Photo by Mary Lee Crocker

What I have been doing lately is exploring the west side of our country, with trips to Ojai, Las Vegas, and Vancouver, and cultivating a new career (I hope) in television. Both exploration of the world around me and the world within me has been going quite well. Happiness is a regular occurrence, and overwhelming joy is just the icing on top.

One of the things that has recently brought on a bout of bliss, has been my rediscovery of my love for photography: Not only the activity of snapping pictures myself, but of experiencing the story-telling of others through visual, letter-less words. Of course, I love the work of professional photographers, but it’s the semi-anonymous photoblogs that have been the most daydream-inducing.

After a long respite, I’ve started to love Flickr again–not so much for my own posting, but for tip-toeing quietly in the sidelines of someone else’s world. I won’t gain any friends with this confession, but I actually love anonymously trolling other people’s photo streams. It’s wonderful when I do know them but, when I don’t, the photos morph from a visual catch-up on the lives of others, to an unfolding fairy tale (urban, suburban, whatever…).

Today, I wonder what “Shades of Mediocrity” is thinking when she shoots her romantically diffused photos. I look forward to visiting again and again so she can tell me more.

Grammie, as a babe

St. Joseph is the patron saint of Sicily, so his influence over the Sicilian-American household is held in higher esteem than that of other saints. Growing up, my cousins and I would be picked up at school and brought to my grandmother’s house every March 19, where we’d all congregate like little ants to a picnic table, angling for Grammie’s fresh baked bread with anchovies and olive oil, various salads, and for a traditional pasta made with white beans and fennel that I only know as St. Joe’s Bista (Bista means pasta in Americanized Sicilian. Don’t ask; I don’t know the answer.), but probably has some other name that Mario Batali would slap my wrists for not knowing. There would always be such a whirlwind of activity: hellos, hugs, kisses, catch-ups, laughter, yelling (not out of anger, but out of heritage), praying, singing, eating; you were always left a little shocked when it all subsided in a blissful food coma that left my enormous family quietly waddling to the living room to recover.

My brother's St. Joseph rolls

These days my Uncle John and Aunt Sandi have taken over the annual St. Joseph’s Day celebration. Typically, they have a large group of us over the night before to make the pasta by hand. This year I didn’t get to go back home for St. Josephs’ Day, but ate a bowl of pasta in reverence and thought about my family, my Grammie in particular, all weekend.

Family was Grammie’s greatest love, but it was closely followed by food and music. As a young girl she enjoyed small-scale fame with her sisters, where they would yodel (yes, yodel) and sing country songs at community events.

As semi-musical progeny, she took interest in my passion for music and during the last years of her life, our musical tastes unexpectedly began to meld. She was an enormous fan of Emmylou Harris and I introduced her to some of my favorites: Gram Parsons, Lucinda Williams, and Gillian Welch, making my 80-year-old grandmother mix tapes during the last year of her life. Gillian Welch was her favorite. Words can’t express the beauty of—after decades of musical divergence—sitting on the side of your grandmother’s bed, holding her hand as you both listen raptly to a favorite musical artist you both adore equally.

Shortly after she died, I was introduced to one of Gillian Welch’s favorite musicians, and one Grammie would have loved. This is a song that reminds me of my grandmother and one that I would have loved to have played for her, written by Greg Brown about his grandmother and sung by his three daughters.

I can almost hear her humming along in heaven as she’s baking bread for all the saints up there. I hope St. Joe saves a roll or two for me.

My new favorite personality test asks four simple questions to find out your perfect typeface and what it reveals about you.

I am categorized as the furiously fair and somewhat utilitarian Van Doesburg, thereby revealing my remorseless inner simplicity, hidden deep beneath all that Sicilian flash. Or whatever: at the very least it’s a fun way to spend a Tuesday morning.

If you end up taking this, let me know which typeface you are by commenting here. xo

Who knew Fonzie and Shirley would end up together?

Right now I’m thinking about the incredible love my parents have for each other, even after 40 years of marriage.

When my dad was courting my mother, her parents wouldn’t grant him their blessing until he paid off all of his debt. I don’t remember all of the details as well as I’d like to but, as I recall, Dad sold his vintage Corvette to pay off his bills, and to buy Mom an engagement ring. Soon after they were hitched they started a life–complete with a mortgage and a baby boy–that couldn’t afford them the luxury of a car any more pimpin’ than a seventh generation Thuderbird (sounds cool, but it was pretty much a sedan).

Fast forward 15 years, my mom picked up some extra work and saved every penny for nearly two years to buy my father a brand new Corvette convertible for their anniversary, to replace the one he gave up to have her almost two decades before.

Honestly, that car had never been anything but trouble, but my father babies it as though it were one of his children. I don’t think he’ll ever sell it, and to be honest, I love seeing it around when I visit. It’s a reminder that my dad was willing to sacrifice everything sacred to the 23 year old car mechanic he was, and that my mother knew what he gave up and never forgot it.

So today, I toast my folks: A couple of crazy in love kids who still completely mortify my brother and me with their affection for each other. I hope I’ve inherited an ounce of the open-hearted giving nature of my dad and the shy, soulful understanding of my mom. Happy V-day. Love you both. See you soon. Here’s a song for you. xo

Strange enough, I’ve actually loved the weather we’ve been having. Not only have I gotten to fall asleep to rain battering against window panes, I’ve gotten to hunker down with hot tea as I’ve watch lightening storms from my couch, legs wrapped in the afghan my Nana knit me. It’s a little bit of New England seasonality, without having to wake up at the crack of dawn to shovel out your car. It’s given me the change I’m accustomed to, the sharply cold nights my body occasionally craves, and it has left the city glimmering in freshly-washed renewal.

