun and loving. We have warm lighting with electric candles, nice scented candles, the fireplace going, a corner of the couch we call ‘cozy corner’, a heated blanket, books, magazines… I make soup and fresh bread. We slow down. We Sabbath. We nap. We take walks when we can as often as we can. The strangely rainy days have not hampered our spirits. My mental health this winter has been the best it’s ever been. Even when we added Lent and fasting! 

It’s literally my job to get ahead of everything, to see the future and where things could go wrong and anticipate the pitfalls and steer my team away from failure. I am good at it. I am good at imagining possibilities and problems with my vocation. But. It’s a lifelong lesson for myself to be in the current season and not get too ahead of myself either. To be grateful for where I am and where my family is and take it the next right thing at a time. A step and step again. I’d be tempted during this time when reading a terrific magazine heralding the coming of Spring to start plotting the Spring recipes or parties or decorating or trips and start feeling like I am already behind. But that’s not true. Advertisers and retailers have to be constantly in the future so you feel that you can’t keep up. Lies.


Where you are is just enough as it is. Be present to the current season. Even if it's winter.

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

2 bundt cakes and 15 books

 How do you measure a year? 

Is it counted by how many Trader Joe’s frozen soup dumplings I’ve eaten? How many days I’ve worked which is under 60. Is it how many friends we’ve made? Right now in early November I did a little tally and found that I’m gonna count it as the year with 2 bundt cakes and 15 books.


So far, this has mostly been a year of loss. Job loss and family loss. Matt lost two friends and one grandfather. We lost our dog too. Woz went to doggy heaven under a series of unfortunate events that is still hard to talk about. Then his parents, who’ve been instrumental with enabling Matt and I to have any sort of weekends alone together, moved to New Mexico. We took a break from hosting our home church and merged with another group and no longer hosting. Two entertainment union strikes kept a lot of our friends unemployed and my usual work was non-existent. We were sick for maybe 2 months total this year with colds and really intense viral stuff that felt RSV-ish. Loss and loss.


There’s also been some good stuff. I rented so many movies and 3 seasons of Gilmore Girls from the public library. Did you know there’s this thing called the library and it lets you borrow books and tv shows and movies for free?! Crazy right? Earlier in the year I deleted all social media off my phone and logged myself out of all accounts. I don’t miss it in the slightest though my propensity for oversharing is suffered by my group text friends. In place of social media, I added learning another language and reading books. I’ve done over 300 days of either French or Japanese lessons on the Duolingo app. I can ask for rice and water in Japanese and where the train station is in French. Où est la gare? 


My personality type dictates that I measure my success in achievements and affirmations. My other personality type dictates that I fill my time with beauty, art, and nature. Right now only one of these mes is steering the ship while the other is asleep in a cabin possibly tied up in a mutiny type situation, I’m not sure. I’m living my best and broke-est life right now. It’s weird. 


During the dark pandemic days we quickly realized that the things that give our life meaning have nothing to do with money or possessions or jobs or success. I know that. But the waiting, this fallow season is unsettling. I trust God will provide and trust that something is on the horizon with no evidence other than just feeling and faith. 


I don’t feel depressed. I don’t feel settled. I don’t feel worried. I just find myself marveling at the strangeness of this abundance of time. I mean, how much time is there in between raising children and social obligations but I’ve had moments where I have an hour to kill and had earlier in that day done all the things I wanted to do that were leisurely during the designated leisure time. I had watched a thing, read a thing, crafted a thing. I had an hour of leisure time to kill, that’s something that people kill themselves to accomplish even just an hour of a week. I am not those people since I have designated a weekly practice so restful joyful artful time is never too far away but if there’s too much of a good thing here at the end of November, that time has come.


In the time I started writing this post and finished it I had read two more books. 2 bundt cakes and 17 books.


Monday, July 17, 2023

Mom's Summer Backyard Essentials

Welcome to our home and backyard during the summer!  My mom play heaven (more on that later) is away and now it's time for the Kid Kingdom. I used all the stuff we had from last year with some purchases to make my life and summer duties easier and decided to share with you all my summer wisdom for backyard kid things.


