RELIC OF REBELLION

October 19, 2024November 25, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ 5 Comments

BEFORE I think about how to respond to a stranger, I feel them; the gestures, expressions, tone of voice, movement, conversation, mannerisms, and eyes. I acknowledge feelings first, then I think.

When I’m driving, I feel sprite or gloom. I feel a twirl of sensory perception from the drivers’ faces and witness the joyous reciprocal ink of friendship between shopkeepers, cops and dining customers, city workers, and service technicians trying to fix satellites and cables in a village with inconsistent infrastructure.

SOME of my principles are unsupported by experience, but more with GROWING UP WITH GANGSTERS training that I cannot erase. My theme is unbalanced; I take the extreme path instead of the path with arrows. It is why writing settles my sea-saw. As I sit in my antique wooden chair looking out, feeling Saturday’s silence beneath a blanket of blue sky and radiant sunshine, a tiny thread of peace realigns a week of political profanity, war, and death, but they got Sinwar! The sedate and quiet surroundings relieve my spinning head, and I just continue to sit and not fidget.

I’VE observed the village people; some appear to drag their bodies rather than hotfoot. I wonder if all the global Google news has weighed us down. Teens signal youth’s fascination with experience, newness, and expectation.The exchange of human voices as pedestrians walk along the street, I’ve noticed that New Yorkers speak in voluminous pitch. I can hear their voices from my bedroom on the third floor with closed windows. Humanity is our background symphony, along with the crows, lawnmowers, power saws, blowers, and racing cars. This street is part of my theme; a juxtaposition of historic homes and modern toys. I am a 21st-century flapper clinging to the roar of independence, self-expression, and breaking the rules. If we feel the chord of festivity, we should not hold back. I am going out now to see if I can feel more.

Sunday October 20,

I walked out to the porch and slouched against a pillar to feel warmed by the sun. My dermatologist advised that I should not stay longer than ten minutes, even with fifty UV protection. Today is family day and a car show in the village. I experienced it two years ago, so I remain at home; listening to the geese go south for the winter and feeling solitude. It’s like a branchless tree, a storm without an umbrella, a garden without flowers, and a home without company. Oh, snap out of it. Go to Henry’s Tavern and watch the game with men losing their cool. They get insanely raucous s over football.

HELENE: LOSING A HOME.

September 28, 2024September 28, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

It’s impossible to feel personal tribulations when I see Helene’s destruction. The shock is unimaginable unless your home has been removed by earth, wind, or fire.

When our family home burned, my mother drove me up a day later to see what remained. I was eight years old. I felt lost. My stomach was empty, and my breath held. Nothing but ashes; it changes your perspective on what to hold on to.

Burt Lancaster lived above us; a spark dropped from his home onto our house. Ours was the only house that burned on Thurston Circle. We direct our life, and then it returns a different ending. Lucky to have had those years in Bel Air, a paradise of charismatic neighbors, children up and down the street, parties, and safety.

The 1961 Bel Air Fire was a disastrous brush fire that began on November 6, 1961, in the Bel Air community of Los Angeles. It destroyed 484 homes and burned over 6,000 acres, fueled by strong Santa Ana winds. At least 200 firefighters were injured during the fire ¹

RELOCATION BEGINS WITH BOOKS

July 13, 2024July 13, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

May 22, 2024

I read some older columns on singleness from times when I was alone and still friends with Dodger. Now, the pattern is unthreaded. There is no intertwinement of intimate conversations with a man, guidance, indulgences, or frolicking like children. When I see couples dining or walking hand in hand in the village, the vision snaps me into memories. The past lurks like a shadow, an overture to the present. Stream of consciousness, that translucence of mind that can drift like a leaf in the wind, is out of reach, so I don’t even attempt to reach for it. Acceptance of this interlude is permitted, as my mind is impregnated with a new canvas: relocation, standing in lines, driving the freeways, a city life that was once as natural to me as breathing feels like a complete revival. Employment, straightening my team playing skill set, working on deadlines, and finding excuses to get out of my chair away from the computer. Working in an art gallery is the only option besides being a remote writer.