Truly, winter in LA is the city’s best-kept secret. The city loses its overcoat of smog and with the crisp air comes breathtaking views of snow-capped mountains above all of the lushness 15 inches of rain in three months inspires in the city below.

Earlier this week, we had a thunder storm that dumped half an inch of rain on Echo Park, and over three inches elsewhere in the city. I made pasta and hunkered down to work in my kitchen, enjoying the storm for its percussive qualities, but not daring to venture outside until my housemate asked me to check on a tent she had forgotten to take down. A dutiful friend and housemate, I donned my Wellies and my raincoat and made the venture outside, just as the sun began to break through the clouds. What I noticed first was the dazzlingly luminous, Maxfield Parrish-golden light, streaming out of pocket-sized breaks in the clouds. I ran in to grab my camera and what I saw was this:

A double rainbow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. Unfortunately, I forgot to make a wish. If I had remembered, I would have wished for the safety of the people and homes in foothill communities of La Crescenta and La Cañada Flintridge. While I do romanticize the torrents of rain against my window, they mean something very different to those in the foothill communities.

Silence, remembrance, and thanks to J.D. Salinger. You were one of the best, you wonderful reclusive genius, and I–among many, many others–are forever in your debt. In a statement from his family: “Salinger had remarked that he was in this world but not of it. His body is gone but the family hopes that he is still with those he loves, whether they are religious or historical figures, personal friends or fictional characters.”

May you find the peace you were looking for on the other side. And may you know the peace you brought to others by giving such truth to a character that, for a moment (or roughly 200 pages), we felt a little less alone. Thank you, Salinger. Thanks.

And some of my favorite quotes, by the master.

“The worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.” ~De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period

“It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.” ~The Catcher in the Rye*

“I’m tired of people who don’t have the courage to be an absolute nobody.” ~Franny and Zooey

And my absolute favorite, which I found on Beliefnet, of all places: “The most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.” ~J.D. Salinger.

*Disclaimer. To anyone who has the urge to comment: yes, I am aware that Holden Caufield was a pretty pathetic character. At the time I read Catcher in the Rye, I was a pretty pathetic character myself. Still am, on occasion.

The fall is particularly difficult. Autumn in New England is more than just leaves igniting into an inferno of red and gold hues. It’s the weight of the air; the length and tone of light on rolling, amber-colored fields; the smell of the earth shifting into its evening slumber.

The longing I’ve felt for home has been more than a need to stomp my boots into crunching piles of leaves: it’s been a true, physical need to feel the cold air on my face and see tendrils of breath coming from the nose and mouth.

Other New England transplants say the feeling will pass, but it will take years to let go of. It’s like letting go of a loved one; forcing the love you feel for them to slip out from between your finger tips.

1. Tony Hale of Arrested Development fame, but that doesn’t count because he’s good friends with my friend Bob, so I forgot he was a celebrity. He was very cool though, and even went so far as to poke a little fun at my effervescence.
2. The douche bag from Maroon 5. Again, doesn’t count, because he sucks.
3. Rhea Perlman: Totally counts, because Carla ruled on Cheers and her children were adorable and well-behaved.

I’ve been told that, living in Echo Park, I’d have a few frequent freebies to notch it up with Chloe Sevigny and Vincent Gallo (what they lack in iconic star power they more than make up for in poor hygiene), but even they seem to elude me.

Some folks have said that if I go to porn shops I’ll run into Carrot Top. I don’t even know what to do with that information.

No other Catholic seems to have had the same All Souls’ Day experience as my brother and I did as kids. I can only assume my mother made up the tradition of leaving our shoes behind our bedroom doors the night of November 1, to wake with them filled with gifts from our ancestors who returned to earth the previous night to check in and protect us.

As I’ve read more about the history and traditions of All Souls’ Day, I’ve come to wonder if my mother changed the real meaning of the holiday around to be more comforting to my brother and me, and to be a way to teach us about our ancestors and deceased family members in a nurturing way. If not, that’s cool, Mom; if so, even cooler. Our celebration of All Souls’ Day inspired in me a deep curiosity and sincere connectivity to my great-grandparents and fostered a life-long interest in my cultural heritage and family history.

Anyway, because All Souls’ Day was regularly honored in my home, I’ve always been interested in Dia de los Muertos. For my first Day of the Dead in Los Angeles, I joined Ryan and some of his friends on a visit to Olvera Street, the oldest street in Los Angeles, and the epicenter of Latin American culture in Los Angeles.

Olvera Street, and Los Angeles, celebrate Dia de los Muertos for a full week, and on the night we went there were stunning family shrines, a religious procession of locals in full Day of the Dead regalia, and traditional Aztec dancing.

It was an incredible party and spectacle, but for me the most memorable part of it was the most modest of shrines. There were family shrines that were 10 feet tall, covered in marigolds, jewel encrusted skulls, religious icons, fruits, and flags. But the unassuming beauty of the shrine to Rodolfo Ernesto Gonzalez has haunted me for days.

Gone from his shrine was the pomp and pageantry of the other memorials. His was one that welcomed you into the life of a man that was so clearly simple in his love for his family and the love they gave back to him. R and I spent a good 10 minutes looking at his shrine, and fully feeling the meaning of the day and what it meant to the Gonzalez family.

Sappy, I know, but it’s the best kind of sappy possible. I promise you that. Oh, stop looking at me that way. I promise my next post will be edgier.