Local – The Westside Muse

Is Your Wanderlust Ruining Your Relationships?

You may have noticed that I write a lot about travel. My photo galleries involve far off destinations that I’ve discovered and fallen in love with over the years.

You may have also noticed that I am not married.

Perhaps you are like I am and you can’t help but fall in love with a place far more than you have ever loved a potential partner. I’ve asked myself (a lot recently) if this is my problem. I can’t commit to a person because when I travel I wear my heart on my sleeve and would rather give it to a destination. A new adventure. A new climate. A new culture. This is a fatal flaw known as romanticizing and I am an expert in this art.

I have done this in the past; given my heart to a specific place and abandoned what could have been an epic relationship. Does this mean that I have chosen travel as a husband instead of a real life human partner?

So then what can realistically be done for gypsies like me? One idea is to come to terms and (with fierce abandon) embrace the wild spirit that lives in so many of us. To succumb to the notion that we will always be single if we chose to follow the call of our hearts and live a life of adventure. But is there a way to have it all? Is there a way to embrace this yearning to run and explore while maintaining a healthy marriage back “home” whatever home means to us? Can we blend both lives?

The flexible work schedule is a no-brainer on the Westside and working remotely is as common as fair trade coffee. We can look for that almost perfect partner who is as wild as we are and have a house (home?) in a place where it is possible to make enough of a living to allow us to run off at every opportunity. We’ll have to agree to home school our kids, who are all named after the location where they were conceived. It’s the marriage of the bohemian with the corporate, the wild with the traditional and it HAS TO WORK!

I have sacrificed enough time on the 405 freeway and in a brownish grey uninspired office with yellow flecked industrial carpet and eggshell walls to know that we were created for so much more. (Remember when I mentioned hating fluorescent lighting?) How easy for our internal fire to die a slow suffocating death because of the restraints of paid holiday and terrible business owners who disavow vacations due to their own insecurities of missing out on making the next dollar. For me, the chase of a sunset beats the chase of a dollar. Every time.

So this brings me back to the choice of travel vs. staying grounded and setting down roots. It is a scary thing, commitment. Whether we are committing to a person or a location, the idea that we MUST stay put is a hard pill for many to swallow. The bear grass may always seem greener (actually whiter in the bear grass case) in a new area code, but it’s the roots we establish that eventually give us strength and meaning and purpose. The catch is, for some of us, choosing travel as a life partner may ultimately prove to be more loyal and satisfying.

At this point, the only marriage I can comprehend is the marriage to self. So until I can be honestly open to more, you’ll find me running through the canyons or skiing through the glades. You’ll find me in nature, my first and truest love. You’ll find my wanderlust ruining my romantic relationships. At least for now…

Winter Waiting…

Photo by Kelsey Lichtenstein. Deer Valley, Utah. 2017.

Good Morning Westsiders.

The rain is falling. Again. Another go slow and have that second (third) cup of coffee kind of morning. The dogs are napping and the world seems to be moving slowly as raindrops dance across my windows. We have had plenty of these mornings this winter. The irony is that I haven’t made use of this advantageous wet weather to write. Our Southern California winter has been this just-missed-the-deadline millennial poet’s ideal climate and I’ve been neglecting my passion for more practical tasks like “laundry” and “grocery shopping” – actually, scratch that last one. I have my groceries delivered these days, which is everything that is right and also wrong with living on the Westside. Everything can be delivered. Including wine, which I discovered last night.

The thing is, I’ve started writing so many times only to have my season appropriate stories, time out. That’s the problem with the holidays. When we should slow down it seems like our most tonic tasks are pushed aside and we red-line our internal RPMs to make it through Christmas parties, shopping, appointments, wrapping paper and ribbon, airport security lines and eggnog.

This is a photo from my Advent post that was never published.

Winter is the season when nature sleeps. It is resting. It is quiet. Perhaps we should take a page from Mother Nature’s book as well and use this season to go slow and tend to ourselves.

Winter is also my favorite time of year to venture into nature ALONE because the bears, too, are asleep.

I was having major Westside guilt for neglecting this site for the last few months. Why? In order to keep my head above water? Because I didn’t have time? Because it has to be perfect before I published? It’s like our morning devotionals (or meditations, or mantras, or insert your individual religious practice here). When we prioritize these rituals, we gradually see our lives fall in step and take on a more manageable cadence.

So I’m writing to say that I’m still here. And perhaps finally in a season of rest and recovery. But, even during this time of year where hibernation is a state of mind, I’m reminded through whispers of wind across the lake or the silence of a snowfall that there is still a spark at the core, during this frozen time, waiting to ignite when the time comes to reawaken.

xx,

I Love Grace Loves Lace

Confession: I am in love with love. And further, I’m in love with the ritual of the expression of love (read: weddings). However, as an older wiser former bride, I have suppressed this obsession and buried myself in my cynicism. That said, I had a reminder today of how much I love the process and all the feels came roaring back.

