Mother’s Day

In the deep north valley of Los Angeles County, there once lived a hospital called Van Nuys Psychiatric. Inside of this adult mental health facility, was a tiny youth program called ASAP. It was a drug rehabilitation center, where -- like the adults in residence, once you came in you did not leave. Once the door shut behind me, my stay lasted almost two years.

In this funky, no-nonsense lockdown facility, there was eccentric grown-ups and seniors, as well as kids ranging from 12 to 17. I was 13 to 14 during my stay. In total there were around 30ish kids at a time. Some came and went quickly due to insurance that could not continue to pay for their stay. “30 Days-kids” would brag, knowing they had a window of time to make it through and then they were out! It was the one time I resented my very good insurance, as there was no end to my stay. I was in for the long haul. I bonded with a lot of the kids, because like me, they did not know where to put their anger and they did not know how to live life anymore without the need to get high or self-destruct in some form and fashion. There was a very big range of reasons all these young humans were here. It ranged in behaviors. And once a week, all the patients, and their families or caretakers, aunts and uncles or foster care mentors, on Wednesday nights would sit and line up chairs around in a circle formation in a large room, and one family a week would have their chairs put in the middle. It was vulnerable and spectator. It was revealing and healing.

So here is what would take place: During the week, the patient, like me, would meet with their therapist. Mine was Dr. Blair. I loved him. He was kind and gracious. Safe and calm. I was so against being there in this hard-knocks place, but when I was with Dr. Blair, in this tiny room of his office, my walls would come down. When he asked me questions, I would think of how I would always ask how characters I was playing would feel. Who were they? The backstory? What were they experiencing and therefor feeling in a scene? So, instead of some made up person, I had to take all those questions inward. And with this therapist I could. I started to understand the value of therapy and even really enjoy opening up so that I could figure things out. I was already open to considering what a person needed to flush out a fictional character. I knew that details and reasoning to find my way into people I played in movies was a real exploration I did, so why not with myself? Each kid had their own therapist with some crossover here and there. Each therapist had multiple patients, but somehow you didn’t feel it. I never felt like the individual care was watered down by the sharing of therapists. Then there were the counselors. There were three very salient and cool adults. Betty, who I loved. Maternal and groovy, I was smitten. She was married to Dallas, a former rock and roll drummer (and how I ended up with David Crosby and his wife Jan to be able to petition for emancipation from my mother) and there was Lori. A tough matter of fact women who was full of truths and boundaries. I think I loved her the most, because what I understand now: kids love feeling safe, and having boundaries is one of those crucial bumper rails. I lived a boundaryless life and job. And this place, as hellacious as it was, it was exactly what I needed from the too much excess my life had become on the outside. But even though my story might have been splattered on the cover of the Enquirer Magazine at a check-out stand of your local whatever, they even put a picture or me holding a teddy bear with the sad story of me careening off the edge headline, shame entered the picture. But in this institution, it was the opposite. It was, “open up! share!”

On Wednesday nights, after a week of focused work and talks amongst us inmates, it was ringside! Out with all of it, right in the middle of everyone. There was a style that let you know it was not only safe but necessary to not sweep anything under the rug. It was made so beautifully clear by the adults running this life overhaul ritual that keeping things inside were not advised. Avoidance was the ticket that got you a stay in this place. And one way out of these halls was to figure your shit out and deal with it with everyone who would be on your journey on the outside. Wednesday nights were cathartic. Revelatory. Popcorn-level of “Yeah say it!!!!!! Go there. Do it!!!” And there was a ton of humor too. It was a coping mechanism for the heavy. Everyone laughed out loud. They cried. They got it all out and it was lighter at the end. Real. There was still stuff hanging and left in the air, but truths were spoken, and feelings were fought for, and at least road maps were drawn. Because we all know everyone in here was lost and trying to figure out how to live a life so we would talk. Put it all out there. It taught me the foundations of telling your truth. Not in a way that made you an immovable person on some high horse, but your story. Your feelings. Your faults. Your hopes and wishes. Your hurts. What and where you wanted to get to in life. And -- very important -- who was going to help you on your path and who would you have to let go. For me, at the end and when I got out, it was my mother.

When I got emancipated by the courts at 14 years old, the umbilical cord was severed, and I have not been the same since. It was necessary for me to step away and start to become my own person. And at the age of 14, my own parent. I cannot give myself rave reviews. I drank too much. Partied and burned the candle at every end. I danced on desks and posed half naked in the name of art. Nothing I judge. It’s my history. I was just trying to figure out how to grow up and who I wanted to become. But I also found a new family. I built a company called Flower Films at 19, and somehow the great karma of life would fill it with a few people who I will be soon celebrating 30 years of partnership with. My found family. My best friends and my consciences. I am now a mother too. I have stopped drinking alcohol because it was my poison. I am not sober nor work a program, but I broke generational cycles that no one in my family had been able to conquer in their priority of hedonism. They were all artists who, maybe like me, enjoyed feeling invincible and veiled from pain all in the same glass.

