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Throughout the year, I’ve often wondered what I’d write for my Year-In-Review post. I’d gaze off at odd moments and offhandedly muse on the possibilities (self-reflective storytelling with an overtone of noir, anyone? A Top Ten list of “things that happened in Year-One LA,” Letterman-style?). And now that I’m more than a week past deadline, I figure I’ll stop pussyfooting around and just wing it. So I’m winging it. Much like I did my first year in LA.

On October 23, 2010, under a multi-color, multiform sky, I reached the city limits and rolled into town with my wolfies, two suitcases and a songwriter’s toolkit. My first place of residence was a tiny artist studio nestled in the Topanga mountains that I found through Craigslist before leaving New York. I was feeling Royal. I had interest from Warner Bros., riding a wave of inspiration with more music on my brain than a sailor in the arms of a siren in the sea grass. I was revved to make every hour of every day an homage to a certain vision I had, complete with haloed cherubs, trumpets and mile-long banners of catchy slogans. Which makes everything that happened thereafter quite unexpected.

Through a series of events, I made the move into acting.

It wasn’t arbitrary. Sitting at the piano, I had dug deep and had the moment. It just wasn’t a musical moment. This is the year I went from being Tora Brava to Tora Kim.

The other night I was at my one-year anniversary dinner at the Hungry Cat in Hollywood with Art Warrior Alan Locke. It was a lovely scene. We were celebrating with a towering Babel of seafood and talking to Peyton, a director at Comedy Central, when his lovely companion said to me, “Aw, but you’re still a newbie.” It was a good-natured response to the haiku-version of my coming-of-age-in-LA story. I accepted her comment with grace. Of course I’m still a newbie. I still talk about New York food all the freakin’ time. But wait… maybe now, a year later, the feeling has ebbed into a larger ocean of a different name.

After all, I thrive on “beginner’s mind”, a mental gear I switch over to when the situation calls for it. And sure, one year later I still get the award for Best-Dressed New Girl, having been on the aforementioned setting nearly permanently since I arrived. Yet, whilst sitting at the dinner table shelling some fresh rock shrimp, I thought back to my 10 years in New York. Back to the beginning when I was a trembling 17-year-old training at Strasberg New York, simultaneously terrified of and absurdly devoted to, The Method. I embraced acting with all my heart. They called me “the Kid”…

Now, lifetimes later, my friend and mentor David Caruso calls me the Kid. Bizarre, right??

The Kid is Alright: hanging with DC and Alan

I have an unusually high level of Life Metabolism. It’s a phrase I coined when life started changing so fast that I discovered my capacity for growth and change was one of the most awesome tools I have. Just go with it. Looking back, this year was a testament to my all-too-human need and desire for growth. And if it’s a human capacity, you can bet I’d want to trick it out. I don’t call it “Type A”. Fuck “Type A”. So many people refer to themselves as such that it’s lost all meaning. This is not about being a control freak. It’s about distorting the field of reality to the point of Elevation where you can make something great True.

Or true Great.

This is about being Type-Tora and discovering what exactly that means.

Back to Life Metabolism. When Life serves you a lesson, you metabolize it until it becomes the marrow in your bones and the grease between the fatless sinews of what makes you a Lean Machine.

e.g. A Lean Machine

I am in a reflective state these days. I suppose at some point, from the cocoon will emerge the glorious butterfly, as the truth of science dictates. But for now I am feeling the Universe after a year of pure action. I was in Action. I went and sought out the best teachers. I studied and trained, entered the room with aplomb, made great friends along the way. I started going out on auditions, got the lead in my first Hollywood play. I got a good agent! I entered the world of Commercial auditions, something I never, ever expected to do. I stumbled along the way, changed my habits, shed skin. I got the lead in my first feature-length indie. I got a mentor! I worked hard, trained some more. I made some tough decisions. I took risks, had my heart broken. But I kept on chugging along. Always, always keep going…

A gypsy’s life in music, performance art, of seriously dropping my bullshit and pursuing my dreams as a way of life, of traveling the world like a vagabond on a mission, of following my heart — prepared me well. It was a life of hard knocks and lucky breaks that only makes sense if I was moving toward a thing, not running away. And I’m always moving forward, even when it looks like I’m doing nothing at all.

But right now, Dear Reader, I am beyond tired. I am beyond age. I am beyond the pale of the moon outside my window. I can’t care about the little things I used to let bother me, such as what “beyond the pale of the moon outside my window” could possibly mean beyond the fact that it’s true and sounds really awesome. Since there is always work to be done you live in a constant state of discomfort. Often times, upheaval. It comes and goes but never stops.

I am not seeing people these days. Here is the point where I say to everyone that if I’m not returning calls or emails, it’s not that I don’t like you. I just don’t have the heart.

I am in hermitage.

For as much as I’ve accomplished in my life so far, I’ve also missed out on things. What’s become glaring is that there is not enough True Comfort in the world… Love… Peace… Let’s flag that as something Super-Important. These are the things we should nourish. I forgot what the thing was until it graced my life. Me. This year. For a moment. Graced. I ran for the hills and took my ghosts with me. Built a bonfire, tossed in the old contracts and watched the paper burn. They own real estate somewhere else now. I don’t see them anymore. Because I was graced. There are moments that change you forever and you can’t go back.

I feel lucky to have met the people I’ve met. I’ve learned something from everybody, the ones who are gone and the ones who stick. This has never been so apparent as in the positron-dimension that is LA. What a strange land. (You better believe I still dig it though.) Life is a series of spinning planets, cycles and small worlds, right? We are in each other’s orbit for a reason, if only for a moment. There is an angel in everyone, and we must let our angels speak true every chance we get. Because that chance may be a gift of moment that’s gone forever in the next.

So we move on, shedding our falsehoods like well-worn mummy bandages. I am alive! Get these things offa me! I am more alive now than I ever was. I have a renewed appreciation for truth and understanding as the currency of human exchange. Light me up, Trick. Or do you even exist… And you can bet, if I’m not appreciated then here’s my dust to eat. I need to be around people who know who they are or are working at it. The ability to edit your ideas is essential. Your joints and bones only become as brittle as your old beliefs.

Some people are 5 years old and are fossilized in stone. While some people are 500 years old and still haven’t figured out the person they are. In light of love, in light of money, in light of dreams, the past, and aspirations. In light of pain.

That’s the toughest part, finding out who you are. And the toughest moments of the year came when I dared to become something better. The choices I made. The follow-through. The consequences. The mistakes! Oh yes, there were those. I’m gonna level with you: There are consequences no matter what you do or don’t do, so you might as well make it count.

I’m in a different place now. A year ago I was sailing out to the beckoning horizon. Now I find myself sailing toward a brand new shore, with the full weight of the ocean behind me, because something on land is there waiting for me, something more beautiful than I can ever imagine.

The questions I ask myself: Who do you want to be? (A unicorn?) What do you love? (Rainbows?) What are you gonna do about it? (Grow wings). The theme of my life snowballed down Ye Olde Big Adventure Mountain of 2011. Sometimes the journey seriously wears you out, and you just wanna stop. But by some miracle, you keep going. Like a snowball on steroids.

At night, I sleep the sleep of the just. Besides from pure exhaustion, it’s because in this year, in this unprecedented year, against the backdrop of a bigger world that is beyond my control, that is beyond caring, that is frightfully beyond comprehension at times, I changed my world in ways I never imagined I would. Things I could not have done a year ago, five years ago, ten…

Because it’s a process and a journey to conspire with your own Truth.

Thank you. That is all.

Til next year.

Tora out.