I had the honor of escorting a friend to her first wedding dress shopping appointment. For this momentous rite of passage, we chose Grace Loves Lace, an Australian dress company with a brand new showroom in L.A.

The showroom and gowns were everything my Instagram stalking self had imagined they would be. Actually, they were better. Grace Loves Lace managed to score an incredible space on Abbot Kinney, the Westside’s fastest growing and quite possibly most expensive strip of residential and commercial real estate. Locals have seen this boulevard go from quaint bars and galleries to seriously bustling with big name designers and standing room only eateries. Grace Loves Lace does not fit the hectic profile of the new AK. It’s showroom is light, airy and intimate and feels like it’s been there for decades, even though they just opened their doors in July of 2016.

Our stylist welcomed us with champagne and cookies and walked us through a relaxed and beautiful afternoon. She was attentive enough but still gave the bride-to-be room to spend a little alone time with each dress. She helped her slide the gowns off and on but she did not hover. Light music filled the air and I swooned while sipping my champagne and mentally redecorating my home in the showroom decor.

The appointment lasted just over an hour but in that short time I reignited my spirit for that whimsical dreamlike fleeting moment in a happy couple’s life, where they can bask in all things bright and beautiful.

The cynicism has melted and now I’m left with the compulsion to write about how lovely the experience was. Grace Loves Lace is a MUST for all future brides. For more information, check out their new L.A. showroom.

A Lament On My Generation’s Disregard For Sonic Masterworks

Classical music.

Wait, don’t stop reading.

You may not remember what this type of music IS so let me help jog your memory… Our parents played classical cassettes for us on Sunday mornings instead of allowing us watch cartoons to instill a sense of beauty and culture into our budding lives at an impressionable age.

No?

It’s what our wildly underpaid elementary school music teachers tried in vain to have us learn and then tediously perform to an audience of irritated adults with better things to do on a Thursday evening. And, if you were lucky, you also tooted into a tan plastic recorder to (un)impress said adults with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. In all fairness, our parent’s had every reason to be irritated.

Still Nothing?

That’s because it seems our generation has casually dismissed this required learning credit and replaced it with more contemporary clothing optional music. We’ve traded Bach for Bieber and Purcell for Perry. And I am not saying that it’s all wrong, I’m just wondering why we were so anxious to trade up to hip-hop or pop or country or anything with a base line and glitter? We look to our music to enhance a setting or perhaps to escape from reality and be transported elsewhere, but it appears recently that we simply want to be “transported” to the club or to a country road.

Why have most of us collectively decided to completely gloss over classical music, such a beautiful (and soulful) genre?

And don’t tell me that it is because all of the Masters are long gone. They aren’t. Our generation has produced some incredible classical composers, whom none of you have ever heard of, because you, like me, live in the mainstream, which I might argue is flowing down.

One such exceptional will-definitely-go-down-in-history contemporary classical composer, Eric Whitacre, is the new Artist in Residence for the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Disney Concert Hall, which happens to be right in your backyard. Don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to know that.

Los Angeles is a city more widely recognized for it’s plastic surgeons, housewives and EDM festivals than for it’s culturally rich and diverse classical music scene.

What’s sad is that it took me a solid decade of living in LA to find what I was looking for, and believe me, it wasn’t easy. Sure, KUSC is a preset station on my car’s radio, but I was never compelled to seek out the concerts they so breathlessly promoted on the station. My mistake.

I’ve always served the classical music deities. Somehow the efforts of my parents paid off and I’m one of 8 or 9 Angelenos under the age of 65 who will sit through multiple hours of traffic on the 10/405/5 to hear a single hour of sublime soul-crushingly beautiful music.

Last weekend I invited my girlfriend to join me for LA Master Chorale’s performance of Sonic Masterworks; a collection of ancient as well as contemporary extremely challenging works of classical music (feel free to read into that sentence).

The concert began with Lotti’s Crucifixus and was followed by Allegri’s Miserere. Both classics. From there we moved forward through centuries of music including one 14 minute composition by Abbie Betinis, directed by Whitacre, containing no words but simply sounds produced to evoke visions of the aurora borealis. The music was elevated and ethereal – meant to transport the listener to a place deeply spiritual. Then to lift the audience from their trance, Grant Gershon, the Artistic Director of the LA Master Chorale, threw in an actual spiritual by Moses Hogan and Eric Whitacre conducted his own arrangement of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” which was like a dreamlike drive down memory lane.

*Side note worth mentioning. At very end of Enjoy the Silence, a woman three seats over began to aggressively dig through her handbag. Packaging crinkled into what sounded like a microphone hidden beneath the cellophane nightmare that made up the contents of her purse. The choir was actually singing the world silence as this woman dug and dug through the wrappers so un-apologetically that audience members from across the hall looked over in our direction to shake their heads in disgust. We all, in fact, were shaking our heads. I silently prayed that one of the hall attendants would yank this woman out of her seat and escort her to her Oldsmobile.*

Overall the concert was eye-opening to say the least. As energetic as I feel after attending a show at Staples Center or the Hollywood Bowl, I left this particular evening buzzing with an energy that was slightly different. I felt whole and gratified.

