Artist's Date #5: Big Sur

or how to be without your six year old kid for four days when you've never been without them for one

I know, it’s Sunday, which means you’re reading this on Monday, and Monday’s newsletter is for writing tips. But I’m overdue for Wednesday, which is the day for the Artist’s Date newsletter. So today is last Wednesday. We’ll be back to regular programming when Olive decides that she is willing to go to any organized form of child-care and / or school. Or I finally decide that it’s ok for her to watch Moana for the 30th time, which ever comes first.

When I left for my road trip, Olive said two things:

“I’m always with you and I love being with you but I’m also excited to be with my grandparents.”

And then, when I said goodbye she looked me straight in my eyes and said:

“I feel like we’re saying goodbye forever.”

“Me too,” I said, and I cried and gave her a hug.

“Do you want to call mom before bedtime?” her dad asked, from the kitchen.

“Yes,” she said, and then she looked at me and said, again straight in the eyes, “You can go now,” before she turned back to a coloring book.

I walked out at 2pm and drove six hours straight to Caroline’s, in LA, and cried for three nights and two days. Sometimes I was not crying. Sometimes I was sitting on her deck and writing. I tried to read but didn’t get past chapter two of Carolyn See’s Handyman, which is a shame because I learned that in chapter three the MC starts having sex with everyone. Caroline cooked me and her family dinner on Thursday. Fish packets! Steamed fish and veggies over rice with a salad. And on Friday a white bean and vegetable soup with a nectarine and berry cobbler. One of the days, I went with her and her husband to get stepped on at the Thai massage place, and we had tea at home all three nights and we talked and talked and talked: about the internet, about schools for kids, about our kid’s friends, about our hopes for them, about our worries about teenage boys, about writing, about books. When I left, I low-key stole their phone charger and just now, sent it back.

Six hours, three songs on repeat, and one very expensive tank of gas got me from LA to Big Sur, where I have been many times before, but never since I moved from NYC to California. I realized I was re-doing my move from LA to SF, only this time with less fear and more abandon, including an overnight at Glen Oaks, in a room with a double sided-fireplace and a king bed with the most comfortable sheets. I took a shower and put on my very cheap dress with a more expensive sweater and a little bit of make-up and ran back out for dinner.

First I tried to eat at the fancy place: the restaurant at The Post Ranch Inn, but they only had room at 5:30pm and it was empty. I walked in and sat down and faced the ocean and looked at the menu and the $145 pre-fixe and walked out - but found my way down a path through the woods on the edge of the cliffs with treehouses on stilts and a few classing looking people ambling slowly. From the path the restaurant looked like a hobbit hole and many of the non-treehouse cabins were also hidden from view by grassy roofs. The whole property, down to the fence behind the gallery at the bottom of the hill had that clean look - a perfect weeping willow at the edge of a duck pond - some huge tree stumps in the middle of a filed - a lot like a sculpture, a lot like nature, is it good to blur the line?

I have been getting used to not eating but I almost passed out from hunger when I finally got a steak and a glass of wine at Deetjens and watched a daddy long legs stalk two flies from her corner, under the picture frame - her long legs reaching out toward the window where the black bodies crawled close. The couple in the other corner were saying things I could not believe for their gender conformity: He had developed a manner of speaking where he repeated his needs in a way that could not be met, and she affirmed that he should make his own choice, and then, for the most part, ignored him while speaking in a polite manner about everyday things. The ceilings were low and the waitress and seen it all, in a truck stop diner kind of way.

After dinner, I wanted to see a sunset, but forgot to consult sky, which was covered in clouds. I drove fast, again, this time on the 1 and everybody was passing everybody, all of us chasing that day well spent feeling. I drove to the bridge but, already exhausted, drove back to the hotel while there was still some light, and ate some s’mores at the hosted campfire and talked to two other couples about their kids, their Covid stories, their jobs. One job, which sounded so cool: environmental tourism, made me so sad later, when I reminded myself how the earth and appreciating it has become a hobby of the wealthy - an elite activity which so few people can even indulge.

There’s more - there is so much more - but for now, that’s a good five paragraphs that, in some way, relate and was more fun than The Artist’s Date COVID edition, in which I learned that what I truly like to do with my down time is watch one full day of YouTube tarot horoscopes, and then spend another full day watching music documentaries, and then another day watching all three seasons of Shrill, and then, finally, on the fourth day, do about 15 minutes of yoga while also sleeping, dreaming, fantasizing and again, picking up a book to not really read. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the heart opening meditations on day five, when I truly felt, for the first time in my life, a willingness to love.

AND HOW ABOUT YOU? With so much travel and sickness and not sending my kid to camp, I’ve been out of the loop. I see you on the Insta out there, doing things, making things, putting things out there in the world. So fun to see our very own Chanamon’s window installation come to life at Jenny Lemons and to have followed the project from when it was just a scale model she documented in her newsletter. Each piece of the installation is also for sale and I have my eye on the Mitchell the raccoon handyman (no relation to Carolyn See’s).