alone

...from a few nights ago
********

"Why have we chosen to be alone?" Tia asked me tonight.

I was standing on the roof of a rocking surf charter boat under a blanket of stars smack in the middle of the Indian Ocean nowhere near anything recognizable. The anchor was down, the guests were asleep and for some reason i had cell service for the first time in the last five days as we have been out at sea on this adventure.

I saw the bars blink one, two, three, four and immediately i dialed across the world to my little sister Tia.

Before i left Padang to come back out to sea I talked to my Dad for a long time who told me all about what was going on with my family down in San Diego, my older sister at law school in love in Seattle and currently in Alaska on a cruise... and then he told me about Tia, my younger sister and inspiration in so many ways i don't think i can really even explain all the why's -- but i guarantee you, anyone that meets her understands in an instant.

She radiates sunshine.

Tia got hired to work for Greencorps, and after going through a grueling training in Boston has been positioned in Holland, Michigan to spearhead a campaign to change the power plant that sits on Lake Michigan to use natural resources so that the residents stop getting sick. (very Erin Brokovitch sounding, right?)

But my beautiful prism-like sister who is every color in the rainbow, is living in a glass of milk, from what it sounds like.
A staunch republican, conservative Christian town.
These are the people she has moved there to befriend, convert and inspire...
(not an easy task my any means... especially when you are there fully alone without any prior friends or contacts)

If anyone can do it... it's Tia. (like i said... meet her once and you'll get it)

I got through to her from the roof of the boat in the Mentawais as she was sitting at a Michigan coffee shop on a corner waiting for a girl who she had recruited off the street to come and help campaign with her.

"I've never been so lonely." she said.

I felt like i understood so much, having spent the last 7 months on a solo mission, albeit I HAVE spent the majority of it in paradise with amazing friendships that i have developed... and currently I'm actually not alone for the first real time since my divorce, but last February, I too made the choice to let go of a killer amazing life, spent perpetually surrounded by mirror reflections and amazing california power point energy.... to go it alone...
To walk fiercely and bravely into the unknown totally by ourselves.

I felt compelled to tell her about a conversation I just had with Shayno a few days ago as we walked down the wet streets of Padang on a rainy afternoon after a monsoon came down while we were inside getting massages.

Skipping over puddles and garbage, meandering around steaming potholes the size of bathtubs with the sound of the afternoon prayers echoing out of the mosques as motorbikes buzzed by and thunder clapped again further down the road, I randomly started telling him about my friend Doug's funeral, which was almost exactly a year ago.

The eugogolizer (That's a zoolander joke btw) - stood at Kehillat Israel and LAID into the 300 or so friends who had gathered to bury our brother... yet another LA life sucked away from us way too young.

This guy stood up at the pulpit and looked around the room at all these faces that keep gathering for funerals like Doug's... because we are all Palisades kids. We pretty much all grew up on the West Side of Los Angeles in some of the wealthiest and most prestigious communities in America. And we all seem to keep dying in the last few years.

He asked us to think about why we were here. Why did get the opportunity to grow up together in these really really nice areas.
The answer of course, is that our parents all did really well for themselves...
Our parents were the best in their fields...
Our parents (mostly from the entertainment industry being that we are LA kids)... but they are the best of the best - they are incredibly talented, capable, intelligent, often famous people who had us kids and passed down the fire.

Yes, we have incredible genes... all of us in that temple. We were passed down a fierce fire of potential... but he pointed to us and asked us "WHAT IS YOUR CAUSE!?"...

What are we fueling with that fire we possess?

He asked up what did we have in our lives that we were fighting for or working towards?

So many of the faces as i looked around were just pissing away their trust funds, with no cause or purpose and they too were on the path that ultimately lead to so many of my friend's too soon deaths.
So many of my friends in that temple could not tell you something that they were passionate about. They lacked a cause or a purpose... and that fire that they inherited at birth was slowly burning them alive... they were self destructing, combusting from within, killing themselves with drugs and alcohol instead of fighting for something or stepping up and out and taking a stand being a rebel WITH a cause... instead of the rebels without causes that self destruct.

