LATE SPRING–SUMMER 2020
I HAVE NEVER BEEN ONE of those people who decorates my house like a museum or a movie set, where each item is curated to look camera-ready in case Architectural Digest knocks on the door unannounced for a photo shoot. My house is distinctly and intentionally comfortable. Blame it on my upbringing. Some people are formal. I am not. I grew up wearing flip-flops and faded blue jeans and T-shirts (the one I have on now is bleached maroon and says PEACE across the front), and my house has that same casual style.
My cats and dog have free run of the place. I have a grown-up kid who still shows up with friends, counting on me to have a well-stocked fridge. Most days I am working at the kitchen table, which is cluttered with stacks of cookbooks, magazines, newspaper clippings, notes, mail, reminders, to-do lists, and other evidence that I move slower than the rest of the world.
I prefer going at my own pace. Back in my twenties, I tried the fast lane. Since then, I have discovered that I am much better managing from the right side of the road. Actually, I am best when the car is parked in the garage and I can be right here at home, which, I have come to realize, is a project that parallels the work I have done (or not done) and continue to do on myself. It hasn’t been without its complications and procrastinations, indecisions and expenses, but I have gotten myself to a place that I really, really like.
Some people do this with a house or a garden or a car—something that reflects who they are at that point in time and the work they are constantly doing on themselves. Ed is like that; in addition to his talent as a musician, he has the mind of an engineer. He has frequently called himself a tinkerer, a handy do-it-yourself trait he inherited from his dad, who was also a musician. Mr. Van Halen played the clarinet and saxophone, and once had to adapt the latter instrument after he lost part of a finger while trying to move a neighbor’s U-Haul trailer off its jacks and out of his way at three in the morning.
Don’t ask. It’s typical Van Halen family lore—equal parts macho, alcohol, and ingenuity. Well, maybe not equal parts.
Ed started building and tearing apart guitars when he was in high school. He holds two United States patents, numbers 4656917 and 388117. The first was for a smoother neck that helped him play his trademark tapping style and the other was for an improved guitar peghead that made restringing easier. In 2015, he wrote about both in Popular Mechanics. He had a workshop in his studio that was like something you’d see on This Old House; it was so cluttered with dozens of projects in various states that he could’ve had his own show called This Old Guitar. He saved every piece of equipment and could tell you how many drops of 3-IN-ONE oil he put in the nut of a whammy bar he rebuilt in the seventies.
I remember an MTV News interview he did with Chris Connelly in the late nineties where he gave a tour of the studio. We hadn’t split yet, and I remember the 5150 studio well. It looked similar to one of those places you see on American Pickers where stuff is piled floor to ceiling and only the owner knows the whereabouts of things. To get around the city code, he had built a racquetball court and turned it into his personal playhouse. As he gave Chris the tour, they came upon shelves of tapes, what looked like hundreds of them, at least hundreds of hours of music, a lifetime of music, really.
Chuckling, Ed explained that all the tapes had been numbered and the contents catalogued on a Radio Shack computer that had broken down. Efforts to recover the info all proved unsuccessful. Ed said that he was the only one who could index what was on them. He recalled pulling down a tape from 1983 that had the song “Right Now” on it; that classic was released eight years later in 1991. He shrugged and said that he would go through them some day.
I don’t know if that day ever came. But his relentless pursuit of perfection—whether making music, working on his instruments, or remembering what he had created and figuring out how and when to use it—has driven and defined Ed for as long as I have known him, and it was that way before I met him, too.
My mom was similar but in a different way. She was a wonderful artist, a painter who lost herself in her canvases. After all of us kids were grown, she worked as a travel agent, which was like painting landscapes. She enjoyed helping people plan their trips. She listened to their reasons for travel: some trips were for business, some were family vacations, some were much-needed getaways amid crises. I think her work, like her art, was a kind of therapeutic escape that unlocked her imagination and allowed her access to a place where she eventually came to terms with the tragedy of losing her second-born child.
My house has been my way of getting inside myself. For nearly twenty years, it has reflected who I am at the time and provided me with an opportunity to reimagine, fix, and change. It has become a place where I can relax and enjoy my surroundings. It has reminded me that I am strong. It has let me see myself as a work in progress. It has reminded me when something needs to be repaired and when I should stand still and admire beauty. It has given me roots and the courage to tear down and rebuild. It has gifted me with perspective.
* * *
It doesn’t have to be a house. It can be a single room. It can also be a car, a park bench, a public garden, a guitar, a painting. For me, it was my house. We literally grew into each other.
I began looking at homes after deciding that I was going to leave Ed. Dividing our property and assets was amicable and relatively easy. Finding a new home wasn’t. Every day I drove around nearby neighborhoods looking at FOR SALE signs. I had some basic parameters, starting with affordability and location. I had a budget. I wanted to be near Ed for Wolfie’s sake. I wanted to stay close to Wolfie’s school. And I wanted privacy.