Today, as I attempt to make strategic, methodical decisions and edit my resume, the yellow line appears that separates the present from the future. Can I navigate a city confidentially, decisively, and with discipline? In the village, those skills sleepwalk effortlessly. I have a punishing skill for avoiding reality.

I have packed most of my books, vacillated on their importance several times to eliminate the load. I chose ten to give away, Last night on the phone with Jerry, I mentioned parting with my books.

“ Why are you keeping them? I assume you’ve read them.”

” No, I have a lot of photography books I’ haven’t opened once. “

“ So, keep those.“

” I want all my favorite authors, some read, some not. I can’t let them go.– Don’t laugh, but they are my friends, in an abstract way, of course,” Jerry chuckled.

This morning, I kneeled and took another serious examination; no remains the answer. I’ve sold some of my favorite furnishings and artwork, so I made the strategic decision that my books are for keeps.

MY FAVORITE VETERAN

May 25, 2024May 30, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

HOW ONE SOLDIER CHANGED THE COMMUNITY OF SOLANA BEACH, CA

For many of us, the idea of aging is frightening. We have been led to believe it brings pain, loneliness, and idle time for regressing mentally. Remedies, products, prescriptions, and escapes offer youthful looks, energy, and vitality. The thought of aging is brutal; we pretend we can buy youth. What if you met a man who told you he could do everything today, at eighty-four, that he did all his life without injections, medicine, special diet, or specific training?

What if I told you all his family, including his brothers, mother, and father, is gone? His wife died twenty years ago. That he lives alone and is not lonely. He claims he is the happiest man in the world. Would you want to meet him? He wants to meet you. He would like to be everyone’s neighbor. He has much to teach in a country of strangers about meeting neighbors and making friends. We who know proclaim him an inspiration, a legend, an angel. And to that, he always replies, “I‘m just a regular guy.”

Maurice Roberts has lived in Solana Beach since 1936, and his recollections of the area are intact. I recorded his history and began writing everything down. Next week, I will start the first in a series of historical perspectives.

STRANGERS THEN LOVE

March 2, 2024March 7, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

From Anais Nin Diaries 1939-1944.

“I respond to intensity, but I also like reflection to follow action, for then understanding is born, and understanding prepares me for the next act.”

JANUARY

SNOW, ARTIC BLAST, ICE, FREEZING. Maelstrom of inconveniences toppling down in every nook and cranny of body, home, and outdoors. I wore a long-sleeved liner, wool sweater dress, rabbit poncho, and over that, a wool wrap, laptop mittens, sherpa leggings, wool socks, and boots. Mornings, eight degrees, afternoons eighteen, and the absence of sunlight grids my spirit. Repetitive lessons in endurance, tolerance, and acceptance. The outer world stenches corruption, propaganda, cruelty, violence, and haranguing reporters. The election year dominates the bunkum reporting.

It’s been almost a month since I texted or called Dodger. Somedays, I enter the memories, a reel of episodes on our cross-country road trips, hiking barren, narrow, unclaimed paths in Baja, mountains and canyons in New Mexico, and lakes and forests in upstate New York. They appear to be aberrations of myself; I am unrecognizable as he is, too.

FEBRUARY

MATURITY has caught up with me, and I am viscerally aware of this pendulum as replacing the nonacceptance of my lifestyle and future to hardened acceptance, which is a relief. I used to be full of follies, gaiety, and impulse; inner choreography is now critical thinking, studied decisions, and a spoonful of distrust. Instead of unleashing all that I think and feel with strangers, the narrative is split between inching closer to listening rather than personal tete e tet. Once a week, I go outing to the social club, where I find conversant strangers, couples, singles, divorces, and a variety of ages, and yet they all have a commonality that I don’t, they seem genuinely satisfied with their lives, one comment this, after asking the bartender how are you, he smiled, slapped the polished wooden bar with both hands and replied, I couldn’t be happier. Then he opened his phone and showed me a photo of a baby boy. His expression soared through my senses, and I adulated with compliments. Another evening, I opened a conversation with a couple next to me, and for the next hour, I learned of their life; children, travel, cruises, especially, ” Oh, you’ve never been on one? You must go, you’re so perfect for a cruise.