Here's my recommended items to save your back and sanity. If I indicate a brand it's because I am serious about it and it's tried and true and don't settle for anything less. Mom's honor.
Don't mess around and cheap out on a junky hose or nozzle. Finally invested in a good one this year that doesn't annoy me to death by its weight and cumbersome nature. This is helpful year round with watering plants and rinsing off of backyard furniture so do yourself a favor and get a Zero G Hose at least 50 feet in length.
Then get one of these Orbit $16 hose nozzles at Lowe's. See how the trigger is on the front? Anything else is bullshit. 
Ok next: water guns. Gone are the days of that tiny little hole to fill water guns that takes 5 minutes only to be used up in 10 seconds. Get you one of these X-Shot Fast Fill ones that fill up in ONE second. Get a 4 pack so the kids can cool each other (and the adults) off.
Parenthood will involve a lot of blowing up of shit. Pools, balls, airbeds... save your lungs!
Speaking of blowing up of things... ball pump. This one came with some set but I love it 'cause it's compact and the needle stores into the top part of the pump to keep it safe.
This summer I put all their bubble stuff together including the accumulation of so many freaking bubble wands from every holiday and birthday party! The kids began this game on their own of making bubble potions and bubble babies and who knows what and keeping them together is great self-service backyard fun.
I also put all the balls and outdoor toys here easily accessible for backyard play and seeing it there encourages them to do it!
The laundry room is the room you first enter from the backyard and becomes our dumping ground for all things backyard that we want to keep OUT of the sun so we have a beach bag with their swimsuits.
On the shelf I repurposed that metal bin to house the three Thermacells we have, the chlorine for the kid pool, and the sunblock. For now the sunblock is on the shelf since we use it frequently but eventually it will all be stored in that bin.
I also have a tray here for the summer ready for impromptu hosting or promptu hosting. 
Few things in life make me happier than the sight of the kids stuff in the summer.
Other than maybe you know... the kids.
Happy Summering Everyone!

Chilaquiles

Matt peeks into the office as I am wrapping up my Solo Sunday…

“Hey. Do you wanna hear Matt Berry say chilaquiles.”

I nod enthusiastically and emphatically and follow him to the living room.

Friday, January 20, 2023

My family in order, Our life in place

Sometimes when you’re deep in the gamut of raising babies you live in a phenomena that Matt and I call “treading water”. You’re not really getting anywhere closer to the island you’re just trying to stay above water and not drown. Maybe a floating plank gives you some respite for a while but mostly you’re gonna get back to treading water. Until one magical day… you don’t quite realize is it as it happens but your babies are sleeping in beds, sleeping all night, communicating, peeing in toilets, and you turn off the baby monitor all night. You’re no longer treading water. You’re able to swim toward a destination and even stop at little islands along the way and prolong drowning. Maybe even recreationally swim or enjoy a sunset. 

Until that time you’re not really thinking long term. Which is actually good. Just surviving the day to day is the way to go. Suffice is the trouble for the day etc. But once survival becomes insufficient, the goals, identity, values, and dreams of your family materialize or start to form into matter that makes sense. All of a sudden you’re realizing what things, as a family, give you life and which suck it out of you. And WHO you are as a family. There’s an identity that is formed as a unit that as a concept I was unable to grasp until I was out of the trauma survival, including early childhood and a pandemic. 

Now I can see a little more clearly who we are.

We been in this game 15 years and in that time, Matt and I have developed an identity and values as a family. Chief among them is that we are an organized and intentional family, which is kinda awesome and hugely unexpected. Matt and I are both fairly neat and organized people in general with our home and habits but I didn’t realize how much the organization was bleeding into our communal life as well. We are all about the calendar and what is happening when and what we can do to prepare for the upcoming event. We will talk about the day/weekend/what’s coming and work backwards.

Matt runs a tight ship with the kids’ daily schedule and has since they were babies. He has them regulated with food, naps, bedtime. He feeds them at 12:30p and 6pm and snack after school and the kids are so used to it that you could remove every clock in our house but one to check and I could tell you roughly what time it was by “I’m hungry”. I on the other hand, am not disciplined when it comes to time itself, the hours. I like to block out chunks of time and work within those hours on whatever thing I’ve committed is the priority. Currently as I am in a waiting time with work, I have mornings free and when the kids are in school the hours of 8:45a-11:45a are sacred and for quiet reflection and study. Or a walk or writing. There’s no order to when and how long I’ll do any one thing only that it’s blocked out and that gives me some order. My job currently only requires that I am at my desk for certain hours and at meetings for certain hours. My other job, on set: the hour by hour matters and counts in that big sense where 100 people are getting paid every 15 minutes we don’t stop to feed them lunch! I’m no stranger to the organization of time but am honestly not very good at the detailed daily time management. Working on it still! 

But. I am getting much better at organizing our days and I’m seeing very fruitful results! One of the things I’m working on is an old spiritual organization tool called “Rule of Life”. Which to be honest I hate the name because it’s really not a rule it’s more of a layout of life or a blueprint of life priorities. The Rule of Life was begun by monks who lived in a monastery and they had their day organized to the minutes for prayer, reading, cooking. All their days, weeks, months, years built on the things they prioritized which was living a spiritual life with God. Sort of a trellis where you build on it. Honestly I couldn’t think of analogies that work in explaining the Rule of Life. Our church has one where we focus on certain things at certain times of the year. I had been wanting to make one myself and wasn’t realizing that that’s what I was doing when on one of my annual solo trips I jotted this down in my notes app:

I was trying to find a way to re-organize my days, my life to make room and time for my priorities. In the same way that every week God made a Sabbath, a day of rest, my family had made days dedicated to alone time and couple time and family movie night. And then I wanted more of it. And then I wanted to pin that time in our life so that nothing else would invade it. I wanted to organize our days so we would never feel pressure about making time for the things that matter because we already wrote the things that matter into our life and family calendar. 

