Red Light, Green Light

Yesterday I had a very frustrating, yet very L.A. experience. On my way to a doctor's appointment I hit every red light in the city. I'd drive thirty seconds and boom - a red light. Another minute and - bam - a red light. Clearly, the timing was just off on my route so I negotiated off that street and headed toward a parallel street, and wouldn't you know it... a red light! This wouldn't have felt so strange if the exact same thing hadn't happened on my way back home. I was driving down Wilshire and hit every single red light. I finally made my way over to Olympic. Same thing. It took me forever to get back home - red light, red light, red light.

I am all too familiar with red lights - and I don't only mean the literal traffic lights. I have hit many in my life - projects that have stalled, relationships that have ended, a house hunt during the rising housing market, flashing red lights greeting me at every outbid offer. But the beauty of the red light is that it's going to turn green, eventually. Lately I've been seeing glimpses of that green - the recent completion of my new novel, a foreign sale of "Swimming Upstream, Slowly," some potential possibilities in the animated television world, and a teaching gig in 2010 at Esalen.

Some days are just like that, red, red, red.

And other days are full of green.