It’s funny, but the one person that was extremely apprehensive about me moving to Los Angeles was my Mom. Not because she was worried about me failing miserably or winding up on the streets (perhaps those should have been issues) but more because I think, she thinks, I sometimes make cavalier and not-very-calculated decisions regarding important issues. (I know, kind of insane, right?)
A few weeks before I left for L.A., My Mom informed me on three things I could not do here. Period. They were:
1. Date a Director
2. Get a tattoo
3. Join a cult
Two of those were obvious….and I know her thought process behind them, but a cult? That was just bizarre…. Dating a director is basically a no-brainer. I can’t say I will never ever do that again, but at the moment, I have no plans…we’ll cross that bridge, if and when. However….I’ve always wanted a tattoo. I have had Henna tattoos, temporary tattoos and even gone so far as to draw them on me when I was little, always causing my Mom to experience a mild heart attack, but I know, I know, even if she was no longer on this earth, she would rise up out of the grave and kill me if I ever got a tattoo. No joke. The fear of the Lord that lady put into me and she didn’t raise a fool.
She’s just old school and very, very Southern. See, there are three kids in my family. I am the middle child sandwiched between two very smart, pragmatic, money-saving, vacation-taking, home-owning, law-abiding, bill-paying, voting brothers. (I’m starting to paint a picture here of the acute parallels.) My older brother is in medicine, he puts people to sleep and my baby brother is in marine engineering, he builds multi-billion dollar ports. Lots of school, lots of discipline lots of well planned goals. Me? Some school, I often get disciplined and have made some goals, in soccer games. Eh, two out of three ain’t so bad…
To top it all off, I have always had more of a universal, liberal, independent way about me which is highly unusual for a girl from an extremely Southern Republican family. I was raised with strict Southern values and manners were non-negotiable. Ladies, such as myself, took cotillion to learn etiquette and how to behave like a proper lady in every social situation, (and oh yeah, the fox-trot). I wasn’t allowed to chew gum, if I did and for whatever reason I smacked it, it would be removed from my mouth and go on my nose for the entire world to see. (To this day you will never see me chew gum.) Thank-you note writing, Ma’am and Sir saying, lady...and ladies never drank out of bottles, swore, wore white before Easter (or after Labor Day), engaged in any promiscuous activity, got tattoos, pierce their body any place other then an ear or joined cults….A what?
A couple weeks before my move out west I noticed my mom sitting in the living room looking rather upset. She was watching Antique Roadshow which is her favorite, so that couldn’t have been what was upsetting her unless there was something horribly mis-appraised…The dogs were all asleep by her feet, so that wasn’t an issue…and I am right here and not in jail…….so, I ask, “Mom, is everything ok?” That’s when she turned and looked at me with this horror of sadness and disappointment in her eyes, “Cat, I need to talk to you about something serious.”
……UGH……….
Not a fan of conversations that begin with those ten words, and I was stone cold sober, “sit down,” she said, too late to run and get a drink. Shit.
And the look…y’all know those looks…Like I have gotten a few times before.
One time in particular over the holidays when I was staying at my Mom’s house, I had just returned home from Walgreen’s where I bought this awesome new razor, the Vibe. It ran on batteries and had this pulsating head that commanded a smoother shave to your legs. Boy howdy was I excited about that and I couldn’t wait to get home to shower. I got home and no one was there. Cool. Let’s try this new puppy out! I jump in the shower, lather up and start vibrating my way to silkier legs. When all of the sudden the bathroom door flies open and I hear my 14 year-old cousin Tommy walk in…
“I’M IN HERE!” I shout from behind the linen curtain….but due to the fact I was startled, frazzled and all sorts of discombobulated with flashbacks of a John Hughes movie, I drop my Vibe.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZBUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZ
Have you ever heard a vibrating razor in the bottom of a bathtub before? No?
It’s loud.
BUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZBUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
“Sorry C!” My cousin’s cracking voice screams out.
“Knock next time Tommy! I am taking a shower!” Damn….and then I could have sworn I heard him say in a much lower voice, “next time lock the door.” Punk.
I pick up my razor and finish my shower. Jump out, dry off, silky, silk! Love it!
I get dressed and go out into the living room to say hi to the family. They are all pretty quiet… “Hey!” I see my Aunt first, Tommy’s Mom. She looks at me and gives me this long wink and a thumbs up. Wink?....Thumbs up??…………..um…. I look at my Mom, that’s when she turned and looked at me with this horror of sadness and disappointment in her eyes, “Cat, please make sure you lock the bathroom door, especially when we have company staying with us.”……………………Oh, for Christ’s sake……..
It was a razor!!!! Ugh, n e v e r m i n d…..
Back to my story.
So I ask, “Okay Mom, what’s up?” not really wanting to know.
“Well, I was watching this show on the Discovery channel,” (f-ing cable) “and I am very worried about you moving to Los Angeles and I want to talk to you about something.”
All these crazy ideas of what the show was about just started flooding through my brain - Earthquakes, horrible smog and gas levels of the air, (I don’t know, sounds scary,) high cost of living, crime and gang issues, over crowding in prisons, plastic surgeries gone amuck, no tex-mex restaurants….
”OK…”
“Well it was a disturbing expose on cults, and I am very worried.”
“Colts - like wild horses?”
“Cults as in the groups of people that live together.”
“Like those people that wore all black, Nike sneakers and waited for the comet to come and take them to another land, drink the Kool-aid, Branch Davidians, multiple spouses - cults?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t most of that happen in Texas and like Utah or something?”