One thing that Matt keeps talking about as we’ve journeyed into a healthy life and particularly a healthy spiritual life is that discipline = freedom. And it sounds completely ass backwards because discipline is one of those words that carries such weight and a ruler I’ll never measure up to. How can it be freeing to have to make yourself do something hard? BUT when you discipline your calendar, then you’re free with your time. When you already have a set time for a meeting, you never have to waste time setting up the meeting. When you make dedicated weekly time to talk and check in and connect, you never have to feel disconnected for too long because you know the connect time is at worse, 7 days away. Regularity is great for pooping and sleeping. Regularity is good for your life. Consistency. Order. It is incredibly freeing. 

You all know I will scream ’til I’m blue in the face about how good for me it’s been to have a Solo Sunday night every single week for my sanity. Matt and I added a Meaningful Monday where we are just us no TV that’s been so great for us. The rest of our time falls around those times. We know what to say no to because we have those things we say yes to. 

As I continued thinking about the concept of ordering our life I, for some reason, wanted to practice and still wish to practice learning how to make a French omelette. I was on Youtube watching Jacques Pepin make one and on third viewing I noticed his ‘mise en place’ setup. Do you know the concept? It’s what chefs do when they’re making a meal where all the ingredients have been properly measured and prepped and are lined up in little bowls near them while they’re cooking. So when it’s time to add onion, the onion is right there waiting. They don’t have to stop what they’re doing, grab a knife and cutting board and onion out of the pantry and cut it up. The onion is ready for the next step. As are all the other ingredients for the dish. They disciplined their prep and now they were free to cook. It was the only concept that finally clicked.

So I drafted my own Rule of Life and as I looked at the finished product I thought: this is a good life. If I do these things, this is a solid, balanced, joyful, fulfilled life. Order in our days. Freedom to live.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

why a show about a teenager's romantic life clicked so much

 Do you guys watch Never Have I Ever? You must. 

It's about a teenager named Devi Vishwakumar's high school experience in Greater Los Angeles. Not just any experience but one from an adorable, funny, nerdy, intelligent, grieving, healing, and horny young woman from a culturally strict family unit. I mean... replace strict Indian parent with Mexican parent and it's... familiar. But having someone up there getting the hot boy and the cute nerdy boy on top of just dealing with friendship and death and therapy and life gave us a girl that is so much more multi-faceted than a lot of television has given us in the past. We'd either get the nerd or the popular one. We had to remove our glasses and get made over to fit in. BOO. We're so much more than that. We should be loved as we are.

This season Devi seemed to get a lot of what she wanted in the boy department but just as in life, when you get that relationship you thought would complete you guess what... it doesn't magically solve all your problems. You still gotta deal with you. And if you wanna see what it's like to be loved, you gotta love yourself. All of your mess and all of your wins and all of your beautiful luminous being. 

I know, I'd hate listening to me too if I hadn't also learned this lesson first hand. Not just about the boy, I got the boy, I love the boy. But about the job. The house. The kid. The other kid. None of all those checklists make a lick of difference if inside of you keeps resisting the truth. That the relationship you really need to come to terms with is how you think and love yourself. How you listen to your voice within and learn what you need and what you want. It's a hot topic this 'self-love' thing and I'm not going to debase love by stooping it to the level that the world thinks is self-love. It's not narcissism, it's not self-care and treat yo-self. It's so much more than that. Love is so much more than that. 

I think of it as well, perfect love casts out all fear and I think of it as being unafraid of what you are when you're stripped of everything. It's wonderful and all well and good to have all those wonderful things. But when you're alone in a cave with nobody and nothing but your thoughts who are you? When you're left to your own vices amongst strangers, who do you default to, and would you want to spend time with that person? Is your life one of character, faith, growth? Have you confronted the bears in the cave, have you looked at the scars, have you asked the hard questions of yourself?

Also, love is not greedy. It is the opposite of greedy. So if you're wondering what a life of genuine self-love and not narcissism looks like, it is evident in the people we pour into. It's evidenced in the generosity we live life in. It's loving others well. Or at least it looks like someone that is TRYING to love others even if she sucks at it sometimes. 

Friday, June 24, 2022

Summer Time 2022

 Friends! It's summer at the FFF and we are... loving it. (Also I wrote this post during a more optimistic moment and now I'm fighting the pessimism!) 

After two summers of being at home and not much else, we were proactive this year and decided to get the kids signed up for something to cut down on their being home too much. Wally's pre-school did the work for us and offered an additional month for June which we went for and he finished on the 22nd. He has thrived in preschool. What a difference of a kid. He used to play by himself and not engage with the kids and now he has friends and best friends and knows colors and letters. He'll be starting Kindergarten this fall and we'll have both kids in the same school! 
We scraped by and got Alice signed up for art day camp for 3 weeks in June! She's made a pretty good buddy and her mom is cool too so we've had lots of park time together. Fills me right up that she gets to have a friend with her and that she looks forward to it. I never know with Alice what she's gonna like or how she's gonna react but she surprises me sometimes.
In July the kids will be at VBS for a week and we'll be in Coastal California for a week. I had big lofty goals for Cancun this year but I couldn't figure out the timing so the flights were too much by the time I got it together and opted out.  Then we'll be home another week then... they start school August 15. Boom. Flash. That fast. Every single day this summer has flown by. Work. Camps. Schools. Fun. 

