Is what the lion entering our courtyard looks like. Heat up and get loose is what I enter instantly as the moment unfolds effortlessly. Heat up and get loose — but wrap it up in a Jack Nicholson smile.
Heat up and get loose is what Jack Nicholson once advised Kobe Bryant before a game, after asking him for an autograph. I love Jack Nicholson, always have. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face type of thing and that was it. The whole family loves Jack Nicholson. It’s not just the films — it’s him. Full stop. Or full beginning. Who skyrockets his movies into eternity. Him and, of course, his costars. He knows that the better they are the better he becomes (he’s also Jack Nicholsn, he knows some s…tuff). A great athlete wants to win. A great athlete facing someone equally great? That’s when it turns into play, into shared elevation, everybody rises. A pretty cool ideal. When hard work looks so easy that you think you can do it too? Ooh. On screen, it’s dynamic. In real life, it’s presence. Lit and free. Precisely.
Just like being authentic is — sweet. Being authentic with someone authentic back is even sweeter. Kinda like Poolside’s Kiss You Forever. You know what bitterness tastes like. Or sour. Sometimes it’s healthy, it’s part of life, but sweet is called sweet for a reason. Add some red hot chili peppers, and a world full of wonder appears. Change a letter and boom sweat enters the show. Something that makes you go M!. Nothing and everything all at once kind of feeling. Again. Yes. Just like we know who says. Agaaain. Emphasis on A. Since we’re here, authenticity is unconditional just like we know what is, but it’s the dots connecting safety to vulnerability that make authenticity undeniable. Spring comes, we’re in for the thrill, as stated above. We’re all back in London, it’s mom’s birthday, and it’s crisp, and the trees are blooming in Hyde Park.
C’est pas idéal mais c’est pas mal, haha, comes to mind as soon as ideal does right now. Why does this make me crack a smile? Maybe because I know some pretty funny French guys and some pretty funny French girls. One of them and I were having fun, later in that same October, at a formal event — a wedding, nbd — when she told me, in that tone: No, French people are judgmental people, and I don’t like that. Then, as we were sitting next to each other at one of the many round tables, a moment came. She leaned in and said: Now, we would never do that. The tone, the seriousness. It was a tradition belonging to… not sure who on the planet. It involved waving and napkins. She leaned in again and said: See what I mean? So unapologetically. Innocently. We both lost it, reaching for whatever arm or leg was nearest. We both had speeches prepared. We both were nervous af — no one could tell, though, hihi, haha. We could barely drink a glass of champagne all day — we were too busy supporting each other instead. With lots of laughter. And sparkles through the microphone. We didn’t want to read each other’s speeches beforehand. We wanted them to be a surprise for each other as well, not just for the hundred or so people in the room. We were in it for the real thrill. Very Nouvelle Vague. And then came my speech.
Bride and groom, sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love,
Then comes marriage,
Then comes baby with a baby carriage!
Sitting in a tree and kissing — that’s what I wish for you on this day: a life full of kissing!
A kiss is letting in what was, just moments ago, separate — that thing!
No matter how much time has passed — time, what is that? — a new beginning is what we are celebrating on this day.
Why not? Every day is a new start, anyway.
Today, we’re just wearing fancy clothes.
Wait! Why not wear fancy clothes every day?
We create our own lives.
So, dream your life together into existence, just as you wish to live it.
And vice-versa. Live your life just as you dream it.
Every day. I do. I do.
Speech.
Speech.
Speech.
I am writing this from a spectacular beach in Greece where I’m with the whole family for my brother’s birthday — and boom, you come to mind (as you pretty often do). These words have come together across different corners of the world.
The center of it, however, has always been in the heart.
Oh, love. Life! You gotta love it!
It pops up quickly — in an orgasm (ideally two, at the same time) —
It is presence.
It is magic.
It is not a given.
Just like the people who truly love you are.
Who truly see you — now that is a twinkle of a star.
That’s amore!
People kept telling me they’d never heard the word orgasm in a wedding speech before, the bride told me the next day. In delight is what the applause felt like — confirmed now by her expression and words — as I was coming back from space back down to earth.
