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Dear friends & fellow travelers:

My heart is heavy, and it’s time to share why. I have stories to tell you about wisdom teeth woes and adventures in Mexico. And eventually I will tell those. For now, though, I need to explain why I’ve fallen silent, why I couldn’t find the words, why I’m taking a moment.

For all these years, I’ve shared my life and my dreams with you, but very few of you know that I’ve done so with 2 pets by my side. I used to think that to admit to having and caring about cats made me seem weak, sentimental, and, because of cat lady stereotypes, crazy. So, they were my little secret support system. If you knew that I had 2 cats, you were very much in my intimate inner circle. And if you made it into that circle, you know how dear and important they were to me. You know that I tried to downplay their significance by telling stories about how I only rescued them to ward off the mice in my terrible Hell’s Kitchen apartment 10 years ago. But you could see through that. You could see that the 10-year journey had been rocky and that my Miu Miu and Grace had been there through each character twist and path turn. And you could see that my Nashville life was dedicated to 2L bunnies and to 2 cats, tucked neatly into an Icon oasis of lavender Mitchell Gold sofas and turquoise walls. On January 13, I turned in my keys to the 2L wonderland. On May 12, I said goodbye to my Miu Miu, my silent partner, my comfort through the storm, my heart.

As many of you know, we chose Phoenix for health and family. My lil Becca flew home with me to move the cats in with my brother Mikey while I plotted my next move. Mikey gave them a better home and more tender care than I ever could have hoped for, so I figured I had some time to explore. I then became consumed with wisdom teeth recovery, and Miu Miu, we now know, became consumed with cancer. The vet gave us antibiotics for a bladder infection, and, assuming we were both experiencing separation anxiety, I made it my mission to find us an apartment and bring our family back together. And I did. A week ago right now, Miu Miu, Grace, and I shared one perfect night together in our new apartment, one night that made me believe that we had found our way back to stable, that life would be ok again, that all would be mended, and that health and happiness were on the horizon. I saw what I wanted to see. I saw that Grace was playing while I made dinner to the sound of  Chelsea Lately in the background. I saw that Miu Miu was with us. I didn’t see that she was sprawled out on the white shag rug in pain. By Saturday morning, she couldn’t walk, and her organs were shutting down. My mom, Mikey, and I rushed her to the emergency hospital. We gathered around and said our goodbyes. We petted her. She purred. I whispered in her fallen ears that she could go, that I would be ok. And, as I did every night, I assured her that she had my heart.

So, dear friends, it seems that the proverbial cat is out of the bag. You now know my secret: I care. I loved, and I lost. And now I’m sad. But fear not; I am not too sad to see the subtext. As her final guiding act, she made me write again. She gave me a story that was too important to go untold. She gave me 10 years of support, and now she’s made me talk about it. She is my Cheshire Cat.

Dear friends:

Two weeks ago, I had my wisdom teeth removed, and I’ve been in recovery ever since. Witty plays on the notion of wisdom will most likely ensue, but for now, I’ll just leave you with this little bit that happened while I was out. My ever-talented brother caught some national attention when Apartment Therapy featured his LA loft. We love the space, love the site, and love the positive feedback. Plus, we all got more than a little misty-eyed checking out the vintage Two Elle featured on his own site, www.daniellowe.com.

After a week in LA and a week of Adam’s Spring Break, this week Tweed Bunny and I started to unpack. Our belongings were all neatly housed in cardboard and spread throughout the abandoned home bedrooms of Danny and Mikey, but slowly they must find a way out of the box and into a different organizational structure. Our first order of business was to build an office in Mikey’s room.

Unlike packing, the unpacking process has very few surprises. While packing, for instance, I discovered that I own enough pens (and markers/crayons?) to last me a lifetime. If you ever spot me purchasing a pen or highlighter or file folder, please intervene. I also found forgotten treasures that I chose NOT to discard in the packing process. There was a first generation “small” pink ipod and both a DVD and VHS copy of The Last Unicorn. Those made it into the cardboard.

With these finds unearthed, I figured the unpacking process would be boring. I put the books from the “more likely to read” box on the shelf, I set up all the Missoni/Liberty for Target file boxes, and I placed the printer/copier on a pile of boxes deemed less important (#makeshift #notglam). And because life seems to go on even after you leave Wonderland, I got to work……until I had to make a photocopy.

There it was: the surprise, the reminder that as hard as you try to pack life away in a box, it’ll still sneak back in.

Nearly a year ago, as I was preparing for the wedding of my little Amanda (known as Mandi Roo in most parts of this website), I designed shirts (and an entire lingerie line) for her, Ryan, and all the bridesmaids featuring this drawing from one of their engagement photos. Apparently, the sketch remained in the copier. Its image had traveled to Chattanooga for the wedding, to Chicago with Amanda & Ryan, and now home with me to Arizona. It wasn’t in its place, tucked into a box of memories; it was right there, staring at me while I tried to cancel our store ASCAP account.