As we shuffled slowly behind the crowd of 80 somethings toward the exit, we both agreed that the performance was somewhat like roaming the labyrinth halls of a modern art museum. We don’t always understand where the artist is going or what we are supposed to take away from the exhibit or individual pieces, but perhaps that’s not entirely the point. We go to experience something new and beautiful and unknown. Certain pieces of art or in this case music strike us in a way that we won’t, (or can’t) forget. Other pieces may certainly not be our cup of tea but arguably they are worth our time and consideration.

Classical music reminds us that we have a soul and it may speak a language that we haven’t exposed it to in a while, or ever. So broaden your horizons, open your mind and press play.

What Your Indoor Yoga Practice Is Missing

Yoga + Nature = Perfection. Right? So then why are there so few yoga classes on the beach? This is SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA! The scenery alone begs for yoga outdoors yet only a handful of options exist in Santa Monica.

One can easily burn out trying to find the right yoga studio on the Westside. After spending several hundred dollars on the right clothes, best mat and BPA-free water bottle, (not to mention the membership fee for the studio) it’s easy to throw in your $78 sweat-soaked towel and give up. If you have a non-confrontation demeanor like me, then you are definitely not cut out for half of these classes. Perhaps you are familiar with the packed lobby full of hopeful yogis ready to claw each other’s eyes out for a spot on the floor no less than 2 seconds after the previous class leaves? To me, it defeats the purpose of finding a zen minded place to practice love and acceptance as well as our vinyasas. Not to mention the fact that it is shamefully unsanitary.

Once you’ve made it inside the sacred studio and you’ve found (fought for) your spot on the floor you can stretch your limbs, spread out and relax! Just kidding. You now have no more than one half inch between your mat and your eight neighbors. GROSS! There is no expanding and breathing deeply without involving your neighbor’s limbs and “heat” whatever that means. Trust me when I tell you that I find no peace in this space.

ENTER BEACH YOGA WITH BRAD – A daily yoga class on the sand by Lifeguard Tower 29. Total cost per class $15. No membership required.

After exhausting several options, I find Beach Yoga with Brad and Friends – a simple, relaxed outdoor yoga class taught by a warm guy with a booming voice and an obvious love for life. Gone are my flashes of rage brought on by a stranger’s sweat splattering across my mat. I am no longer distracted by the choice of ceiling tile, fingerprints on the mirror or the plastic Buddha in the studio. Instead, the aesthetics have been replaced by sand, towels, waves crashing and a cool breeze – as well as the occasional tourist snapping photos of the natives in their natural habitat or a dolphin or two cruising north.

The classes are basic. Simple breathing, stretching and light strength. The purpose is to find your breath, but along the way one might find an extreme gratitude for the chance they took on this class. To step outside of the studio and into nature, where I believe our spirits are the most fulfilled, offers new sensory elements to a yoga practice that seem to be missing or contrived while practicing indoors.

Yesterday evening, in a dreamlike state, I ventured across a lonely sand stretch toward Tower 29. I stepped slowly toward the sound of the waves, through the dense grey fog to our location. Once I arrived, there was no battle for a spot on the sand. I simply set my towel down, wrapped myself in a scarf and started breathing.

The fact that there was no brilliant sunset last night didn’t bother me at all, although it is a pretty great perk when we do have them. I took in my surroundings. There was no pretense. No expensive mats or trendy yoga pants. (Um, don’t get me wrong. I have an entire drawer full of those pants at home which I typically reserve for shopping at Whole Foods.) We practiced in the thick wet air and I left feeling calm yet alive. Isn’t that what most of us are looking for with our yoga practice? Besides fabulous arms?

Here comes the obvious caveat – practicing outdoors leaves you exposed to the elements. Some breezes are cooler than others. Solution: bring a sweatshirt or layer up before class. The sun can be hot. Solution: wear a hat and bring sunscreen and plenty of water. Sand sticks to everything. Solution: enjoy it! You’re practicing on the beach! But seriously, a little forward thinking will help make the natural “uncontrolled” elements tolerable or even pleasant.

Second obvious caveat – there are killer yoga studios all over Santa Monica with the right intentions. Bryan Kest has a donation only class that I’ve adored for over a decade, but the purpose of this post is to draw awareness to the spiritual benefits of a practice set in nature.

Here is the link to Brad’s Facebook page with info on the classes: http://www.facebook.com/beachyogawithbrad/

Also, if you haven’t read this post from Craigslist a few years back, take a look. It’s one of my favorites and guaranteed to give you a laugh:http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/2597736393.html

*Namaste* WM