Speaking of earth. This time, connected to its very center.
It’s Sunday morning. Late January. The sun is out. Mom and I decide to go say hi to Bruno — our neighbour’s dog at the cabin in the mountains. The big heart. The big voice. A childlike, most wise-eyed creature. Fierce and radiant at once. Freedom is what I feel inside his eyes when I look at him up close — we touch noses for a split second when we see each other — through the bars of the big and lovely yard of the lovely neighbours who look after our Loona whenever no one is at the cabin. They call themselves Mom and Dad 2. They said it first. Entirely sincere. Dad 2 gives some of the best spontaneous hugs whenever we cross paths. Mom and Dad are Mom and Dad 1. Loona and Bruno are siblings — sister and brother, the free-love kind. It was a whimsical — of course, stars, of course — chain of events that placed them in the same small castle as babies. She came to our house at approximately the same time Bruno was brought to our neighbours’. Tiger followed shortly after. Then Tiger was gone — who knows where — for quite a while. Today, however, Tiger is officially back. Meowing as ever, all grown up, let’s see what that’s all about.
We decide to walk a little farther down the street — the one where only nature seems to exist. And silence. A certain calm. Suddenly, a beige, fairly large dog steps out as if to meet us. Aww, I say. Cristina, mom says. Then another appears. Just as big, but brown. Okay, we say in unison, slowing our pace. Right on cue, a third dog steps into the road and joins, very slowly but surely, our impromptu group. And this one — this one is enormous. Beige and white and brown and gray and black. A story like head. A face that carries a presence so high in the sky and deep into the ground at the same time. A body in perfect proportion. Massive paws. Fluffy in that ancient, mountain way — not domesticated fluff, but weather, and night, and day, and everything in between. I’ve never seen a dog like this before. He feels elemental. He definitely doesn’t feel owned. Freedom that runs the valleys and forests and… whatever freedom wants. The largest dog I’ve ever seen. And loose. And wild. As animals that live in nature are. Big ones.
Ooh, we head back home and guess who’s marching with us. The two smaller ones. Big, but smaller. The giant one moves, just as slowly and surely, somewhere near, not close, not far. You can feel his presence without seeing him. Calm, I tell mom. Sure, she says. Calm-to-the-center-of-the-earth calm. We reach home, we open the gate, we enter, we close the gate, logically, we have a plan. Mom steps inside, one instant leads to another, the giant is at my side, gets so close to me — it feels both thrilling and nice in a strange way, I can feel his power — and inside with us. It happens so smoothly it feels planned. Not by us, this time around. The other two dogs remain patiently outside.
I can’t shush him in any way, we don’t know if he even has a name, a straightforward, but warm hey comes out of my mouth as I put my hand on his back to guide him back — he is so fluffy and for a second it feels like touching gravity. He doesn’t resist. He doesn’t rush. He simply proceeds as though this, too, is part of his day. As if he’s done it many times before. As if he knew our house. Us. Micro movements everywhere. Micro and immense at once.
I close the gate fully, so the others don’t come in. And now, almost as if we had invited it into our freshly closed property, the largest dog in the world is in our courtyard. What does he do? He lowers himself to the ground like a lion you see in a documentary, or best case scenario live somewhere in nature. Regal. Slightly on his side, legs chilling sort of vibe. Kinda like the lions in Trafalgar Square but slightly on their side, legs chilling sort of vibe. Completely at ease. Mom and I look at each other and burst into that startled, rushing laughter that comes when reality tilts. Now what?