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

40 for 40 Number 3: On being a w4 and Federico’s daughter

After I learned that I was an Enneagram 3 I mostly ignored the fact that I was also a w4. The 4 types are the artistic creative types that thrive on being original and creative and moody. I used to say that “I’m not creative” but boy is that not true. I think I put some stock into creative having to mean artistic in that we can paint, draw, or sculpt or play an instrument. But being creative, or feeling that need to create… to exist in creative spaces and to put beauty into the world is vital.

As I’m writing this I am sitting in my “Room of Requirement”: the home office that functions as playroom, den, tea parlor, lady cave, guest room, home school, and sometimes office. I painted the room in a beautiful grassy green and I have a mauve couch, pink chair, and yellow sideboard. There is a disco ball and plants and framed art and drawings made by the kids and all kinds of colorful and happy things surrounding me. I wanted this space to be a reflection of me and the things I love and you would never guess the person that owned this room was ‘not creative’. 


I made mention of the troubled relationship I had with my mother but there is another figure that exists in my life that is half of me… my father… Federico Camacho. 


During the pandemic, my mother decided to go to the denial route and fell to conspiracy theories and all that. My father on the other hand decided to do the right thing and stay home, make masks, tended his garden, took up drawing, and befriended the neighborhood cat and bought it a jacket. While I grew increasingly frustrated with my mother and had to block her toxicity, my father was regularly texting me Bible verses and FaceTiming me to show off his latest garden adventures and I mine. Since I lived with my mother, that was the most influential person in my life and I realized that it was a squeaky wheel gettin the grease type situation. I kept focusing on the parts that were like hers but I rarely ever thought about how my father had made me who I am today. It was always so strange how my mother loathed all living creatures and my father would go out of his way to talk to my dogs. That part of me that is curious, creative, in tune with nature, that is my father’s contribution. I don’t know why it took a pandemic to slow me down enough to realize all I was missing out on and neglecting my relationship with my father but better now than never. 


Sometimes we feel out of place or that there’s a part of us that is not paid enough attention to. A part of us that is quieter than the other. That part of me took a whole new meaning during a time when I was unable to perform or achieve the way I normally would. I leaned into that quiet and that curiosity and found myself bewildered by it but it was right there all along, living and breathing in my father. 


It finally all made sense. 


I was Federico Camacho’s daughter too. 

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

40 for 40 Number 2: On Being an Enneagram 3

About… 3 years ago my former church (recently former, we dissolved and that’s a whole essay) got really into talking about the Enneagram personality test. Out of curiosity I took the test and learned to my chagrin that I was an Enneagram 3 (w4). The Achiever. “The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious”. When I read the description of my personality type I said “no, this can’t be me, this person sounds like an asshole.” So I took the test again and I got the same result. Dammit, I am the asshole.

Once I came to terms with the numbers being correct I started reading about what that personality types’ driving forces are. What makes them feel seen and appreciated. What their underlying motivations are. It was all true. I was driven by wanting to feel valuable and worthwhile, I did want to feel that I was the best and that I stood out. I was acutely aware of how I was projecting my image at work and in life. 


The 2nd day of my journal writing at age 12 had this written in it: “I have to try not to talk so much. Everyone thinks I’m a show-off. Have I got news for them. All I want is for everyone to like me and I want the teachers to think I’m smart & I know. I get really angry at my friends can’t they realize I need them? But I guess I need to change as much as they do.” Even then I knew what I wanted out of people. 


Why I wanted it is multi-layered. I realized in 2020, watching my daughter’s school experience completely taken from her and going to online schooling, that school had always been a safe space for me and a place where an adult paid attention to me and affirmed me positively. I don’t think I got any of that at home. At home I was selfish and lazy and whatever other accusations could be made of me in a home with a mother that most likely has ‘narcissistic personality disorder’. But I stood out in class and I liked it. 


I’ve learned that my personality type is very charming and a chameleon which explained why I thought I wanted to act or why I thought acting seemed easy to me. It wasn’t that I had the gift of acting like dear friends of mine do, it was that I was performing a part and that part was whatever I wanted or needed at the time. I enjoyed having large and varied groups of friends and didn’t like being tied down to one best friend or one group. My type is fickle and shallow when unhealthy, we move to the next cool thing fast. We excel in life because we want the appearance of perfection or having it all together. We want to be admired and liked by everyone. We are rarely satisfied with enough. We can never be satisfied, God I hope you’re satisfied….!


I gotta tell you, something about learning that I was not an insane person and that I fit into the characteristics of a certain type of personality that has certain tendencies and motivations was a freedom and understanding of myself I had not found in many searches. I own it to the level where I admit insane honest truths like “oh no, I’m fine to do this, I love attention” “hey you know how I think everything is a competition..” “I have to be the best at this pretty fast or I won’t care anymore” and other things. 


