We were sitting on a plush, cigar brown leather sofa, nestled within the buzz of a private members club in downtown Manhattan. I was on my second Moscow Mule. None of this (minus the Moscow Mule) represented my life at the time. I lived in LA and was couch surfing between an ex-boyfriends Beverly Hills mansion (I had until he returned from Sweden to find a new place to live) and a BFF’s grey canvas Pottery Barn sleeper in an apartment soon to be evacuated due to black mold.

Everything I owned (not much: my books, my grandmother's white leather chair, my costume jewelry, and a trash bag labeled Black Cocktail Dresses) was housed in scary storage; a painted replica of a 19th century gold rush town built into a cavern underneath HWY 101. 

The reason things were in storage was because I’d had to move out of my own studio apartment, where the echo of nearby gun shots was a monthly refrain, to short-term move in with my parents in San Antonio, Texas because I was scheduled for major surgery and couldn’t afford rent. After recovering, I’d catapulted back to LA despite unemployment, an empty bank account, or a home. 

I wasn’t one to give up on my plan, ever, and so, yes V, I did need aliens to land on me before I’d release my white knuckled grip.

Eventual surrender was the scariest occasion of my life (and I’d concussed on a cliff in India, temporarily blinded from a waterfall jump in Hawaii, and leapt off the roof of my parent’s roof into snow covered bushes). But writing this now from the comfort of distance, protected by a decade plus, the lessons I needed are obvious: 

No. 1

Denial’s real. When your life needs to change there’ll be evidence, and the harder you ignore the evidence, the louder and possibly stranger it’ll become. 

I saw a healer to focus on a benign, but disruptive tumor. She placed crystals on my chakras, didn’t address the tumor, but said: “Your life will shatter in the next three weeks, and you’ll witness shattering around you.” Sure…That evening when I parked a BFF’s fancy SUV (she’d loaned it to me because my car wasn’t working) the back windshield exploded.

Shaken, I went inside to make dinner. My glass meal bowl broke in my hands. Hmm. 

No. 2

Look away from the mirror and the camera: All those selfies of me smiling? All that time spent primping? I wonder how long that prolonged my disguise.   

No. 3

Your body knows when things aren’t right. To state what’s now common knowledge: you have a cold because you’re emotionally upset, dehydrated, need more sleep; your stomach grinds because you don’t want to say yes to the event, the date, the sex, the job; and if you ignore these “quieter” messages, they scream and turn into tumors, disease, and mental debilitation. 

Your body is a Goddess, it won’t be ignored. I know, I’ve tried.

No. 4

Surrender. It’s not pretty or easy, but it’ll be specific, and it can be beautiful. 

Here’s how mine went down: 

In my final days in LA, I lived on another BFF’s futon in her TV room. (There’s so much more to say about the supernatural blessing of BFF’s). I’d spent the previous two months filming a low budget project in India, and I’d self-imposed the end of that month as decision time: I’d either dig back in; round up employment, sign a lease, and keep marching in the direction of actor/producer; or I’d release into the unknown. 

During that ten-day period, a storm settled into my gut. 

I was terrified. Night sweats. All the collected years of training, degrees, determination, and the pursuit of what I’d believed was my lifelong calling strewn together like incomplete sentences. My old dream didn’t fit anymore, and I didn’t have a new one. It would be years before I’d understand the depth of my heartbreak.

I’d exhausted the peers and family from whom I sought council, my body and intuition were numb, my prayers requesting guidance felt unanswered. 

In the absence of any external evidence, the decision to either stay or go was mine to make with the diminished internal reserves I still possessed. 

      On the second night of my stay, a feral cat gave birth to a litter underneath the TV room window that opened just over my futon bed. 

My animal loving BFF and her girlfriend caught the newborn kittens and began the process of taming them in hopes of finding them homes. The baby ferals lived in the half bath next to my room. I slept and woke to the call and response of the mama cat calling for her babies from outside my window; and of her babies’ tiny meows from the room next door.

You’ll have a final straw. It may not involve a Cat Opera as the painful, but also beautiful soundtrack to your clarity. 

And then you’ll leap.

No. 5

Drive away. The subliminal cat messages became conscious, and I called my mom. She flew from Texas to collect her feral adult child…

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