You Stylish Bitch, You - French Women

Oh French women, with your effortlessly stylish ways, I love how you communicate with your scarves, and fancy trench coats. Who needs words when Karl and Isabel, Christian and Norma are on hand to speak on your behalf?


Oh ladies of France with your laissez-faire attitude towards carbs, white flour and copious amounts of wine, both red and white. How your macaroons are ingested like pretty coloured children's vitamins and nary a word about weight shall ever pass your lips. The way you spend countless hours at sidewalk cafes, divinely dining and savoring each morsel, reveling in the joy of good company and the diversity of life as it walks by your cappuccino filled, tables.




Oh French women, how your men appreciate the way you age, and find beauty in your lines and wrinkles. How could they not, for you give them no choice- your body, age and sexuality is cause for constant celebration and celebrate you do. What is your secret?

Oh American counterparts, if only we wore frilly panties and a matching bra to take out the garbage, applied lip gloss to perform the most mundane of tasks and seductively allowed a door to be held open, instead of scowling with vitriol at the very same gesture. Ladies watch your men, for it's no accident "femme fatale" is a french expression. Is there a night class we can take?

Oh French women, Je vous admire et adore la façon que vous se déplacez par le monde. Tres bien.

Packing and Purging

“If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?” - Dr. Laurence J. Peters

The time has arrived to begin the arduous process of packing up my life in Los Angeles in preparation for the move to New York City later this month. And as I do, I have been pondering the above quote. Though I'm not cleaning out my desk exactly, it's an important question. The refining of ones life, a discarding of what doesn't work any more to make room for an influx of new opportunity and wonderment, is a practice I have long held.

While I don't particularly enjoy rooting around my dusty, spider-ridden attic, or making countless trips to the garbage and recycling bins with armfuls of waste from times long gone (why did I need 7 pairs of snowboarding pants, anyway?), there's something incredibly therapeutic about purging oneself of the things that no longer hold meaning or purpose. Sure it's hard not to get sentimental about old birthday cards, love notes, presents from grandma and photos featuring colleagues and friends you haven't spoken to in years. But with each toss into the garbage can, a small space in my energy field feels as if it's being immediately created - a space for something new, improved, and thoroughly concurrent with my needs as they stand now. Not as they were.

At 40, there seems to be a box for every decade lounging in the dark recesses of my little California Bungalow. There's the "twenties" box, complete with photos of my days in various indie rock bands, the very first piece of furniture I ever owned (a large, green futon), boyfriends I'd rather forget, and the general youthful, malay that comes with hanging out at endless concerts and clubs for the better part of ten years. Yes the countless snapshots of me with a beer in my hand (and several that show my affinity for double fisting it on big nights), arm almost always lounged across the shoulders of some random friend I haven't thought of in years but whom I once called my BEST FRIEND, such is the transient nature of that decade in general. These coincide with other assorted items including yellowed concert ticket stubs, signed guitar picks, grunge-era clothing items, and journals chock filled with my home made poetry, and partially recorded songs I was convinced would land me a huge record deal. They never did. Oh don't get me wrong; it was great fun at the time. But if I'm to be perfectly honest, the only thing that box does for me now is make me ever so grateful my twenties ARE OVER!

The "thirties" box holds more evolved memories, as it should. Gone are the halcyon days of non-stop parties, only to be replaced by such Kodak moments as my boyfriend and I ceremoniously dumping the futon at the curb and greeting the delivery guy dropping off our new custom made, mid century modern sofa, remnants of dinner parties and wine tastings, the occasional rock concert (sans beer), and work photos consisting of colleagues toiling away at respectable jobs in respectable offices, not bleary eyed, backstage blunders captured whilst on tour with my band - or as it's otherwise known, three quarters of my twenties. The thirties, while productive both career-wise (I found my path in tv) and personally (a long period of serious introspective growth and maturity), felt like a lot of work. Ten years of growing up, barfing up (all that childhood stuff) and trading up, makes Shannon a dull girl. What's next? My forties. Shit's getting good...

So here they all are, my life in boxes laid out before me, my living room turned into a sprawling, disaster zone as I walk down memory lane. I've pondered the idea of throwing the majority of their contents out before. However, I always felt compelled to hold on to them as it was impossible to conceptualize having a connection to my past if I didn't have physical proof it ever existed in the first place. Now, with such a hefty and symbolic move upon me, I feel a more pressing need to truly purge myself of the clutter. And by clutter, I mean anything that doesn't inspire or raise my vibration in a wholly positive way just by looking at it. The rest can go to hell. Or the landfill. Sure I'll hold on to the truly important stuff, but not EVERYTHING. And once I do I'll be ready to start my "forties" box.