I check myself regularly on all these tendencies and by and large try to use them to the advantage of whatever group or work environment or organization I’m in. Naturally inclined to leadership and outspokenness I have to figure out when to put that into effect in a way that's selfless and more for the good of the team. I suffer from a deplorable excess of self-assuredness which many find baffling. Insecure about things? Millions? But by and large I walk around with confidence in who I am and what I am capable of. 


So yes, of course I am a producer. Of course I am the breadwinner. Of course I get chosen for committees and such. That’s how I’m wired. But let me tell you… none of that external fluff meant diddly squat compared to learning who I am in my identity with Christ and God and Holy Spirit. The work of mental health and healing has brought so much satisfaction to my life, more than any awards ever could. I know when the pulls to be that achiever are coming at me and when I need to listen and when I need to ignore them.


The other fun part of this equation and something that I really leaned into this pandemic has been the other side of my personality which is being a w4 (wing 4). Speaking of which… 

Thursday, January 20, 2022

40 for 40: Number 1 - On Journaling

I started journaling when I was 12 years old, 2 months shy of my 13th birthday. The very first journal I bought was at the 99 Cent Store and the first entry was December 11, 1994. It had a green spine and a photo of a grey kitty cat on a branch with some pink flowers. My parents have been divorced as long as I remember and it was a dad weekend and he gave us some money to buy whatever we wanted at the store and being the stationary nerd I am I, of course, bought a blank book! I took it home and immediately started writing in it: “This is my journal. I keep it to write down my most private thoughts about everyone including myself. I want to express my feelings in many ways but everyone thinks I’m weird as it is.”

Annoyingly this will be told from the point of view of a person who’s spent time in therapy, counseling, and has learned a lot about herself and grown as a person so I’ll have very obvious notes about 12 year old me. Then again, do we want to ask a 12 year old what she thinks is going on? Doubtful it’ll reveal much. 


Now that I’ve been through the life I’ve been through and walked through the fire of childhood trauma and emerged through the grace of God and diligent work, it is still very hard for me to think about this 12 year old girl. From the time she was about 7 or 8 until who knows when she was sexually abused by her step-father. My family has 5 children and my mother, who I’ve realized later was also abused was trying her best to keep that man, was told she could not do any better or that he would hurt her if she left. I’m not sure exactly, only that I was left alone to figure out what was happening and why and I really don’t know what that poor little girl felt. We didn’t talk about feelings, we couldn’t afford that. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with 5 children and carving out space anywhere was near impossible. It’s clear that she needed an outlet for everything inside of her and by some miracle learned to love reading and then probably read about writing in diaries, keeping a journal. The idea came to fruition that December 1994.


I am not by any means a disciplined person or one that sticks to things. I am very fickle and very flaky but keeping a diary, writing in a journal as I refer to it to the day, made so much sense to me that it was practically breathing. It required very little money, only to buy a new one when I was near the end of the current one. And while I couldn’t talk to anyone in my family about what was going on in my life, I could pour my little traumatized heart into those books. 


Of course, nothing was written about the abuse itself. I think acknowledging it on paper would be too much. It would make it real. I reference the abuser as ‘someone I have a hatred for’ but not much else. I wrote about crushes, school, how things were boring, my family, fights with my mother, weekends with my father. There’s not much depth to gleam from those early years of journal writing only that it was a practice that carried me and has carried me to this day. Bishop Michael Curry refers to these actions as “rituals of faith”, things you do that carry you when you can’t carry yourself. I didn’t have any tools at my disposal and therapy was many decades away but I had my writing. I had this consistent practice that ebbed and flowed but was always a part of me, the place where I wrote in faith that someday it would make sense or even dare I dream, that someday it would all be better. 


Having a consistent writing space did have some side benefits like being able to crush AP history essays therefore making college a possibility. A poor Latina girl on welfare and food stamps from a family of 5 kids and a single mom dreamed of getting out and doing better and somehow that faith became a reality and I got out. I definitely thank the constant practice of writing as a way out. “I wrote my way out,” as Lin sings.


I still journal. Almost every day lately since you know… soul crushing pandemic and lots more time. When my 2nd child was born I didn’t write as much and barely had time to myself and that led to some bad PPD. A combination of things but not being able to have this very special practice was detrimental to my mental health. I never want to go back to that dark place again and so I write a lot or a little but I write out my thoughts and feelings as I had intended to when I started those 27 years ago. 


Journaling is what has lead to this rather ridiculous task I’ve given myself. But I wouldn’t be me without giving myself such a task. Speaking of which…

40 for 40: 40 Essays on Turning 40

 I will be 40 in less than a month and for some reason have the insane idea to write 40 essays on turning 40. 

Some will be long. Some will be short. Some will be funny and ridiculous. Some will be hard to read. 

Over the course of the year I'll drop them here.

So here they come. 40 for 40. 

