four years

Four years ago today was my first date with Raven. We count it as our anniversary because from that day on, we didn't spend many apart. We had an insta-romance. Still do.

Raven massages my feet even when he's tired, even though he hates it. Raven makes the best breakfast in the universe. Raven walks me to the bathroom of our 750 sq ft apartment in the middle of the night when I'm too scared to go alone. Raven has the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. Raven calls me sweetie, not babe, because he's a renegade like that. Raven comforted me for 2 years while I worked at a job I hated. He gave me rock solid support. Raven is actually the kindest soul in the world.

I don't know what I would do without him; luckily, I don't have to wonder. Love you, Raven!

top image by Kennedy Kanagawa, bottom image by Ashley Caroline photography.

why new york city is the best city, even at its worst

Everyone calls it “The City That Never Sleeps” and it’s true. New York City has its eyes on you every second you're here. You cannot take a breath without feeling the reverb somewhere else in your day, which means that what you exhale comes back to you in full force.  

One of the many reasons I love this city is that you cannot escape here. So many days we just want to get out of its borders and rough edges, flee to the hills or dream about buying a 3-bedroom house in the suburbs. Some days, having a driveway and paying car insurance seems like the prize at the end of a dark, smelly subway tunnel. But recently, this inescapable city has me all kinds of lit up. The painfulness that we sometimes feel from being here has got me feeling all kinds of healed. And its darkness has brought on the proverbial light.

Here’s why I love it:

You overhear the exact right things in the exact right moments. As I was heading to work the other day, I decided to change up my usual old commute and walk down a different street. I passed two men talking - both in some sort of service industry. One said to the other, “It’s all about happiness man, you gotta find a job you love.” Okay, not overly profound in and of itself, but in the context of my day, it was a bold reminder.

As I approach a new decade, I am taking stock of my emotional and aspirational inventory and that includes making sure I am filling my days with things I love. This particular day, I said no and let some people down in order to do what I needed to do to feel happy. Not a comfortable thing for a people-pleasing, needy, affirmation-junkie like myself. But because I left my earbuds out at that moment, I allowed some New York in and was reminded by this stranger that you have to do what you love. You have to create happiness. If something isn’t working in your life, then change it.  Being uncomfortable is only temporary because the happiness you create is connected to your truth. The city gave me a dose of affirmation when I needed it the most.

When you unexpectedly run into people you know in a city of 8 million people, a signal is being sent. For some reason in the past couple of weeks, every time I take a detour on my way home, I run into someone else I know. Each of these times, this happenstance meeting, this serendipitous pow-wow rubs off on the next few days. We connect again, plan something magical and get our ducks in a row to create something new. There is a spark that gets lit by the chance of meeting in New York City and that spark burns bright into furious creation. It also signifies something. It feels like there is a giant cartoon arrow pointing at the moment, saying, “Look over here! This is where you should be paying attention! Got energy? Put here!” The fact that I’m not supposed to be there at that place and time, that it was a last minute decision based on train schedules and phone calls and grumbling tummies makes it all the more surprising to run into those friends-turned-collaborators. It’s poetic, really: Change up route. Get new direction.

You find your tribe. There are all kinds of tribes out there and I have been part of many. The audition tribe, those fellow actors waking at dawn to stand in line and wonder if we’ll be wearing heels or flats that day. The day job tribe, those fellow artists who are just trying to make rent and hold onto their creative mojo while we’re all still young. The down and out tribe, those late 20-somethings with too much heaviness and not enough experience, trying to calculate just how long they can run on the fumes of their formerly ambitious 22-year old identity. But the best thing about this city (and growing up in it) is when you seek your tribe, because in this city, when you seek, you find. It’s taken me years to figure out that the people in my life are choices I am making and not just inevitable circumstances of fate. When I decided I wanted to cut the fat from my mental chatter and recycle all of those used up negative stories into fuel for creating a passionate, happy life, I found my people. This city has a lot of gems. And when you decide what and who you want to surround yourself with, you’ll never be alone.

Facing your demons becomes a daily practice. The moment you walk out of your apartment, everything you see is a reflection of you. If you leave the apartment with a dull sense of dread, chances are there will be no subway seats, someone will knock into you on the street, you’ll spill the coffee you got from a barista with a major attitude, and you’ll find a dead cockroach in your hallway when you come home. (I mean, at least that’s what I have heard…) But, if on the other hand, you leave your apartment with a sense of ease, chances are you’ll make all of your subway transfers easily and efficiently, you’ll meet a laughing baby on the subway who will make you giggle with delight, you’ll find a new coffee shop with a darling barista and a delicious cold brew and the barista will over-punch your rewards card so you’re closer to your next free caffeine fix, and somehow, miraculously, when you get home the dishes will be done.