Then I looked for those intangibles, the mysterious qualities in a home that invited me in and promised comfort. The house I had left was a dream house. I had worked with architects to create everything Ed and I thought we wanted: enough bedrooms for three to four kids, tons of closet space, and ample room for our busy lives. We ended up with so much room that we led separate lives. Now I simply wanted a home that would allow me to settle in, gather my thoughts, figure out what was next, and help raise my child.
I found the house that became mine while driving through the hills slightly east of Ed’s house. I had gone past Coldwater and Laurel Canyons, turned off Mulholland Drive, and was meandering aimlessly along narrow winding streets when I spotted a tree up on a hill. I couldn’t see the house. But the tree turned out to be a large, sturdy live oak with sweeping branches that, upon a closer look, seemed like they were accessible and offering a lift up, which was what I needed. I also thought Wolfie would have so much fun climbing the tree. I think he probably climbed it twice.
Still, I bought the tree and stayed for the house. Like me, the house was not in great shape. There was water damage. Decks were broken. Stairs were loose. There were three porches—one off the kitchen, one off the living room, and one off the TV room—and all three were in various stages of falling apart. The house had four bedrooms, two on each side, and I liked that Wolfie and I could nestle in rooms on one end and I could use those on the other end as an office and a guest room. If any single feature made me feel like this was going to be my new home, though, it was the kitchen. It sat smack in the center of the house, which made sense to me. What was more central to daily life than a kitchen?
Though it had not been updated into one of those sparkling industrial workplaces with a farmhouse patina that was so popular at the time, it was spacious and warm and immediately reminded me of the kind of kitchen my Nonnie and Aunt Adeline would approve of. The appliances were laid out efficiently around a large center island; I could picture the two of them rolling out pasta dough there as they had done in my Aunt Adeline’s basement in Delaware. Later on, I would cook there with my mom. I don’t know if the best decisions are made in the gut, but the tastiest most certainly are.
One thing I was clear about: the large picture window at the far end of the kitchen. The house was perched on the side of a hill and the view out that window stretched forever. I could look across the entire valley and see the homes and stores below, the traffic on the freeway, the Burbank skyline, the planes on their way to Bob Hope Airport, and the mountains in the distance. Light poured through the glass, and at night the stars floated as if they were snacks in a celestial pantry. I needed that light and those stars, the view and all the space in between.
* * *
The first person I showed it to was Ed. I wanted him to see that it was safe for Wolfie and me. He loved it and gave me a thumbs-up.
We moved in and lived in the house for about five years before I started to give serious thought to making some improvements. It kind of paralleled my life, the way I gained weight and stewed about it for years, and gained even more weight until finally I signed up for Jenny Craig. I was the same way with the house. I saw the deck falling apart, made a note about taking care of it, and three years later it was so eaten away by dry rot and bugs that I couldn’t stand on it without risking injury.
One day, as I walked around the backyard, I decided I’d had enough of this obstacle course. I decided to take action. If I’m going to fix the one deck, I said to myself, I might as well fix all of them. It turned out to be the season for fixing things. Ed and I divorced so he could get remarried. Tom and I got engaged and planned our own wedding. Wolfie went on the road with Van Halen. With so much in flux, why not remodel the whole house, too?
That’s the way I roll. Delay until the little things add up to the whole thing. But change also creates its own momentum, and I was swept up in the potential and excitement. I talked with my architect about building an upstairs master bedroom—my eagle’s nest—to take advantage of the view and revamping the swimming pool. I was good with the living and dining rooms as they were, but I saw an opportunity to enlarge the kitchen and update the cabinets and appliances to make it the type of cooking area that I’d always envisioned.
Everything felt right, like a necessary next step. The decks were about giving myself safe, secure footing. The second-story bedroom was about letting my spirit soar. The kitchen was about feeding my soul. And the swimming pool, which I found myself enjoying in my dreams, was about giving myself a fresh start and new beginnings.
One piece of the puzzle left me, well, puzzled. That was my bedroom closet. I thought I wanted a large new closet, one of those closets I saw in magazines that looked like a secret apartment. You opened the door and saw an oasis of opulence and organization. But was that me? I am not a shopper. I am a T-shirt and jeans person. Maybe I should do a major cleaning out of what I have and go the opposite way, a more modest closet. I could do a meditation nook. An upstairs coffee bar. A reading corner.
Then I saw my Wallabees and put a stop to any and all fifty sides of my fantasies. Who was I kidding? I was a pack rat. I also saw the knee-high silver platform boots that I wore on the One Day at a Time episode where Mackenzie and I dressed up as Elton John and Kiki Dee, and sang their hit “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” Though I hadn’t worn those boots since we shot that episode in 1976, I shut the closet doors and emailed my architect. “Forget what I said earlier. The closet has to be large.”