Saturday, January 1, 2022

Happy New Year 2022 & Lessons Learned in 2021

 I have been sending the same gif to anyone who sends me a "Happy New Year" Text:

Do I feel particularly happy or celebratory? No. So many factors play into this Lieutenant Dan on New Year's vibe... take a pick! COVID, kids, expectations, exhaustion from a long work year, COVID, but we know the real reason New Year's Eve became a national day of mourning:
We lost the last Golden Girl, our Rose Nylund, America's Grandma just a few weeks shy of her official 100th birthday. I gotta tell you, her death I knew, would hit me when it happened but the way it hit me was a little unexpected. I know she's a literal stranger to me but her face is in my house in multiple places and she's felt like a part of my life for decades. What a lady. What a life! I spent the last day of 2021 just watching Betty White clips, reading Betty White tweets & tributes, and watching Golden Girls episodes. I got it together enough to setup a little New Year's Eve dinner table and she was present there too. 
We celebrated at 9pm for the kids at New Year's Eve New York time. I don't think they understand New Year's other than they can make noise and throw confetti which after last year's mess we opted out. 
Matt and I watched Golden Girls episodes and watched the countdown on my Nintendo video game. We were dressed up from the top up because I'll be danged if I receive a new year without some sparkle. 
What a year these exhausted parents and partners had. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad at all. It was pretty good, an improvement over the year before for sure. We decided to focus internally on survival however we could manage it and in tiny increments we held it together. Weekly disciplines, daily practices (Matt read the Bible in a year!), breaks and breaking of rules and expectations kept us afloat. 
I made no resolutions but instead let the year reveal to me what it was gonna be and as we whittled away here and there and chucked what we didn't need and tweaked what we did like and in the end, here's my musings/learnings from 2021:
  • Makeup remover is not the same as face wash. Remove the makeup, then wash your face.
  • Wash and moisturize your face.
  • A quick shower is possible. 
  • Changing into cozy clothes is worth the effort. Take a few minutes to take the jeans off and put on sweat pants. 
  • I am not responsible for that.
  • Put on your oxygen mask before you help others.
  • Learn to distinguish which is a hill and which is a mountain.
  • Some years, we just bide our time.
  • The opposite of love is selfishness.
  • Freedom is in your mind. In your imagination. Freedom comes from within.
  • Be gentle with yourself whenever possible.
  • The shovel is the only one that gets you 8 hits on the rock in ACNH.
  • Honor and keep rituals of faith. They carry you when you can't carry yourself.
  • Do good because it is good to do.
  • At the end of days, whose life are you living and it better be the one you fought for.
  • Rest does not mean nothing.
  • Live knowing you left it all in the ring.
  • Love casts out fear and I want to live unafraid.
Hello 2022. 
We're gonna warm up before we run. 
And we're gonna keep a steady pace.

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

The Monastic Life of one Evelyn Fredrich

 It started with a book.

Alexa had bought it and read it and passed it along with a note somewhere along the lines of I think you might enjoy this. I was grateful, as I always am for friends who send me books but it sat on my nightstand for months. 

Something happened March of 2020, can't remember what, but all of a sudden there was time now. Time to read something, anything so I picked it up and thus began the journey of desert spirituality.

The book is about 3 spiritual practices the author considers the way of the heart. Solitude, silence, and prayer. I had mentioned before that our marriage counselor noticed that I needed to learn to just do one thing at a time because I'm "in my head a lot" so I started small. I'd grab a magazine and try to just read the magazine. No no, not the way you're doing it. You're checking your phone and you have the TV on in the background and you are doing your nails or eating something no. Just read the magazine. Do you know how much concerted effort it takes to ONLY read a magazine? Well I found out! It's embarrassing. 

When I started reading the book I would do so during those magical mornings back in quarantine time when Matt would be 'on duty' and I would be 'off duty' and hanging out in the backyard by myself. That I found is the key to any sort of spiritual or rest practice for me: schedule. I know, that sounds so ridiculous that a person would have to schedule rest but have you met me? If I did not specifically make myself do nothing I would overbook me and everyone in my family around the clock. It's bad. I realized too that it was a very bad habit from being brought up in a home of chaos and inconsistency. 

It began with this ritual around here we call Solo Sunday where on Sunday nights I take the evening to hang in my Room of Requirement and watch a fun movie or Golden Girls or Scrubs and eat cheese or a new addition this quarantine: monthly bath night. Whatever it is has to be restful and joyful and just for me. I do whatever I feel I need based on the week. If the week was very serious and I need to laugh or be joyful, I chill with some Golden Girls, Sex and the City, or RomComs. If I'm having a hard time feeling feelings, Scrubs. If I had a heavy screen week, writing or reading. The bath nights have grown and I now own a bath caddy, bath pillow, bath bombs, bubble baths, oils, it's epic. I do face masks or foot soaks or whatever but it's just about caring for my body and skin I live in. Solo Sundays are for me, the perfect way to end a weekend and start a week, on a restful note. 