“This show was specific about California and how many people out there get sucked into cults.”
“In California?”
“In California.”
“Okay…and?”
“And I think you might get sucked in.”
It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around this conversation, but I’m intrigued, so I’ll try.
“Sucked in?”
“Well, I know you’re into stuff like that.”
“Because I am married to a man 40 years my senior, have 15 kids and do peyote all day?”
“I know you’re into your horoscope.”
“Mom, Horoscope.com sends me an email daily…”
“You’ve had your palm read and fortune told.”
“At street festivals and on vacations…”
“I just don’t want you to get involved with the wrong kind of people.”
“Mom, I appreciate your concern, but I have a feeling cults and people recruiting me to join one are nothing for you to worry about.”
What freaking show did she watch and how to I block that station? I don’t think she was convinced…. and I had a feeling there wasn’t much I could do or say to ease her worry…but I tried..”Mom, I promise you, I will not join a cult. The closet thing would be perhaps a bulk-shopping club membership - but no cults.” She didn’t laugh. Ugh.
Great. The bottom line is this, the whole cult business is something she need not worry about at all. I am not a fan of commitment or routine, let alone linear thinking and to me, those are fundamental components of a cult. (To me.) So for sure, a cult is something I will never, ever get involved in. Case rested.
Which brings me back to number 3, “Don’t get a tattoo.”
Dum Dum Dummmmmmmmm!
Mid-June -
I woke up around 11 on Saturday morning after a fun-filled night of Tiki-Ti island drinks and listening to a DJ friend spin at Malo in the Silverlake area of LA... I badly needed some chips, queso and salsa. Which, in Houston, would be on any given corner, but not so much here in LA. I needed a plan….Queso, queso, queso….. Ah...there is a cool little indoor/outdoor chill bar called Cabo Cantina on the Sunset Strip and they have a slammin “buy-one/get-one” drink special all the time and decent queso…so I will head there. I literally get out of bed, brush my teeth and roll. I am just going to grab some food and a couple beers and come back home. (i.e. no need to shower…) I pop into a quickie mart to grab a magazine and make my way to my happy place.
I grab a corner table, order a Sol and some stuff to nosh on and start into my magazine…A couple beers later, I am still pretending to be reading my magazine but really I am people watching and trying to figure out everyone in the bar’s story, God bless sunglasses! This couple walks in and sit at the table next to me. They seem nice enough and after a few beers, well, I was in the mood to talk...somehow we start chatting…they have lived in LA for the last 5 months, he was a traveling nurse she was a sign-language teacher, both from the Midwest.
Carly and Brent, (they okayed me outing them on here, so it’s all good,) my new friends! So we’re sitting there drinking, sharing stories and lies I suppose, you know, good times, just enjoying the afternoon. No plans, no cares, just random encounters and new friends…ingredients for a chill afternoon. This, by the way is one of the best features of living in a city like Los Angeles…you never know who you’ll meet and where the day will take you….
So we start getting into this deep conversation about life and taking chances, I tell them my story about moving to LA to pursue my passion and about the adventures I have had so far. How I live each day in the moment, one day at a time….without worry for tomorrow or regret of the past. How I can only control who I am, my actions and can’t worry about what other people think or do, regardless of the situation.
While Carly and I are getting deep into it, Brent is playing with his “Sol” beer label…He successfully peels it off the bottle and places it around his finger like a tattoo and says, “Hey, look at my tattoo!” It was funnier at the time. And I follow that up with, “Uh, I have always wanted a tattoo…but my Mom would freaking kill me if I ever got one.” Carly said to me, “well, do you know what you would get?” And of course I did because I have been wanting one forever…
“I do actually…especially now, after being in LA for 6 months, I would get the word ‘strength’ written in Hebrew on my right wrist.”
“Are you Jewish?”
“No.”
Carly laughs, “well then why Hebrew?”
Hebrew, to me, is the original language of the Universe; it’s a pure, simple, beautiful language and it’s different.
Carly said, “Okay, cool…then why the word strength.”
What’s with the interrogation Barbara Walters? Just kidding…But I hadn’t given it much thought and when she asked what I would get, the word ‘strength’ just sort of popped out…
In my heart and mind, I earned it.
I’m not doing anything monumental out here. I am not saving lives or helping people. I am just trying to be and live the best life, as the best person, doing what I know in my heart I do best. There were so many times when I just didn’t think I would make it. So many times when I was alone, scared and hopeless and I knew, all it would take was a plane ride back to Houston and everything would change. I would have friends, family and familiar places. But I know, and it’s true, each day it gets easier, each day it gets better, each day I get stronger.
So in a way, it was a reminder, no matter what, never give up. And it would remind me of what I have been through so far in my life, and that I will always have it as I continue my journey.
They found it interesting or at least I was convincing or confused them enough to agree it was a cool idea for a tattoo. So Brent says, “Let’s do it. I’ll drive.” And I was like, nooo nonononononono…And Carly goes, “Really Miss ‘I live each day in the moment, one day at a time….without worry for tomorrow or regret of the past. How I can only control who I am, my actions and can’t worry about what other people think or do, regardless of the situation.’”
WHAT? Did she really just take what I had said moments earlier and use them to make a point?
Man, she’s good….
So we went, and I did it....
Man, she’s good….
So we went, and I did it....
I see it every day and I smile.
It reminds me of that day, my purpose and Los Angeles. I did it for me. No regrets.
I just hope my Mom is still okay with the whole “two out of three ain’t so bad…”
Until next post,
- Caroline
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