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Hometown

City of Orange, CA

Joie de VIVre

Horses, especially when used in Taking the Reins, a Los Angeles-based riding and arts program that helps Latina girls from underprivileged neighborhoods get a leg up; dogs —the bigger and fluffier, the better; and Latin music with a clave beat...all the better to dance to!

VIV Moment

We don’t reach the age of 40 without accumulating our share of broken hearts and disappointments. Or at least that’s my experience. Since my first date at age 14, I’ve delivered my share of heartbreak to the male species, and then taken plenty of doses in return. When I stepped — or ran, or crawled — away from each of my romantic entanglements, I swore never to do THAT again.

We speak of people having “baggage”…after two and a half decades of divorce, dating and sex, I had the complete Samsonite collection in coordinating colors. I think that turn of phrase has become so popular because the fears, the judgments and the preconceptions we hold onto really do become a kind of psychic weight that slows our reactions and pads us against the sensations, good and bad, of new experience.

All of this became clear to me in a series of moments when I was first dating my now-husband. We had that kind of instant, falling-in-love experience, what the French call a coup de foudre. I was too cynical to really believe what I was feeling — wasn’t I, after everything, too mature for this, wasn’t I too smart?

On our third date he presented me with a black-and white card, an old-time picture of two swimmers leaping gleefully from a high board. What they’re jumping into is anybody’s guess, because the picture is cropped at the bottom. Inside, he put only his initial, “J,” as if to say no elaboration was necessary. That simple card brought me to tears as I considered it. What if I made a decision to just cast off all that I was holding onto and not just fall, but leap with abandon? He wasn’t guaranteeing we wouldn’t hit our heads on the concrete of reality, or that sometimes the waters wouldn’t be rough, or make for tough going. He was just saying to trust that there will be something there to buoy us.

So I did. Two quotes came to my mind: The words of Anais Nin, “Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage,” and those of her compadre Henry Miller, “Love is life lived to its fullest.” I took a deep breath and a long exhale, and then let go.

Six months later, we were married under mighty redwoods at — fittingly enough—the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, CA. The morning of our elopement, I recall that I felt no tug of fear or doubt. In the past I saw no failures, only a rich education, one that has turned me, I hope, into the kind of woman who has seen a lot and can handle whatever may come, one who can say “yes” to life, and to love, and to all that it brings.

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