So far the "forties" box is empty but for good reason. I've been hard at work manifesting a new, even more evolved chapter - hello New York - and I imagine once I get to my new city my box will runeth over with juicy new events. I'm hoping that when I rifle through it at 50, it will be filled with remnants of kid related tidbits - report cards, class photos, sports tournaments, music recitals and science fairs - honeymoon and a wedding photos (maybe - still pondering that whole notion), industry awards, press clippings of a career at the very top of the Hollywood heap, me in a private box at Wimbeldon and lazy summers in Tuscany, postcards from my parents, happy and healthy as they travel the world for the first time in their lives, and whatever other grand adventures I manage to conjur up with my gorgeous family in tow. Maybe this will be the first box I won't feel inclined to toss. I have a feeling it will. But first, another trip to the recycling bin.

So on that note, packing doesn't feel as arduous as it has in the past and cleaning out my proverbial desk is as enlightening as it is therapeutic. Because the only things I'm taking with me, are the things that continue to inspire me when I look at them. There's no dead weight - emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I'd like to think it's all been tossed in the garbage. Along with my Frankie Goes to Hollywood t-shirt.

Shirely Valentine Revisited

I stumbled across an old favorite film of mine last night - one I haven't seen in many years - called Shirley Valentine. In it, our lead, a put upon, middle-aged, bored Liverpudlian housewife who has no idea where the sassy, outspoken, rebellious girl of her youth went, buried she is under a rubble of motherhood, working class life, and perpetual servitude at the hands of her well meaning but self-absorbed, over-worked and ultimately miserable husband. Things have turned out terribly disappointing, Shirley laments to her kitchen wall, "I realized, I've lead a little life." She wants desperately to create a more meaningful existence and rediscover her former self - but where to turn and what to do?

The answer arrives in the form of a close friend's offer to join her on a 2-week vacation to Greece. Shirley has dreamed of seeing the world but thus far, has never made it beyond the borders of Liverpool, let alone abroad. The thought of going to Greece both elates and terrifies her at the same time. What will her family do without her? After all, who is going to wait on them hand and foot, a point they make more than clear when she announces her intentions? All that aside, Shirley wonders if she really has the balls to venture away from her little life anyway. And will she like what she sees when alone with herself for the first time in over two decades? After enduring further, brutal criticism and judgment about her decision to go, a fed up Shirley sneaks away and heads for the airport, determined not to let her family deny her curiosity about the world any longer.

Predictably, though gorgeously crafted, she reconnects with her old self, stretched and forced out of the comfort zone of her "little life", until she re-emerges a woman finally comfortable in her own shoes, deeply fulfilled at having stepped out into the vast unknown - in this case Greece - and decides to stay. "There's no reason for me to come home. They'll be mad at first but at some point they'll get it." Shortly after, her husband shows up, following a series of failed attempts to get her to return to England. Shirley observes as she sees him walking down the sandy beach path towards her, "He needs a rest too, from his life. He need to relax." He walks right past her, not recognizing his reinvigorated wife at first. As he joins her at a table perched on the edge of the ocean, we fade to black knowing this remote Greek island will restore him too. And ultimately their marriage.

Though I brush this wonderful film with the broadest of strokes, Shirley's quest and introspection hit a nerve. Sure our paths have been very different. I've yet to truly be in my comfort zone, at least not for very long. I attribute much of my success in life to constantly shaking things up. Just as I get to really know an aspect of my life, I switch things up by taking the next logical, but often unnerving step to ensure my evolution and growth is a never-ending process. Shirley doesn't discover this well into her 40's. Despite her latent realization, she has reminded me to ask myself one very important questions; have I done the most with my life so far or have I wished and pissed most of it away?

My 63 year old mother often talks about the recent realization of having 20 or so years left on the planet. When that perspective hits hard, it's natural, and healthy to take stock of how one will use the remaining time to the fullest. While I may have only reached the half way mark at 40 (should all go well), I've felt a similar shake up occur since turning the corner on my fourth decade. It's half over. More or less. I think of the days and weeks I merely tolerated, wishing it were Friday, or Tuesday or some other day I thought would make me far happier than wherever I was at the time. It saddens me to think what I might have accomplished, learned, soaked up and evolved into had I taken more care with my youth and the intervening days between then and middle age? If I had only appreciated the less significant moments of my daily existence, instead of the moments on the highlight reel of my life. For isn't that what our time on earth is primarily composed of? The little things? Sure the big, shiny events are the things we talk about the most, remember fondly when we need a pick-me-up, and brag about to friends and strangers alike. But they are few and far between. It's the spaces in between that count. They are our every day.