He rises when he’s ready. I show him the way out. Funny me. He checks dad’s apple trees. Smells. Inspects. Moves with embodied authority. Not threatening. Not hesitant. Intentional. He heads toward the back of the house. Interesting. I am kind of walking beside the dog, mom is in front of us. We’re not even half way through it all, since the only way out of the property is the one we entered minutes ago, at the front. Goodness. The first door of the house is closed. Good. The pathway narrows. The order becomes: Mom. Lion-dog. Me. Walking at the pace of the dog, of course — a dog that seems very aware of the earth, a dog you cannot escape the life force energy of. Mom turns right, steps up on the porch of the house and so does the dog. The second door is closed, too, thank God. Mom cracks it open to call dad. Mom, shut the door!, I whisper sharply. Been on that road before. Dad looks at us calmly through the floor to ceiling glass from the kitchen table and says: You got him in, you get him out, and returns to his reading or something on the phone.
Mom sort of annoyed, but with a smile waiting to show up on her face, only pulls out a huh!. The dog lies down again. Just as regally. The porch suddenly feels full. We are now deep into our courtyard, far away from the gate out I fly my hands in the air toward, from the ground. Hey… He looks at me. Not confused. Not lost. Not unsure. Of course not, the world regal is right here. A couple of times in different forms. Peace mixed with fire in his eyes. Power without agitation. He knows exactly what is happening. He has been here for a long time. Around him, you become present (who you were born to be — authentic) or you become irrelevant. A lion in all his glory. You find the frequency and ride the wave. No matter how out of this world it feels.
Dad’s confidence anchors the confidence I’ve been pushed out of nowhere to drop into on a Sunday morning. Trust eases in. Soft. Alert. Senses alive. Mom, the dog and I must be playing in some sort of movie in some parallel life. Eventually, he stands. Mom steps down. He follows. We move back toward the front. The lion and I are again walking beside each other. It’s a feeling like no other. It’s space even though space is what we are protecting now. He takes his time. Makes us take ours. I don’t know if fear ever hovered above or not, because presence definitely overwrote everything. The two smaller dogs are still waiting outside. Once the lion steps through the gate, patiently, mom and I look at each other and exhale at the same time. Wow.
Later we learned he was one of the mountain dogs that keep bears away. We instinctively felt that he was. So. Now you know. And you don’t know what to do after a moment like that. You just are for a while. But then you write about it. Can’t have your peace until you do, yet it is peace you need to find yourself in to be able to. Interesting. We write to taste life twice: in the moment, and in retrospect. I like that. Anaïs Nin said it and now I’m looking for books to read her.
A friend asked me afterward, eyes wide with excitement: Did you take any pictures? Goodness. My phone was out of my stratosphere for the entire morning.
Nature sneaks up on you like that. Just like the anthem of the club you adore dancing in does, when the DJ keeps teasing it, hinting at it, until finally playing it in full (but not every time) before intertwining it with a couple of other songs you let completely carry you. For tiny seconds, until one specific song enwraps the entire club, where everybody’s dancing.
Nature is unpredictable like that. And you remember who you are. You’re framing a photograph of the atmosphere one early October day in Italy and suddenly you notice the Apuan Alps, dazzling with white marble caps, shaking hands with the clouds at sunset on your right. The sea on your left. Breeze threading through everything. And then you remember where you are. Forte dei Marmi.
Like Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura. And everything he does. Is.
Like stepping out for a quick walk in Florence on a Sunday morning in that same early October, the sunrise popping up from beneath buildings that must have belonged to some fairytales — real ones, real ones with the atmosphere and all, needless to say, but even seeing the words just now on paper feels good, so why not? And then, out of nowhere, heavy rain. Remember, it’s still sunrise everywhere and there are barely any people in the streets. All the things you see in daylight — when it feels like the entire world has its eyes on them, too — have their eyes only on you now. It’s intimate. Intimidating in a sexy way. A fated date and all. Went to Leonardo da Vinci’s birthplace afterward, nbd.
Only to get a speed fine, in Florence, on the way to it, but enjoying that too, because it just looks elegant. The kind that arrives through the post office. With signatures and seconds. It deserves a frame of its own. The stamp, the colors, the paper — impeccable. And it takes me straight back to the exact moment I was caught speeding. Wait. I was going 57. The limit said 50. Still — it matters. And I knew it right then and there! And I know exactly what that moment was about: mom on my right, dad in the back, the hybrid car — knowing that the car taking you places is also charged by the sun does something to my brain, just like we are? On those roads? Yum. It gives the whole thing a different spin. And you know where we were headed. Add that. The music — the drill. I almost threw the fine away the other day, but couldn’t. Driving 800 kilometres through Tuscany is always a buzz, and now there’s an official document to add into the history of it — where everything is everything, and that’s that. Nature, basically.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Have a will. Trust the way.