After that One Day episode aired, Elton sent me an autographed picture that said I was a better Elton John than he was. I have had it reframed twice. It’s one of my treasures. So there is a chance that I am just a big old softie rather than a hoarder. One thing about me was unchanged, though. I still moved at my own pace. The blueprints for all this lived on my dining-room table for about three years.
Finally, we broke ground and I was extremely excited, though what I remember most about the early days of construction is that we moved out to the beach house I bought in the eighties, and for the next two years, I had an hour-and-a-half commute twice a day from there to the studio where we shot Hot in Cleveland all the while knowing my real house was exactly one mile—or about ten minutes—from the set.
I suppose it added to the anticipation.
* * *
As work continued, I had two additions. I wanted a garden—a productive and edible garden. I missed the one I’d had up at Ed’s house. I was very particular. I pictured fruit trees and became consumed about having a variety of them: orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, guava, kumquat, avocado, and any other trees my genius gardener, Carlos, thought would grow. I also envisioned vegetables, hedges of rosemary, and clusters of other herbs.
All of a sudden, I was like my mom and Ed, tinkering with the yard. I was finally emerging from the depression over my first marriage ending and the ensuing uncertainty of who I was supposed to be at this stage of my life, and the garden reflected this. It was important to me. I was ready to be productive, fruitful, nourishing, and fresh—all the things I saw in a garden. I was also ready to have a new relationship with food. Rather than avoid it, I wanted to grow it. I wanted to be involved in the process. I had gone to Italy. I had written a cookbook. I had fallen in love with enjoying everything about a meal.
I didn’t just eat the ingredients, I also savored them. I didn’t need to know the provenance of my carrots and peas, but I wanted to appreciate the freshness and care that went into preparing the food. I saw myself harvesting the bounty in my yard, bringing it inside my kitchen, and preparing simple but delicious dishes for family and friends.
Dieting didn’t cross my mind; engaging in something creative and warm and personal did. This was not about restriction or denial; it was about leaning forward and embracing something I had previously considered bad or off-limits. I wasn’t even conscious of this change. I was acting on instinct. My body was telling me to eat; my soul was telling me to grow.
The garden took several years to plant and longer before it began producing fruit and vegetables in abundance. That was a good thing. I needed to learn patience and get into the routine of giving the garden daily attention and care, something I needed to work on with myself, too. And that was and still is the most valuable takeaway.
Happiness and joy are the fruits of a healthy life, but it takes work every day. My garden reminds me of this. You have to get your hands dirty.
The other feature I monitored during construction was a library. In some ways, this room might have triggered the whole remodel, more so than the broken decks. The library is actually a nook with floor-to-almost-ceiling bookshelves and a comfortable chair where I can plant my butt and read and stare out at the beautiful view. It’s a cozy, comfortable hideout where I am able to see the quiet, stillness, and wonder of just being.
I have friends who meditate. They encouraged me to buy a meditation chair. I did and put it in my bedroom, where it is a landing spot for sweaters and T-shirts.
I meditate when I look up from a book or a crossword puzzle and gaze out the window for five or ten or even twenty minutes at a stretch. As I sort through a thousand different thoughts, I eventually find myself thinking of how beautiful everything is until I realize that I have cleared my mind and am thinking of nothing. I have watched birds soar and the sky fill with smoke from unchecked fires. I have floated across the sky on fluffy clouds and spied on deer feeding on my beloved garden.
I have sat here and thought about my parents as they aged and eventually succumbed to illnesses. I have been able to feel their presence even after they were gone. I have thought about my brother who died. Even though I never knew him, I have pictured him as a toddler. I have thought about my own son as he has grown up, graduated, and moved out on his own. I have laughed, cried, and worried. I have thought about my own good fortune and all the blessings that surround me and wondered why I still have such a hard time feeling good about myself. I have thought about Ed and his cancer. I have looked out at the sky during the day and at night, and prayed for him to beat it. I have asked God why.
Lately, I have caught myself thinking about what might be next, what that will be like for Ed, for Wolfie, and for all of us. What will that be like? What will that feel like?
I have looked for answers in the clouds and the stars. I have searched the mountains and the trees. I have watched them change and felt the timelessness of the big picture. I have sensed the way we pass through, mere visitors, and the way seeing ourselves in that manner prioritizes and reprioritizes things.
I sit here and marvel at the world’s beauty and its flaws, and I think that I need to start looking at myself that same way: with respect and awe for all the pieces in the remarkable puzzle that is me and my life, including those pieces that don’t seem to fit.
I have come to the conclusion that a room with a view is essential to happiness. But you don’t need one like mine. Everybody has their own. It’s called the human heart. There is no better window through which to look at yourself and the world than a full, warm, forgiving, aching, healing, and loving heart.
The other day I caught myself thinking about a secret little area in the garden near the oak tree where I put a bench. I haven’t sat on it for months, but I like knowing it’s there, waiting for me to arrive, as I have been doing most of my life—waiting for me to arrive.
I am getting there.
Definitely.
I’m getting there.