It’s all perspective and we know this, but the magic of New York is that you have to face your perspective. This city is either the best thing or the worst thing and it is barely, if ever, just mediocre. Which means there is no denial here. There is no wash of “okay.” I have been the despondent, coffee-drenched, cockroach-finding Debbie Downer and looking back on those times, I’m glad that I felt like I could crumble. I would rather have that shiny New York City mirror in my face so I can deal with it and pull myself out of it than stay stagnant in a gray wash of average. New York is not always comforting, but my Lord when it comes to reflecting you, it sure is accurate.

You cannot take for granted one moment of being here. In this city, people are getting out of town all the time. I don’t mean vacationing in the Hamptons, I mean fleeing to other parts of the country. I have lived here for seven years and the first time my friends started leaving felt like a punch in a gut. I thought we were going to conquer the beast together. Selfishly, I felt a little bit abandoned.

But as the years have gone on and more and more of your friends leave, you realize that every day you stay you are making a choice. Every time someone else packs up and ships out, a little part of you asks, is it my turn? Should I go? What is keeping me here? Sometimes the answers come and sometimes they don’t, but at least it forces you to ask the question. Knowing why we stay in this city that hustles us, and rejects us, and loves us, and dumps us, and forces us to check ourselves is the motor that keeps the city running. It’s the fuel in the early mornings and the late nights and the scraping together of rent for just another month. Being forced to acknowledge why we stay is maybe the most endearing part of this aggravating town. It will hurl you full force to wherever you choose to go and then say, Wanna stay? And when the answer is yes, it takes you full steam ahead.

What do you love about New York City?

All photos by Craig Hanson Photography.

why being wrong is good

Admitting when you're wrong sucks. I hate it. Generally, when I'm not right about something I get this itchy, twitchy, fidgety feeling that makes me either want to run away, deny the crap out of the situation, or aggressively defend myself until I'm blue in the face. In other words, I don't like sitting in it. I feel this sense of panic come over me because I have this equation in my head that says if I'm wrong then I'm un-lovable. And yet, if a friend came to me and said, "Hey Court, turns out I'm super wrong about something and I feel like an incapable mess," I'd say to them, "Sounds like you're human. Where should we go for lunch?"

What is this attack mechanism we have with ourselves? Why does being right or wrong "count" so much to us? Why do we expect to travel through life making all the right moves at all the right times? That is ridiculous. And yet, in this moment, I'm sitting in a big, heaping stew of wrongness and I feel like a mess.

However, I'm also sitting in a big, life-definining moment of introspection. A long and arduous year of introspection to be exact, and so I can see a little bit more clearly where the edges of my right/wrong fallacy don't quite add up. I can see how being wrong, albeit painful, is a sort of... gift.

When you're wrong, you have just found out what's right. Or what's closer to right. You've gotten information, facts, a bigger sense of the picture, a foundation to springboard from, in a word: clarity. You can sweep what didn't work out the door and start working with the pieces that do work. Progress.

When you're wrong, you have just found out more about your desires. If you take a minute and think about why you so heftily defended your wrongness, or what made you think that way in the first place, or what you were craving by trying to convince yourself you were right, you can get to the bottom of some hidden gems. You get to know your feelings. And when you get to know how you want to feel, well hot damn, you can start making the moves that actually line up with your true nature.

When you're wrong, you have the opportunity to connect with love. It's tres easy to say, I told you so. It's also very easy to defend yourself at all costs. But when you're wrong and you can sit with that for awhile, you practice self-love. When you are generous with forgiving yourself, there is a well of energy that will emerge and connect you to those around you; you'll fill them with love, you'll feel a lot of tenderness. When being wrong means the opportunity to dig into your isolation and connect with the rest of the world, it's just not that bad.

So let's go get lunch.

How do you feel when you know you're wrong?

all images via Pinterest

what perfectionism can do for you

There is this epidemic going around called Perfectionism. It's a slimy little sucker, crawling in the cracks of your confidence, worming it's way into your self-worth, teaching you how to make yourself so small that you disappear or build yourself so big that you topple. "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor," said Anne Lamott. Ain't it the truth? It oppresses so many things: good ideas, second chances, forgiveness, works of art, happiness, love.

I used to wear my perfectionism as a badge of honor. If I am everything to everybody, then they will all like me. I said to Craig last week, "I can get anyone to like me." Ew. That's a terrible statement. Conceited, assumptive, unnecessary, and clearly over-compensating for a deep sense of lack. Not only is that absurdly untrue (I know plenty of people who don't like me), having a skill like that is ridiculously counter-intuitive to living an amazing life. For my money, an amazing life is daring, magical, risky, loving, and open. And those qualities will generate different reactions, maybe even divisively, because they are bold.

This need to be perfect comes from some serious lack of trust. If I let my truthful, flawed, imperfect, sometimes conceited, sometimes horribly apologetic, usually over-compensating, desperate-to-be-liked self out there, I usually don't trust the world will pick me up and love me anyway. And why would I feel that way?