I have put my cup down and said yes to life, and my daughters were my inspiration, as they are for every decision I have tried to make. Being a mother constantly triggers everything from my own childhood now. I live in an often-petrified state of thinking about my past and wanting to have things different for them. I want them protected. I want them to grow up slowly. I want family around and traditions and rules and boundaries. I want therapists and feelings to be out on the table. I want to work on personal and individual growth in a house that looks at feelings and behaviors. One of my friends and mentors Dr. Aliza Pressman of Raising Good Humans Podcast says, “All feelings are welcome; all behaviors are not.” I love this. I grew up in a way that everything was on the table emotionally for work. Be this person who sets fire to things. Have an alien be your best friend and protect the unfamiliar. Divorce my parents in one film and reach deep and get into my own sadness about my mom and dad splitting up before I was born. And now my job is to TALK. Talk about everything. Ask questions. Figure out “how to live a life” right there in a forum.

The other day I went to lunch with a friend who is a major chef/foodie and so I took him to this glorious New York institution of a power lunch in Manhattan. High ceilings, art, and a gravitas to it that isn’t exactly me, but I appreciate it.  We sat at the bar eating a crab Louis. We were talking about everything in life, and we got onto the subject of the institution. And I was telling him about the room where all the families would gather in the circle and how I felt so loving about the routine of siting around in a formation where the outskirts felt like an audience but also a protection from the fall. Everyone in that room knew what they were there to do. TALK.  And the more we talked the more we laughed and worked through things and took turns doing verbal trust falls and supporting each other to grow. And I immediately got emotional. THE SHOW. The show is like the room. And all feelings are welcomed, and all behaviors are not. I couldn’t eat anymore. My stomach was flipping. Was my whole life a lead up to continue to fight for and protect an open discussion and dialogue about who we are, what we need, want, must do, have done, want to do, are figuring out … with a lot of laughter to make it all ok at the end of the day?

Doesn’t all the work we do on ourselves eventually pay off into play! A liberation from whatever holds us back. A celebration of the places we have brought ourselves to. And the stories. Oh, the stories.  And with that I realized the purpose behind the show. Get vulnerable and be as silly as possible too. But LEARN.  I have loved learning my whole life, from every source I am lucky enough to get some pollen from. I have traveled around going from place to person and drank from all the wisdom and humor I could. I have tried to contribute everything I can and not hold back. Feel the encouragement to be brave and put yourself out there. Well, sometimes it does feel very vulnerable. Raw. Uncomfortable. But I am also living, loving, and learning. And one journey on the show has been mothers. My most poignant subject. My most important. My deepest lifelong search. This year in particular I have been able to discuss many dynamics with and about mothers. And it hasn’t been easy, as most people who have shared their truths no longer have to worry about their mother’s reaction’s because they have passed on. My mother is still here. And I worry every day that something in my exploration will hurt her feelings. Because that isn’t what I want. And I have been petrified of how to justifiably go on my expedition without consequence. Once again, my friend Dr. Aliza Pressman, said, as I poured out my worries to her, she said, “Well you don’t have the luxury of waiting, you have two young girls.” with that came a gift and peace. This isn’t just about my mom. It’s about my girls. It’s about me. It’s about how to simply be a mother.

When I look around the world, I could have never imagined that my overexposed and too much access in my youth would be the same problem all kids and parents are facing today. This unprecedented and untested world of everything at your fingertips is just not what I would wish on anyone, knowing what I know. We all need a mother right now to protect us and consider carefully at every turn what is too much and what is a healthy amount. Social media cut all the umbilical cords and set us free to figure out so much on our own, at any age, and without boundaries. It is the world we live in. It is the world I survived. It is the world I promised my daughters wouldn’t experience… and yet all our kids are in it now. So, we all need to be nurturing figures. All feelings are valid. All behaviors are not. Now having traveled the world since I was 7 years old, I have been open to all the styles on this globe of “how to live a life” or be a family, and there are so many ways. No one is right or wrong. Styles. And without judgement, we can follow what feels right and needed for our loved ones. But I can see where boundaries are healthy. I have come to finally learn what they are. And yet, I feel as naked as ever. I don’t always congratulate myself on being an open book. But in that room of feelings, with open brave lines of communication, I would travel back to the beginning of time in history. When maybe very small groups of people, might sit around and talk. How else do we ever get anywhere without this courageous act of speaking? And listening? Accepting or fighting for what we believe in? It is all through talking. And we have been figuring out ways to do this since the beginning of time and I have found the breakdown of communication can be an inroad to so much pain. If we can get back to that ritualistic setting of communicating, it could open one’s heart. And my heart tells me we all need a mom. From Mother Earth to that one single individual who is willing to give you love.

I love being a mom. Greatest thing I will ever do in my life without question. Everything in my experience here on this pale blue dot has been for them. And now it is also my chance to not make it about me but learn how to deal with all that comes with choosing to be a parent. I need to continue to figure things out. Not to project but to disembark from my past and live in the present, so that I may meet my future with as much resilience as I possibly can.  

It is about to be Mother’s Day.  It was recently my mother’s birthday. I texted her. It simply read “Happy birthday, Mom.” and she wrote back “Thank you so much! I’m incredibly proud of you and send you love.” It was the biggest gift I could have ever received. To know that she is proud of me. Too know she loves me, in the middle of the circle, where I have gone deep into trying to continue to grow in front of people. And share. And be brave. I love you, too, Mom. Thank you for letting me be me. And still loving who I am. And to my girls… I just hope I can be someone who makes you feel safe. And that you can laugh with. And that you can tell me anything. I’m here for it. I’m in the circle with you… for life.