Gwen Stefani on how she got here: ‘I never knew this year was going to happen. You couldn’t have written it’

Gwen Stefani oozed sunshine over the phone. Not Southern California sunshine. But I’m-happy-in-life sunshine. Of course, it’s not a simple explanation how she got there. Ask her a question and you get a long-winded, self-analytical and very revealing answer. Never during the course of an hourlong conference with several journalists did she offer a short, straightforward…