Against my better judgement, I dragged my butt off the couch after moinths of depression watching eight hundred co-workers including myself get laid off from our jobs, and drive up a vast highway to a rustic canyon music festival, and came home with a husband. How did a city chick get off the couch permanently and end up in God’s country, you ask?
Just like life, the winding twists and turns of Highway 27 seem to hide what’s just ahead, life will drop a 30-ton boulder to stop you dead in your tracks and get you to notice something is werong. That was me, speeding along in life happily residing in Venice, keeping my New York edge from saying words like “Dude.” Working in TV, I commuted to the Holy City of Hollywood, so on weekends I didn’t move. Healing from dating the Walking Dead and I recent trip to Hawaii where I though I met my soul mate until he fell in love with another tourist, I was over it. Stick-a-fork over it, leaving behind a past of ghosts still haunting me, I stopped going out. Completely. Fear of going through the spin cycle of romance again and again, I lie in comfort horizontal, watching re-runs of Gilmore Girls and Sex In The City marathons.
When my neighbor, Carol, an indie roots rocker living inside the body of a Massage Therapist, mentioned her friend’s band was playing in Topanga one Memorial Day weekend, it stirred enough interest for me to actually put down the TV remote and think about getting in my car. I called my BF, Neurotic Nick, to come with me, who replied in his casual effete tone that he would meet me after lunch. That was code for a fifty-fifty chance of a no-show, so I headed up the Pacific Coast Highway in search of my destiny. Driving up the switchbacks into the Canyon, I noticed how the sunlight filtered through the Live Oaks and I began to breathe slower. I parked in front of Froggy’s, long before it would be open and waited for the shuttle next to several guys who seemed nice enough, and wouldn't murder me. We engaged in small talk, when I notice the good looking one with dark hair, surf trunks, a cool T-shirt, the posture of a Marine, and a bad-ass pair of Persol sunglasses.
We climbed aboard the shuttle, Cute Boy seated next to me. We made chit-chat and I casually mentioned that I was meeting my friends…just in case he was an Ax Murderer. He had just come from surfing so I recounted how I had recently surfed for the first time in Oahu, standing up in front of Dukes Waikiki in my bikini, acting out my Gidget fantasy, until I got hit in the head with the surfboard by the next wave. As we arrived at the festival, Cute Boy pulled out a pen and wrote his number down.
“Call me, if your friends don't show up and you can come hang out with us,” he said, smiling.
“Cool,” I said, and walked away thinking, “Don’t hold your breath!” Stuffing the number in my back pocekt, I spent the next hour shopping, as Topanga Days not only has great music, great food, and great people-watching opportunities, but also a Marrakesh bazaar of chic hippie outfits that could pass for my entire high school wardrobe. Saris blew in the wind and I forgot about searching for Carol and Neal. Happily, I sat down and listened to the band, taking in the vibe, when up walked Cute Boy.
"Hey, did you get ahold of your friends?” he asked.
“Negative. I'm in cell phone hell,” I replied. He instantly offered his cell for assistance. I tried both numbers, leaving Neal a message (“Did you die?") and Carol (”Still working or just flaking?”)
Cute Boy and I walked through the bazaar, past sage burning rituals and belly dancing girls twirling Hula Hoops on their arms. I spied his friends at a distance looking me over approvingly.
We spent the afternoon playing life catch-up, recounting all the intimate details of our pasts. He was a Los Angeles native and surfer. I told him about growing up in Jersey, living in the East Village and going to NYU Film School. He told me about parties with famous celebrities and the erect posture from being a Navy Helicopter Search and Rescue Seal. We spent the rest of our time recapping past relationships. Mostly girls with tattoos for him; the walking wounded, for me.
“Wow, glad that’s out, now let’s drink! Oh wait, you don’t drink?” Okay, we’ll figure it out.
And we did. Cute Boy and I bought a house in between where we met at Froggy’s and got married at the Inn of the Seventh Ray in September 2003. What I fell in love with was more than just the guy with the Persol sunglasses and accoutrements. It was this Alice in Wonderland place hidden amongst the live oak. I watch lizards, tiny frogs, bobcats and coyotes cross my path, listening to the owls call to each other across the Canyon in different octaves. I stand under the stars, my umbrella of live oaks around me.
You never know whom you might be sitting next to on the shuttle to Topanga Days. It just may change your life.
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