Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This is a four-leaf clover found in a forest of redwoods near Mendocino, CA in June 2004.

Today I spent quite some time in my car, which is not at all unusual for someone who lives in LA, but I try to avoid driving around this city as much as possible. It is a bit of a hair-raising experience. I’ve grown so accustomed to life in Santa Ynez – where everything is no more than ten minutes away on a beautiful road with little or no other cars – that I feel like a fish out of water driving around here. Still, I am so addicted to the honey-vanilla lattes at Urth Caffe in Santa Monica I actually added to my car time today by heading over to Main Street to get my fix. As I was entering the downtown area there was a decent amount of traffic, and a lot of people. As I passed the pubs and bars – crowded with revelers in green – I had my "Aha" moment. Actually it was more of a "Duh" moment – realizing the crowds were out in full force to party it up on St. Patrick’s Day.

I had to smile driving past the party-goers, thinking of how, not so long ago, I used to take full advantage of such a fun excuse to get crazy and party like a rock star. One year I spent St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah, GA with three other college girlfriends during our college spring break, and we drank pretty much all day and all night. I shake my head in bewilderment when I think of this now – how on earth did I survive such days and nights of debauchery?

I have had a ton of fun throughout my life, and find it interesting to look back at what I see are different selves in different periods of my life. I had a dream a few years ago where I was looking down into a coffin and crying. The person inside the coffin was me, and I kept reaching into the coffin to take small things – a ring, a charm, a picture – things I wanted to keep out of nostalgia or as a way to hold onto something I was losing. This dream was not about my real death; it was about my saying good-bye to an old self. I was going through a huge transformation in my life when I had this dream, and I found it sad but also freeing. I was sad to let go of this old self, but I knew I had to do it, and I knew that by releasing this former self I would make room for new experiences and a new way of looking at the world. Every so often it is necessary to shed our old skin and see what lies beneath.

Driving past the pubs in Venice today I knew I had no desire to relive those days of wild nights drinking green beer, but I’m glad I had them. During that period in my life, it was time to act wild, reckless and a little bit irresponsible. Today I am still a little bit wild, but not nearly as reckless and I have quite a lot of grown-up responsibilities. But I also have a lot of freedoms I did not have before and I have fun in a lot of remarkable ways. I do not wish I could go back or turn back time. I am content right where I am, even though pretty much anyone can drink me under the table.