Now, I dunno how much faith/religion stuff I've chatted about here on this ole blog but if I'd want you to know something about me it's that I hate the word and the practice of 'religion'. And I go to church. But loathe religion. I actually get super down with the Biblical definition of religion: "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble." I think by and large I had settled into the standard protestant Christian habits and practices that most of us settle on since that's all we know. We go to church, we read the Bible, we "pray". All well and good. But somewhere I felt like I'd been in the game awhile, was growing personally but, not necessarily deepening my faith or incorporating spiritual life into daily life. Something about randomly tossing the top 30 Bible verses into conversation didn't feel natural to me and "prayer" and Bible reading was non-existent. Maybe after decades in the church and a Biblical studies minor I needed a little something new. OLD SCHOOL SOMETHING NEW. Third century AD desert fathers old school. 

So with the consistent practice of dedicated alone time I learned about solitude and silence as spiritual practices and a way to connect with God and creation. And if this sounds or is starting to sound a little new age-y but with Jesus I really can't blame you. It feels that way. I feel like some sort of Zen Monk that has a wifi. I say stuff like "My soul is aching for peace" and "that person is in a prison of un-love" and other crap. But... I like... mean it. I live it. I find myself in places and meditating where I really should be thinking about what size coffee I want. I will climb mountains and stare in silence and just breathe. Who dis bitch? I dunno. But... I like her. I love these new practices. I feel so much more connected to my Creator and people in a way that no other practices have worked before. These practices have actually led to a newfound resurgence of what do you know, actual Bible reading and praying. Maybe that part of my personality really thrives on that sort of moody/artistic/creative/soulful type of thought and being forced to listen to the voice within that I now know is the Holy Spirit has been so fruitful. In those practices I could finally hear what I really desperately needed to hear but I couldn't hear myself because I was just making so much noise. The world around me was making too much noise for me to hear the Spirit. The voice. 

The practice which I avoided was the one on prayer. I wrote "prayer" in the paragraph above in quotations because I was and am still learning to pray. Not the 'our father who art in heaven' stuff. I learned about breath prayer and the practices of in all things praying. Communing with God. Just BEING with God. Sometimes not a word was said other than my breath prayer (a simple prayer you barely whisper that helps put your mind and soul to receive and listen like "God be with me" "Lord hear my prayer" etc. Like a mantra. I told you, new age-y but with Jesus). I kept avoiding the chapter on prayer until I finally ripped the bandage and realized to my relief it wasn't that ritualistic "I'll pray for you" type prayer. It was more than that, deeper than that. I find myself praying way more often now. It's a part of my daily life, inviting God into wherever I am, whatever moment I find myself in. It's so much more natural. It's like breathing. 

I feel I'm giving very vague descriptions of what the practices all really entail but basically read the book and try them for yourself. It might not hit you in the sweet spot where it hit me but the concepts are so Biblical. Jesus would remove himself from his work and go to the desert to be alone with God. It's right in the Bible homies. 

Very few things have done so much in so short a time to radically make me feel different than these spiritual practices. And it's just so hilariously weird to me too this monastic way of living. Especially in this the year of our Lord 2021 in a city like Los Angeles with a life spent on a computer. Who am I kidding right? I even mix in all the zen stuff with some Brene Brown, Ted Lasso episodes, jokes. But guess what... all of it is me. That's how I interpret the world. I can just as easily meditate with a worship song as I can with the First Man score. That's how God made me, and they didn't make a mistake. 

I feel like I've been in a desert oasis for over a year and just starting to emerge from my sweet place into society. God's had enough of me resting and wants to make me climb that next mountain. And I finally feel ready for it and I welcome it. 

Because I'm rebuking the evil and taking all these new monastic practices with me. 

Get zen with it bitches.

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Back to School 2021!!

I am quite happy to report that our Alice is back to school in person! Masks and all but she's in class! Do you know it has been over 500 days since school was closed from March 13, 2020?  Three days in I can report that we have a very happy child who gets to play with her best friend during recess every day and eat with her too.  We actually hear about what she does in class and she shares Good News and Bad News with us about what happened during the day. Our kid is not a verbal processor so we expected her to be very quiet and tried not to ask her a lot of questions but she surprised us! A happy surprise! 

Is she scared or traumatized or anything wearing a mask to school? NOT AT ALL. She's used to it. I feel like it's us as parents who are responsible for not making them afraid. We can equip them with tools to handle feelings of fear or concern and this is not a concerned or fearful child. If wearing a mask means she gets to go to school with all her friends then so be it.

Of course, I'm very much looking forward to her not having to wear one anymore and all of us as well but right now this is the easiest thing we all can do to keep each other safe. It's only temporary. I know it feels forever but it won't be. And look at Los Angeles. We had terrible numbers and strict rules but we abided by them and got vaccinated and now we live mostly able to do anything. Ball games, conventions, concerts, movies. It felt long at the time but now feels so temporary that people act like they've already forgotten the strict lockdown times. This too shall pass.

