LOS ANGELES–I am out looking for the area’s newest newspaper. I cannot seem to find the newspaper stand. Melrose? Fairfax? At Oakwood? At Rosewood? I’ve slept the night in a near stranger’s bed and opened my eyes to a beautiful vaulted ceiling; a clutch of greenery at my bedside a ballerina portrait leaning against an easel.

The ceiling fan–gone spinning from the night before–blows air so cool, I hate to remove my naked body from this white space. I can pretend, here, I am somewhere else. Anywhere else.

I have three cups of coffee while joining my friend, who is affixed to the Sunday morning news shows. A heater is at her tiny feet–though it is nearly summer now. She throws me a blanket and invites me to sit in her mother’s rocking chair.

I consume, as I always do, the Los Angeles Times and then the New York Times. Sunken ferry, missing plane, a girl who fashioned her prom dress out of beer caps. I read my horoscope and some others. They never do make any sense.

Soon, they start to ready themselves for church: Easter Sunday.

It occurs to me, I won’t be going to church, or services, or mass, or whatever your name of preference is.

“Given up on God?” a friend asked me earlier in the week.

“No,” I say. “Just organized God. I prefer a disorganized God, these days.”

They leave and I clean up after myself–as if I don’t want anyone to know I was ever here.

Then I go looking for the newspaper. That new newspaper.

A friend had texted me the night before he had been listening to “The Beastie Boys.” “The Beastie Boys?” I text back.

So, I load Spotify on my iPhone and search for that texted album name and within 30 seconds into it, I re-back to Matt Shultz or Kid Cudi or Lorde or Jagwar Ma.

I am running through various side streets trying to find my way. Then I hit a dead end at Fairfax High School. Fairfax High School. A site where I have seen so many soccer games of my children: one now 19 and the other a month shy of 17. And I remember: right wing; left wing; goalie; forward. Blue and black; yellow and black; red and black. Jerseys. Orange pylons when were very, very young.

One is now in Washington, D.C. The other is at Coachella and I suddenly realize, I am alone this Easter, driving looking for a newsstand that I cannot find; for a paper I know nothing about; trying to listen to a friend’s music I don’t care about; and without, without, without so much.

Scavenger Easter egg hunts. Brunch with champagne and violet brûlée. Paas dye and broken shells. And dress up day. Bow ties for my little guys–not pre-made, but those you tie yourself. Molded chocolate bunnies when everyone laughs when you bite an ear off or a bunny’s butt.

Thinking of my mom singing “Christ is Risen,” at her white-steepled Baptist church in Thomasville, North Carolina.

Thinking and wondering what it all means. And I know.