Two years. A thank you.

I'm getting out of town not a day too early. Even my weather app has a red banner across the top of it warning of Excessive Heat in Los Angeles.  The ground feels like straw, brown and crunchy. No sign of our skunk today and I'm concerned that the neighbor's overzealous de-nuding of the hillside (a fire precaution in the canyon) may have led to its demise. I hope not. It was a hardy little thing (three dog skunkings in 10 days, after all). The birds are lazy this morning too, tweeting laconically in the close to ninety degree early morning heat. There is nothing interesting about this kind of heat. It causes anxiety of a particular kind, for the possibility of fire, for the wilting plants, for the canyon wildlife, and especially for the homeless. Not that living on the street isn't miserable enough on a relatively clement day.

 The Heat: Laurel Canyon edition

The dogs saunter across the deck and climb up on the table to reach the low-hanging fruit. They fight half-heartedly over the plums, carrying them round in their mouths. Thistle looks like Winston Churchill -- somehow her plum looks like a cigar.

les prunes

I encountered something like bliss yesterday. Always these things sounds odd when shared and described. It sounds smug. But I found myself in the middle of my kundalini yoga class, sitting next to my divine friend R who sings with the most beautiful and sweet tone, and exudes this able calm, and feeling the most immense amount of gratitude for coming through this alive. I wept through the meditation, the kind of weeping where the tears just stream out of the sides of your eyes but no sounds are made and struggling to sing the Wahe Gurus without sobbing and I realized it was relief. Pure, profound, childlike relief. The feeling that everything just got immensely better.  And interestingly, now that I think of it, yesterday was precisely the two year mark - June 29 - when all the horrible stuff started. "Everything takes two years" says my mother. And everything takes exactly two years. There is no rushing it. There are no short cuts. There are no quick ways to make things better.

Advice for those going through the end of a relationship or a death: find yoga, preferably kundalini. It's nothing short of miraculous.

Massive outpouring of love and support this week on the announcement of the new company. Unbelievably wonderful. Enormously grateful. Overwhelmed and surprised by it. To the universe, to the love, to the energy, to God, whatever it is, to the higher spirits, to the goodness, to the magnificent and beautiful physics of wonder: thank you. To the sweetness of people: thank you. To my friends and family: thank you. To my children: you are extraordinary -- I cannot imagine two people I'd rather be related to!

This afternoon we fly to Norway. I will be posting from the island.

Stay cool. Love always.