I tell my sister how impressed I am with her every single day, but I know she is like me and needs a WHY.

I get that way too... sometimes people tell me i'm great or something and it's like okay. thanks... but WHY? what is it? I don't know where that need for the reason comes from, but there it is...

I had a reason for Tia tonight.

I told her... Tia... you are literally standing on the corner of this street in Michigan, a million miles away from the comfort of the California sunshine energy, because you are the angel of sunshine handing out causes...

I'll bet you anything there was someone today who woke up, staggered out of bed... made a cup of coffee, put on his shoes, and went walking down the street in a bored sort of lethargic, meaningless way walking to a job that they did day in and day out, and felt like something was missing in his life.
Maybe they would have gone down to the pub later that night and drank too much and chain smoked cigarettes and stumbled home and gotten in bed alone feeling worthless...
But instead, today they walked by my gleaming radiant sister who basically handed him something to fight for... something to LIVE for...
She is living with such purpose and she is igniting the light of purpose in so many others too.

THIS is why she inspires me tonight.

And the alone part?

Well.. maybe we have both taken this time to live it and charge it out into the world alone to prove to ourselves that we have this incredible strength from within.
And i reminded her that we are human...
We are allowed to have days when we feel like shit and we are over it... homesick and frustrated.
We are allowed to feel the human range of emotion... but at the end of the day we follow the manifesto and chose our reactions and always come back to the light, like our mother and father taught us...
we rise above it with the strength that we were born with and often times forget we have. But are discovering daily on these solo journeys.

This time of being alone is so powerful for us and perhaps for others too...
Maybe we will inspire other light carrier, amazing beings from our California communities to unplug from the mother power point and come out into the world to share their fire for a purpose for a while-- and then we will all come home for Christmas and love each other and plug back in and bathe in each other's energy and remember how lucky we are.

I came back down into the cabin after I hung up the phone with her and Copeland "By My Side" was playing on my i-thing in that moment as i came in the door.

Of course, me being me has to arrange the pillows and blankets just so... and always have a little soundtrack right so when i open the door and walk into the cabin i can sigh... ahhhh...

I love my own space for this reason... even though, in all honesty, i haven't really ever had a space that was all my own, except for briefly when my ex husband moved out before another person moved in and then we moved again together to share a space with a tribe of musicians in a house we came to call the OM hOMe.
It was from this tribe - this togetherness in venice beach that I discovered so so much... including Copeland... and this soundtrack which was playing as i entered the boat's cabin i'm playing house in tonight...

It was in this time of togetherness with my beloved venice beachians - our gypsy love tribe that i think i really understood the concept of love on a unity consciousness level.

I often refer to Venice as this giant energy depot... we live there and juice up... all plugged into one another's psyches and hearts - and then once we are charged up we can go venture out and spread this love consciousness around the world.
When you're plugged in, everything flows and can occasionally get weird and shitty, but for the most part, we live love every day, and there is nothing that feels like that.
a TRIBE of like-minded, beautiful beings all juicing up on each other's energies together.

and then i walked away from it all.

all of that.

i chose to be alone.

"i need you to tell me... you'll be right by my side. when i feel alone... you'll be right by my side, in a crazy world."

Those are the lyrics that were being sung as i walked back into the cabin alone.

So, Tia... I think those lyrics are for you...

I'm here tonight (even though i can't post this or email it or anything until next week when i get to land)....
Tonight I am here to tell you that i am by your side.

Always.

IGYB
I got your back

... and i'll be right by your side.

Thank you for doing what you are doing.
I am forever in gratitude for you and your spirit.

p.s. sorry for kicking you in the face and breaking your nose when you were 7....
oh... and for throwing you through the plate glass window when you were 4...
and... ya know, stuff like that
love you boo boo.
congratulations. you have found the clock.
go raincheck.