Questionable advertising on that faux tattoo there

I am not a runner. I've tried to be, from time to time: When I briefly lived in Malibu back in my early twenties, I decided to try running on the beach in the mornings because it seemed like the kind of thing that one does when one lives in Malibu, only to have my knobby little offset kneecaps swell to the size of tennis balls. More recently, I adopted a golden retriever puppy under the misguided belief that ownership of said puppy would automatically transform me into the kind of person who does things like...run. Spoiler: It did not, although it did transform me into the kind of person who needs to vacuum her house several times a day.

The first time I did a mud run - essentially an untimed race that includes massive mud pits and obstacles and various forms of water torture - it was because someone paid me to do it. St. Ives hired me to participate on their behalf and write about the experience, and I did so with massive reluctance, only to discover that it was actually really fun (!). The event was called "Mudderella," and it was a women-only thing that was much more about teamwork and positivity than anything else - the women went at their own pace, cheered each other on, and wore funny costumes and bright headbands. And at the end you get a free beer!

My children have moved several times over the course of their lives. Probably too many. I have worried about this - about the effect all these moves might have on their sense of security; their understanding of "home." Not long ago, I confessed this to a friend - one who has moved her own children several times, including transcontinentally - and what she said to me was this: "There are parents who stay still. You don't. That's simply the mother they have, and it's neither a good thing nor a bad thing...it's just one of the things that make your family what it is."

I like to think that's true; that they'll grow up feeling like they've had the opportunity to experience many different places, and that those places - and the people who they've met and loved - are still a part of them. It is true that they have a mother who is restless, and who tends to impose her restlessness upon them, but along with all that restlessness comes adventure.

I grew up in a completely different set of circumstances. Shortly after I was born, my parents bought an apartment on the West Side of Manhattan, in a converted piano factory with massive arches that used to frame horse stalls, and wrought-iron balconies crisscrossing a large central courtyard that grew tulips in the spring and was the stage for what I firmly believe was the world's scariest Halloween display come fall. Most of the residents were in the theater or film industry; that was who gravitated towards Hell's Kitchen back then - or maybe it was just the only place in the city they could afford. When I was twelve, a director who lived on the first floor asked me - out of the blue - to audition for a commercial, and by the end of the day I had an agent and had set off down a path that would shape the next two decades of my life. I feel the butterfly effects of that chance meeting in my life still.