I had thought that starting a new life would involve a lot of bells and whistles. There would be giant going away parties and tearful goodbyes. There would be parades in my honor and video montages capturing the moments meant to cherish. But there weren’t. It happened quietly and quickly. There were a couple text messages and more than a few “where are you?” Facebook wall posts. My Nashville life and all that came with it took nearly 7 years to build, and then within a week the condo was sold, the movers had come, and Tweed Bunny was procured as the in-flight companion. It was over.

Over……but I never said goodbye. I left it all open and unanswered. I didn’t know where I was going, so I didn’t know how to say that I was going at all. With the exception of the necessary business or financial matters, everything was left as  a loose end. Only little Becca got an actual goodbye hug, but if it’s all the same, I’d like to consider that more loose than final. So, maybe, just maybe, that’s why I didn’t tie up the loose ends. I wanted to keep them free and untied. I wanted the questions to remain unanswered and alive. I knew that time and distance mean very little today; Roo & Ryan with their balloons are just as present today as they were a year ago, literally. Most things, for me, are too important to pack away in cardboard. I like to hold on tight.

And speaking of the family that I wouldn’t say goodbye to, it’s Passover, which makes me miss Jenny, David, Sydney, and Zoe (It’s family order, Zoe; I know you want to be first!). They’ve been my Passover buddies for years, and I know that if this were a year ago, they’d be popping in on their way to Whole Foods today. I’m sorry I never got to sit at your seder table. Can I come to the bat-mitzvah instead?

My love affair with Frothy Monkey is well-documented. Together we made a home on 12South, and its cozy walls housed nearly every would-be-employee interview (and a couple would-be-employees themselves). Frothy staff watched me open my store, move my store, and close my store. And it wasn’t just their latte art that made all of those things possible. But here is the truth that I now must reveal: Frothy, you were not my first.

Yes, it’s true that while you’ll forever hold a rather significant piece of my heart, others came before you. I wrote a good chunk of the first version of my novel at the Starbucks at 47th & 9th in Manhattan. And I experienced the collegiate drama that fueled that first version at Willoughby’s in New Haven. But Hava Java in Phoenix is truly where the story began.

I first learned of Hava Java at the beginning of junior year in high school. I hadn’t started a major paper due the next day (a familiar scenario, so I cannot explain the panic). My friend Julie told me of this place at 32nd & Camelback where you could get something that would keep you awake all night. In the middle of Latin class, she passed me a scrap of paper with 3 words that would change my life: iced raspberry mocha.

Hava Java was perhaps my first wonderland. It was my escape, it was my reinvented reality, and it was my reunion spot. It was where I spent as many free moments as I could in high school. It was where I would take an elementary version of Adam for chess lessons. It was where I set up a tutoring business during my many leaves of absence from college. It was always the first stop post-airport. And now it seems the prodigal daughter has returned. I’ve traded in my Monkey for the point of origin. The trade, however, is bittersweet.

The coffeeshop, I’m coming to observe, is something of a neo-rehab. It’s a place where people of all age groups, backgrounds, status, and occupation can come together (and let’s not ignore the fact that they’re brought together by addiction). Relationships form in unlikely places, and secrets surface with greater agility. Some stay in this neo-rehab for longer than others, and some find a need to return after being away. For the sake of the metaphor, we’ll protect anonymity, but suffice it to say that my return has me rethinking the book I’m writing and itching to write about the “patients” I’ve found back in “rehab.”

One thing, however, remains true: there’s no rehabilitation like a little Monkey love. Sometimes settling into your new home makes you remember your old one even more fondly. It breaks my heart to look over at the espresso machine and not see Dylan, and Drew has been present for every quasi-date I’ve experienced in the past 2 years (not that there were many, but still). I even downloaded the Black Keys, because that’s what Frothy tweeted that they were listening to right now.

So, yes, I am newly rehabilitated, but here’s the lingering message to my dearest Monkey: I never said goodbye to you. That was intentional. Some goodbyes are too hard to say. I’ll just look forward to the next time we say hello.

Tweed Bunny and I are embracing the quotidian. We are the neo-Housewives of Scottsdale, Arizona. OK, truth: we’re not that glamorous. We are 2 fragile little souls who ventured north for the weekend to Prescott, Arizona for some R & R with my father. Saturday night dinner plans immediately gave way to more rest than reverie, however, when our tire fell flat. AAA to the rescue in the morning, and we were back on the road to Phoenix on Sunday so that we’d be local to face the trials of a Monday.

With both my mother and father on separate trips out of town, Tweed Bunny and neo-Dorothy were left to their own devices to figure out a way back onto that Yellow Brick Road. iPhone found me a Discount Tire with a Starbucks across the street. I packed my bags and began the journey. And here I sit. Green straw, green pen, yellow bricks awaiting.

These may seem like simple challenges, but to a toy bunny and a recovering superhero/shopgirl, they are uncharted. I hit the little button so that I could cross the street, I found an outdoor table in the perfect 72 degree weather, I ordered my green-strawed, suburban iced americano, and I said, “This is life now. This is the new wonderland. This is how the next adventure starts….with a flat tire.”