SPICED VANILLA NUT GREEN MILK + THE COLLISION OF PAST & FUTURE.

Hello from the sky—you know this is one of my favorite places from which to write you. It’s quiet up here, serene, a vast milky blue of possible futures. Far less cluttered than thirty-five thousand miles below. I’m winging my way home to Los Angeles from a quick visit to Maui to see one of my best friends play the emcee in a jaw-dropping, spirit-quakingly timely production of Kander & Ebb’s musical Cabaret.

In the audience on Sunday’s matinee, I cried over the possible future so many millions did not see coming in the years leading up to World War II, and at the possible futures we are all now trying to divine—both beautiful and horrifying. And now, on this flight, clutching a new copy of Anthony Doerr’s World War II novel All the Light We Cannot See, I am crying again. It’s been years since I’ve read historical fiction, but I allowed the book’s Pulitzer, and the recommendation of so many, to sway me.

On the plane, I cried over the book’s first pages, at the preciousness of love between a devoted father and his newly blind young daughter. And then again, as this six year-old girl was forced to relearn the world by all senses other than sight. I wept at the tautness of breath that comes with loss of all kinds—the falling away of light and shape, the plague of death that comes with war, the terror of a mind losing its agency to think clearly, lulled by the narcotics of power and pleasure. I’m certain my seat neighbor on the plane thinks I’m teetering on the verge of a breakdown, but I’ve quelled the flow of tears long enough to write to you.

My father, too, was stirred deeply by the production of Cabaret. He was born one year before Cristalnacht, his childhood shaped by the knowledge that his family would be exterminated had they not been safely in America for over a generation. The mixed brew of resistance and memory the play fomented in him returned me to my own middle school obsession with the Holocaust.

I read and researched as much as I could, digging for stories at the intersection of feeling and duty. Where did emotion—love—end and the forceful blade of military allegiance begin? What would you do if you were moved equally by both? I couldn’t get over these questions, and for my culminating eighth grade project wrote a most-certainly overwrought novella called The Tangled Web of Life, about an SS officer and his wife who had adopted a Jewish child before the rise of Third Reich.

In dramatic, early teen prose, I wrestled with these questions, eventually giving the young Jewish protagonist a way out of her concentration camp and onto a boat to New York. My story had a happy ending, then, at least in its momentary escape. As I moved out of my pre-teen years, my literary fascinations took other forms, moving closer to the questions of the Romantics, and out of the trapped logic of history. I gravitated towards dreams of the future and away from the past. I wanted to know what was possible, what loves awaited me and my words.

Today, though, the weight of my experience and the knowledge borne of constant access to the internet has taught me—has taught us all—that love is not enough. That confronted by love and allegiance, we must always know on what side we belong. That choosing love will also require us to take a stand. In the past years, or perhaps just in recent months, so many of us have found new paths to activism—we have taken a stand both for ourselves and for those not strong or privileged enough to have a voice of their own. We have chosen love by way of action.

Watching Cabaret reminded me, and every sold-out audience in the nearly century-old Iao Theater on Maui, that we are never far from allowing history to repeat itself. That we only have to look at ourselves deeply to see that we are each susceptible to our most primal fears. That love must be shored up by a deep resolve to stand up for what we know is right. Every time. Without fail. Which means now. And now. And now.

I was proud, this weekend, to share a history in Maui’s theater world, to know those actors and to see the community readying itself, maintaining vigilance, and preparing for the seven thousand adults and students who plan to join the March for Our Lives movement next week. There will be a concert, headlined by Willie Nelson and Jack Johnson. The children will make posters and cry out for a world without unnecessary death and violence. The adults will let their hope for a new future buoy up and out, over the crowds, towards the sky, above the vast Pacific Ocean that surrounds them. They will remember what happened before and take step after step toward a future in which that will never happen again.

As for me, I am home now, back at my new house full of light and hope in Topanga. Below, a few pictures of my new dining area/photo studio, and the many shades of sky out my bedroom window. This morning, I’ll make myself this new variation of my infamous Green Milk, filled with omega-3 and -6 fatty acids, spices, and freshly blended chlorophyll. I’m a fan of anything that gives me fast, delicious, reliable nutrients, and this blended nutty green milk is just that, spiced with vanilla and cinnamon to boot.

I used kale here because it’s what I had, but I’d recommend a softer, less bitter green, like spinach. Walnuts, too, can be bitter at times, so you might try cashews or almonds instead. If you don’t have raw nuts on hand, I recommend using a generous spoonful of nut or seed butter in their place (almond, cashew, or sunflower would all be lovely). The hemp seeds provide a lovely hit of protein, and the vanilla and spices make the milk feel very lush.

It’s perfect for regenerating energy after a long plane ride, or fueling hope after a time of darkness.

Learn more about March for Our Lives and find a gathering near you here.