Musings on a MAMA Birthday
It's my birthday today. And, as on all birthdays, we chew on the past and lay intention for the future. Right now, I’m reflecting upon my colorful life so please flow with me in taking a gander at some vida-shaping, luminously favorite moments & lessons. I don’t keep a journal (I know, terrible) so let’s consider this time to chronicle some of life's experiences and her many blessings, if you will. The moments are below. I’m not referencing our current culture’s obsessions...
...(the thrills, grills, fills & logo-ed ornaments of our luxe-obsessed society),
rather the every-day vernacular that is The Simple Pleasures; things that cannot be bought nor sold (for much), the expressions of passion/creation and a bit of discoveries along the way.
8 YEARS OF MOLE’
It’s a ritual to head to a restaurant for your birthday, right? Someone else does the cooking and they definitely tend to those pesky dirty dishes (#loveit #yesplease #nightoff). This was my custom until I started dating my husband; his homemade Mexican food is on par with any taqueria or high-end Mexican restaurant I’ve ever experienced, his restauranteur mother garnered street-cred long before the worshipped masses on IG, his creations are always organic/humane/responsibly grown and, of course, made with SO MUCH love it’ll make your heart expand… and weak in the knees. Don’t get me wrong, we love a good meal at Tacos el Gordo, Libre or Javier’s (need to try El Dorado!) but when your husband presents his offerings, cooks for you and infuses life into the creation, why stray? It’s an undeniable sensation that rivets your being. This’ll be my eighth Molé Birthday (in about an hour) and I crave many, many more.
ART IS AROUND US, EVERYWHERE.
I have studied Fine Art at the University level with world-renowned Art Critics, Directed high-end Galleries (even co-founded my own), remember the first sighting of Shepard Fairey’s OBEY Giant in my hometown of Encinitas, shared dinner with a Coca-Cola obsessed, illuminated icon (at Rosemary’s Restaurant…I miss that westside trailblazer’s prawn + blue cheese slaw) and executed Fashion Styling for a hometown rebel / creator of two-dimensional, glossy lusciousness. There are courageously neon, unplugged dinosaurs just down the road, rainbow-ed clouds in our local dry lake bed, spectacular forms of well-traveled LOVE and epic moments around every VEGAS corner. Each year, I make an india-ink print of our handprints on ONE watercolor sheet (then we color it later). I also meditate and lay intentions in Red Rock Canyon, with my family.
Find your art. Make your art. There is no time like the present to produce an heirloom.
THIRD MAN RECORDS by JACK WHITE
This artist. I just can’t get enough of his disciplined yet clawing expression; his diligence to what's real, for his fellow artists and to his vision. He's not obsessed, he just knows what he wants and exactly how it'll look when it's completed. I'M SHAKIN' been playing on repeat the last two weeks and looping as I write this post. I try not to regret, but I do regret forgoing his & Meg White's White Stripes show during my birthday month in 2002 (spent too much time in the salt water that day), I had tickets to a sold-out show at The Casbah. I still have the blue&black tickets somewhere, un-ripped an un-used.
COUNTRY MUSIC
...a lesson in Americana at its saltiest, whisky-est & grittiest. Yes, please.
This all started with my father’s love of southern rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival when I was a kid then it morphed into my own Johnny Cash appreciation via my vinyl records that were endlessly played during the 1990’s…all played on my inherited parents’ turntable, of course. There’s also the obligatory country hero favorites; Dolly, Loretta, Willie, Hank, Haggard then Steve Earl, and the list goes on...
- Lyle Lovett’s LIVE IN TEXAS rocked my 2002 summer in Sun Valley, ID (I never understood Julia Roberts union until I heard Lyle sing)
- Hank III’s 2006 STRAIGHT TO HELL (Country Heroes, Pills I Took, Smoke & Wine are country rebel, low-down & dirty cowboy finesse at its finest)
side note: HANK III's comical naughtiness gets me everytime, I cringe & laugh simultaneously. NOT for your children's ears, play it loud while driving with windows rolled down and the desert wind whipping through your hair. Come on, just try it.
- 2010’s COUNTRY STRONG SOUNDTRACK (don’t laugh, it's good, I swear!) Mostly Garrett Hedlund’s songs & his Give in to Me profession of love with Leighton Meister)
- The opposite of Hank III is the soft & alluring MIDLAND with their premier 2016 self-titled album, I highly recommend JUMPING ON THEIR Anthropologie-motorcycle-driving-with-Erin-Wasson-on-the-back-stud, Bruno Mars directing, hot fashion photographing wife & newly made papa, ranch-owning-beer-slinging-caddy-convertible-driving, velvety voiced, subtley-twangy TRIFECTA TRAIN.
Listening to this music is so summer-centric, so fabulous and so birthday friendly. Go ahead, find your cowboy hat. Or go buy one.
YOUR SPIRIT ANIMAL
As we’ve done for a millennia, know your spirit animal(s). Lions have always been close to my soul. Feel it. Find it. Listen to it. Honor it. They are YOU.
SWEET HOME OKLAHOMA
I love this triangle of besties; hailing from Oklahoma City with life-experience and kid-rearing days behind their belts they support each other, lovingly harass one another (“Pumps is a gift”), pull pranks that make you laugh like a hyena and have a good ol’ time. Besties in action. Watch them. They are all a gift. Try NOT to pee your pants, MAMAS...it's not easy.
A FAVORITE; 2010, A BABY ODYSSEY
My most memorable birthday was celebrating at the newly opened Encantado Resort in Santa Fe, we missed Oprah by five minutes and walked the grounds for hours while enjoying rosé & glorious farm-to-table fare. Two days later I found I was five months pregnant. Ooopsie. And yes, I found out when I was FIVE MONTHS pregnant. My iconic & lovely friend Ali MacGraw assured me, said that it happened to her, too.
THE LAUNCH OF VEGASMAMAS
VEGASMAMAS was eight years in the making so welcome home, MAMAS. Thank you for sharing my birthday with me. In all you do, charge ahead with LOVE, RESPECT & FUN...just like you always do. Cheers to many more, for all of us. Thanks for being here. I love YOU.