You ask any kid and he’ll tell you that Jack is the hippest place in the universe, the coolest place. The independent Republic of Jack. The hardest thing in the world is to wear a great gift well. And Jack wears it with a killer smile and a pair of shades, said Mike Nichols in a speech about Jack Nicholson. That’s when you know it’s the safest place. It’s people like Jack Nicholson, and mom, and dad, who have been paving the way for us all as best they can — the stars, I bet, are applauding — and I know I am in awe of such human beings born on planet Earth. And the kids inserting themselves into our lives, hallelujah. Or Leonardo DiCaprio. That came in swiftly. But after seeing One Battle After Another, it was inevitable. The rhythm. Kinda like life sometimes — multiple storms at once enhancing one another. You become the mountain as songs pour into your ears. Fun.
The first thing I watched this year, after the fireworks and all that jazz, was the video of the first person to climb Mount Everest and ski back to Everest Base Camp without supplementary oxygen.
The first thing I ate this year, during fireworks and all that jazz, was passion fruit. I don’t know why I’m saying this here except for the fact that neither of them were planned. The champagne before and after midnight aside. No one was thinking about what’s what, everyone was living in the there and then, but all the things that led up to the moments that accompanied both expressions of art mattered. And, hence, they were exceptional. The expressions, and the moments.
It gets tricky with a song when you don’t quite know when it starts and when it ends, especially when it’s on repeat in your headset. You can tell, but when under the spell you can’t help slipping into — again and again — without thinking about the beginning or the ending, you simply stop thinking about beginnings and endings and start turning them into poetry instead. You love life. Particularly with this new fading effect songs seem to have lately (or I selected the feature somehow, sometime, without knowing, but knowing enough, apparently), when a specific one is on repeat and the ending blends with the beginning and vice-versa. So you don’t have to press play, it’s non-stop play. And the song has the effect of transporting you somewhere — which is actually inside of you — and so on, yes, mysteriously and naturally on — by its own. Whooh. You are definitely heading beyond the Ten Miles High — which is full glam already — Róisín Murphy is singing about. Thrilling and calming at once. No matter the clothes, however, you always end up naked and…nothiiing! There’s nothiiing… Heaven, by The Rolling Stones, comes in, takes you inside yourself, and so on, yes, mysteriously and naturally on.
Similar to the planetary alignment you witness from the first row in the sky at night, just before landing home.
George Michael’s Waiting for That Day just started. It’s liberating to know you don’t know everything and fantastic to know you have every day to discover it. We are all so privileged to be able to do that. Art is what we all make of our lives, consciously or not. And so boom Waiting for That Day began. And on and on it went. Until I saw that George Michael, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger wrote it. And immediately after — actually — Heaven happened, just as I decided to exit the loop. Only to see that it was written by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. There’s something so sweet about the whole thing. No? So here it is. And on and on it went. Sweet was not intended to appear anywhere but in the title when Sweet decided to take its place. So here we are.
CALM… Sade comes to mind. And Jack Nicholson saying …the work that this is about has set my life free, confounds me — I’m a romantic… I feel these things matter, these little patterns that we are in the universe, mkay… in his acceptance speech at the 22nd AFI Life Achievement Award A Salute to Jack Nicholson.
Stirring up an emotion in someone’s heart — and I don’t mean romantically, not only — is something you cannot touch, yet something that feels as real as magic does. The amount of magic it took for a film like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to be made is insanely beautiful. But so is the amount of magic that comes out of it for an entire world to feel.
My work motto is everything counts. My life motto is more good times. So, I guess the real danger here is after this I’ll fall in love with myself. Sweet, sweet Jack.