I got this disease called Perfectionism that I've been running around with for years. This is what Perfectionism has done for me and can do for you, too, if you let it:

It can alienate the people who love you the most. If we decide that everything we do has to be perfect, the people around us are going to feel suffocated. Trapped. Buried beneath our heaviness. Maybe they aren't perfectionists, but they are constantly needing to measure up to our own standards. Woof. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

If we could accept that life is sloppy, that plans gets muddled up, that yes clothes need to get washed every week, then this voice that we have in the back of our heads that screams: You're not finished yet! You didn't do everything! You'll never catch up! Everyone else can do this so much better than you! can just shut up for once. How much space, and life, and energy would that send into your day? There's only one way to find out, and that's to kick perfectionism out on its butt.

It can create super-ultra-no-holding-back Defensiveness with a capital D. You want to get stuck in your tracks? You want to never grow in your craft? You want to resist changing bad habits that only hurt you? Then you better get defensive. The perfectionist can't stand being told they did something wrong. It's always - I know, but here's why...

New rule that I'm implementing when I receive feedback: just receive. Slow down, listen, wait until I'm sure I've heard what the other person is saying. If I still want to be defensive after I've done this, I need to go back and try again. Because the rule goes like this: if you're wrong, don't be defensive. If you're right, there's no need to be defensive. If you're not sure, defensiveness ain't gonna clear it up.

It can cause you to lie to everyone, including yourself. I'm not saying I've ever lied super-duper dramatically, but I have hidden tons of small truths. You know when someone really hurts your feelings, and you stuff all of that sadness and hurt down down down down, and maybe a little truth seeps out but it's only passive-aggressive truth so you can cover your tracks later if they call you out? Yeah me neither, I've never done that...

Well, all of those little lies build up over time. None of them help you. You just end up not knowing who you are. Let me say for the record, that being apologetic, foolishly amenable, and unaffected to the point of not knowing who you are at the end of your 20s is not an attractive place to be.

It can run you right into the ground. Oh yes. This one I know well. Do more, be more, say more, work more. In my life, the battle is waged anew each day: try not to overwork today. Yes, we perfectionists will clock in early and stay late. We will go above and beyond the call of duty even when no one wants that from us. We will respond ASAP so you know how responsible, how on top of it, how good we are.

Listen, I'm all for getting deep into your passion and filling your days with thrilling work that fuels your fire, but there are limits and boundaries. If you're going to get that fire fueled, there are some days when the email needs to get shut down, the yesses need to be edited, and the overflow of expectations needs to be economized. Like I said earlier, being everything to everybody is not the way to live an amazing life.

The Perfectionism Hit List goes on, but you get the idea. It's not the best tool in your life kit. If I take all of the above points and define their opposite, this is what I see waiting on the other side: Love, Acceptance, Trust, Worthiness. And for the Perfectionist, what exactly are we seeking by checking off each to-do ASAP, getting every surly person to like us, working extra hours just to prove we care? Love, Acceptance, Trust, Worthiness.

So it all comes down to letting it go. Spinning wildly out of control and stumbling into balance. Tripping up and falling into the world's embrace. Setting down the work and breathing in the surrender. Learning to love our imperfect little selves as perfectly as we can.

Where does Perfectionism trip you up?

21 ways we're finding peace this season

The holidays are spectacular and stressful. This is the time of the year when everything heightens just a little bit, both good and bad. When the more uncomfortable parts of the season start to bubble up, old fights reemerging with family, feeling scheduled to the point of frenzy, being financially stretched to the limit, it’s easy to forget what else is bubbling up, too. Moments of peace, serenity, gratitude, warmth. Here’s what Allie and Court are putting their attention on and intention towards this season:

Early morning snowfall.

Discovering David’s Tea - especially the Choconut. Drinking this makes skipping dessert a no brainer.

Full and epic days of doing all the things you love.

Having such amazing friends that you all massively re-arrange your schedules to accommodate a long overdue dinner party.

When snowboots actually pull your whole outfit together.

Standing in your work without apology.

Noticing that moment things start to get better.

Creating new habits and seeing the payoff.

The smile and laugh of the person you love most in the world.

Tenderness from strangers.

Creating new traditions.

Plugging in your Christmas tree in a nearly dark apartment every morning.

Trying meditation for the first time, and loving it.

A new shade of red lipstick.

Heading to a girlfriend’s apartment for an evening of holiday movies, wine and oreo truffle-making.

An actual laugh out loud text with your good friend whom you adore.

A night at home to watch TV with your boyfriend and your dog.

Making eye contact with and smiling at every person you encounter (cashier at the supermarket, cab driver, mail person, barista).

Buying yourself a Christmas present, too.

Homemade soup.

Accepting a compliment (and believing it’s true).

What are some things that bring you peace and joy during this crazy time of year?

(And a very special Happy Birthday wish to Allie's brother, Brendan.  Love you, Bren!)