As the 1990s continued, my diaries chart my growing relationship with spirituality and God. I discovered the Agape International Spiritual Center, which had been founded in 1986 by Dr. Michael B. Beckwith, a charismatic and brilliant man. The center is not traditionally “Christian” in that it draws from multiple sources, multiple faiths, and often from the more esoteric, Gnostic traditions, all in the service of “[teaching] how an individual may cultivate their own unique relationship with this ineffable Presence and live in conscious connection with It.”
Agape resonated with me because my mom had always raised me to believe in an interconnectedness, an idea that God and I, and I and God, are one.
June 13, 1996
I trust in God. I surrender—I am one in the spirit around me. It’s okay, God, I get it. I heed my own words. Know you are there. Amen.
This surrender I was feeling pushed me into a fresh perspective on my life, one I’d struggled to find in the past. For me to tell my diary that I loved myself, as I did in June 1996, was such a different song from the one I’d been singing for most of my life.
But sometimes the gains I had made could ebb within a day. Such was the trauma I carried with me, and such is the struggle the faithful have when God seems absent.
June 18, 1996
I know you are present, I know you are present, but I feel so sad confused and tired today. I have faith in you and in me. Help me let it all go. You don’t have to move the mountains, you just have to give me the strength to climb. You don’t have to move the stumbling blocks, but lead me on, God! Pull me through. I know I must embody the truth about you and myself but why do I feel so shitty? Is it because I lost faith today? Is it because I became fearful? I don’t want to fuck this up—I AM THE I AM I AM GOD I AM DIVINE I AM LOVE I AM RADIANCE I AM SUCCESS I AM WHAT YOU ARE. Amen.
Back and forth I went, feeling filled with faith, and then feeling lost to doubt. Yet the underlying sense from those years was that faith had stripped away the worst excesses of my self-hatred and had begun to give me a glimmer of self-esteem.
TEN
RED WEDDING
IN THE EARLY SUMMERof 2001, I shot a movie with Cameron Diaz calledThe Sweetest Thing.Cameron and I clicked from the moment we met at auditions. I loved every day of working with her. It never even felt like work, and that movie was such an important source of joy in my life at the time.
During the movie, we take a road trip, and it was during these car scenes that we really bonded. When filming a car scene, the vehicle you’re in is attached to what’s called an insert car—essentially a truck filled with cameras and sound guys that’s towing your vehicle on a process trailer to give the illusion that you’re driving. Everyone in the insert car can hear everything the actors say, even in between takes, because there’s no efficient way to cut the sound off while cameras are reset and positions retaken.
Cameron and I had learned all the words to a song called “Tales of Taboo,” which we referred to as “Belgian Waffles” because of a particularly foul lyric. The song was by a performance artist namedKaren Finley. We were filming up in Sausalito along a road that’s used a lot for movies set in San Francisco, and we’d have to go all the way down the road, turn around, and come back. The whole process took forever, so in between takes our favorite thing to do was play “Tales of Taboo” on the car stereo and sing along to it as loudly as possible, causing the crew to cringe half to death because it’s the dirtiest song you’ve ever heard in your life. I urge all readers to listen to it immediately and do as Cameron and I did: learn every word, and sing it at high volume whenever possible.
The wonderful Parker Posey was also in that movie, and when she heard us singing “Tales of Taboo,” she offered a song of her own: “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches.
“Sorry, Parker,” I said, “but compared to ‘Belgian Waffles,’ ‘Fuck the Pain Away’ sounds like something fromBlue’s Clues.”
Again, there was this split personality between me on set and me at home. At work, I was having fun, screaming lyrics like “Make me a tit sandwich” with my new friend, playing one of two carefree party girls. At home, I was playing the role of a perfect bride-to-be, eating obsessively clean and not drinking, planning the “perfect” wedding for the “perfect” polished life. No tit sandwich for me.
Who wants to go to a wedding where no one is allowed to drink alcohol? I can’t imagine there’s a single person in the world who would choose to watch two people get hitched while stone-cold sober. But in October 2001, if you attended my (first) wedding, I was determined that you were going to be crystal clear mentally and physically for my vows.
It had to be perfect because he was everything my family wanted for me. My future husband had more than $3.50 in his bank accountand didn’t rely on me monetarily. Handsome fella. He liked sports, so Dad was on board. It felt like the right next step after years of disappointment. He disappointed no one, except maybe me.
If I went to a wedding now and they didn’t serve alcohol, I’d leave, thank you very much. I don’t mind if you’re no good at drinking and want to abstain while you make your vows, but it’s also not my fault you are bad at it. I had become such a health freak, and I was dead set on everyone being spiritual and clear, so I banned drinking before the ceremony.
I’m sure all my friends hated me. Or they had hip flasks hidden in their pockets. I hope they did. I think my poor bridesmaids snuck a drink or two when they were getting ready.
I picked a pretty house with a pool in Palm Springs as the venue outside the city. Jeffrey Best, the eminent event planner, helped create an experience that began well before the day. I made beautiful invitations, and when people accepted, they received a slim, leather-bound journal with a string wrapped around it that had all the available accommodations, the schedule of events, everything that you would need… and a notice that the wedding would be dry, of course.
Leading up to the big event I had been running every day, dancing every day. I’d quit drinking, was barely smoking cigarettes, nothing. (I would end up smoking a lot on the actual day.)
For the guests, I rented a truly beautiful hotel called the Korakia, a Tangier-inspired resort built originally in the 1920s by some random Scottish painter who wanted to be reminded of his time in Morocco, hence the archways, courtyard, fountain, and whitewashed walls. There were firepits and pools, every room was different, and oh: there were no TVs.
Also, no curtains. My soon-to-be father-in-law sought me out one morning and said, “Christina, I really need curtains…”
When he walked away, I felt my entire body starting to convulse. I was a stressed-out, sober, cigaretteless bride.
“Tell everyone to go fuck themselves,” I said to my assistant at the time. “I can’t get himcurtains. I am thebride. Have him go talk to someone else about his fucking curtains.”
Suffice to say, I was a bit overwhelmed. All the man wanted was a dark room where he could get some rest.
At the rehearsal dinner, we served vegan Mediterranean food, and we all sat on pillows on the floor. All the waiters were wearing sarongs. To repeat, the food was vegan—so basically there was just a lot of hummus. Thankfully, the rehearsal dinner was not a dry event like the actual day, though drinking on a stomach of hummus doesn’t seem amazing either. (Farts.)
I kept thinking,This ismywedding. This is not your wedding. This is my wedding, myperfectwedding. This is what I would want a wedding to be like.