I did tragically lose a cousin to COVID on Sunday and it's just so surreal having to hear about it and not be together with my family in Mexicali and mourn together. That's just so hard in these times. How we just go this pain alone and isolated and a death becomes a statistic. He was not a number or a statistic. He was loved and special and our family. And we'll never get to be with him in person ever again.

Please be safe out there. Be prudent. Be wise. 

Who the son sets free is free indeed. 

Thursday, June 17, 2021

My Solo Trips to Big Bear: PARENTS DO IT

Let's go way back to my journey with aloneness. I am the oldest of 5 children and was raised with noise and people around me constantly. I had created ways to get lost in my own world by staying up in my room on weekends when my sister was with her dad to journal and just enjoy my own company. When we were married pre-kids, I had loads of alone time when Matt would work. Then the kids were born and I was never alone. Ever. Definitely never on trips. I mean, yes, I would travel alone for work but I wasn't exactly on my own there. I'd either be sharing a room or house with a co-worker and work and dine with co-workers until the end of the day and only a few hours alone at night. Location shoots for production is exhausting. You're on call all day and night and there's nothing restful about it. 

For much of 2020 (even pre-pandemic) the concepts of rest, solitude, and silence became paramount to my mental health. Our marriage counselor suggested I try "doing one thing at a time" and the Solo Sunday rituals became a sacred time to myself to just do whatever I want. Usually it's cheese and Golden Girls but sometimes it's baths or cross-stitching time or writing. It works for me to feel refreshed going into a weekday. 

One of those Solo Sundays, after I had a run of events and celebrations and felt like I was free to rest again, I found myself in a bathtub reading bell hook's "all about love" which I've very slowly been reading over the year because the concept of love is so much more than we make it. Anyway... the chapter I was on was about self-love. Taking the time to care for your own self and learning how you like to be loved and deserve to be loved and if you can't show love to yourself how do you expect others to love you well? 

I'd already known that deep in my heart was the desire to take a trip by myself. I can't have quality time home because I'll feel like I have to do things and removing myself physically from a place frees my mind up to go inward to my heart. Anyway, bell hooks writing had me just nodding and saying you know what... now is the time... take the trip. So I booked 2 nights for myself in the cutest little cabin in Big Bear on Airbnb. 
There's something different about traveling by yourself that's different if you go with a partner or even a BFF. You can do WHATEVER YOU WANT WHENEVER YOU WANT. I dearly dearly love traveling with Matt, I feel like we're at our best together. BUT. I'm also traveling with a vegan that doesn't drink coffee or alcohol who likes to sleep in and take it slow. If it's EvY on EvY Time then I do whatever I want whenever I want with only one person to take into consideration: me.  
I learned the particular food habits of EvY on solo vacay. If I'm at an Airbnb with a kitchen I make myself a full breakfast (WITH MEAT. Things I can't do with a vegan in tow). I also pack myself a light lunch for the trail which this round was a Crustable. The second trip was a mini cheese plate. 
I am not a 'go out to eat' by myself person but I discovered that a crappy dinner out of a paper bag looks too sad so I like to treat myself to a nice dinner and eat alone at my place and fully plate the meal. I have not gotten used to eating solo at this level so I had a podcast with Brene Brown to keep me company. The episode was about Bishop Michael Curry talking about love. Felt perfect. 
I kept myself occupied cross-stitching, reading, and writing and taking hakes (fake hikes). 
On the first day of the trip I took a long hike and had a time of just sitting in silence and staring at this vista. No music. No podcasts. Just nature and Creator. And as I sat there in quiet for the first time in forever I heard a very clear voice from within tell me "You've been waiting for someone to hand you a diploma and tell you that you've graduated and are now a healthy person. Stop going into that cave and trying to fight that bear. You don't have to do that anymore." In no way did that make me feel like 'Hey I'm perfect'. But more like I have done the work of changing as a person into a healthier woman  (inside, working on the outside part now) and I can use that as a foundation to move forward. I don't have to keep mining my trauma to find something new to deal with, it's not affecting me the way it used to. I have reached a summit. And a voice told me the second day "It's time to climb another mountain." What that mountain is, I don't know. But it feels good to be facing the future instead of still feeling like I'm stuck in the past. For this revelation alone, the trip was so worth it. 
I also learned that I really enjoy having a cute space to live in. We truly are affected by our environments and this place really soothed my soul.
I am a full evangelist about telling parents to take these types of trips by themselves. Nothing like listening to the needs of your mind, body, and soul for days at a time to really balance a person out. You can't hear yourself when there's so much noise. The quiet helps you listen.
So I say: DO IT. If I had to give tips I'd say start small with a place that's driving distance but far enough away to feel like you are removed from daily life. Get yourself a place that doesn't feel very big and just enough for you alone otherwise you'll feel sad seeing an extra bedroom and feeling like the kids are supposed to be there. My place was the perfect size. Eat a few good meals. Don't bring your electronics or watch TV. Have some moments of absolute quiet with nothing to do but sit and listen. 
You'll be surprised what you learn about yourself and you'll be so grateful you did it. So go!