” I’m uncomfortable with more than twenty people.”

“ I don’t believe that for a minute.” Wendy was really fit to her name; she wiggled in her seat, her hands never at rest, and her thoughts poured like raindrops. Her husband, Christian, nodded a lot, and when he tried to speak, she ran right over him. A few times, he rolled his eyes at me. They’d been married thirty-five years, looked to be in their early fifties, and semi-retired. I left feeling love, had tipped our kinship, a surprising need to leap from trivialities to more substance.

February 5, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

FEBRUARY 3^RD 2024 EXCERPT FROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS

After weeks of metallic gray, the sun broke through, decorating Greta’s room. She is recovering on her bed, floating in Jazz instrumental music, remote in hand and undecided about what to watch. Last night, she socialized at her two taverns’, chatting with Weeds, a man with pockets full, which he offered Greta. For the next thirty minutes, he unplugged a breathless dialogue without inviting Greta, and she knew he was so lit up that he was unflustered when Greta said, ‘ Maybe take a break and eat your food.’ He continued to disentangle his weekly activities, what he thought about the waitress, some local gossip about the bartender who had been fired, where he grew up, and his wife’s battle with lung cancer. ‘ I am so sorry for you both.’ He thanked her and then sealed his tête-à-tête as he ate. Greta took this moment to bid farewell and crossed to the other tavern for crab fritters. The bar was uncluttered, and she sank into the stillness. Her mood flicked into an irritableness, a discourse with the state of her life. The resurgence of the week’s disputes, mishaps, and the approaching day she would be moving, and still directionless. It wasn’t until she was home, swathed in five blankets that she overcame the anxiety until she couldn’t find her phone. She searched all the prominent places, the car, kitchen, entry, and bedroom. ‘ ‘Oh, for the love of God, I left it at the tavern. How humiliating. Maybe I’ll find it in the morning.’ Over the last few days, she has practiced positivity, rearranging her thoughts like a chess board; instead of choosing fear and remorse, she repeated every morning, I’ve come this far; what could be worse than the last five years.

REVIEW ON MY MEMOIR CRADLE OF CRIME-A DAUGHTER’S TRIBUTE

January 30, 2024March 29, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Editorial Reviews.

This a refreshing, wonderful story in the fact that I got to see the unfolding of Allen Smiley and Ben Siegel’s story through the eyes of Allen Smiley’s daughter. I got to see the point of view of someone who personally knew Allen Smiley, the other side of him: the family man and her reactions to discovering her father’s past, secrets, and how people viewed her father and the Mafia. To my delight, the author also included journals and files relating to the criminal speculations of Ben Siegel’s murder which helped shape the book’s framework. I felt like a detective myself as I read through the story and found out more and more about her father’s other life.

MENTAL WOWS AND BOWS

December 30, 2023January 6, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

May 10th 2017–FROM MY JOURNAL

Greta got into bed early and started watching Feud, a new series about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, played by Jessica Lang and Susan Sarandon. The film etches overcoming a middle-aged woman’s obstacles in life: men, finances, rejection, and loneliness.

A knocking at the door, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to see anyone.’

“Police, open up.” You couldn’t cut her tension with a semi-truck head-on. She opened the door to five male Policeman and a Medic.

“ Greta we are here because someone is very concerned about your welfare. I understand you made a reference to taking your own life.”

“ Who called you? It was Aaron right?”

“Yes. He said you made a remark that disturbed him and he wanted us to check on you. Did you say you wanted to take your own life?”

“Not in the way he interpreted. I’m not going to commit suicide I just need a break from tortuous gaslighting.”

” Who is gaslighting you?”

” My ex-partner of thirty-five years and his demonic girlfriend.

“How can you resolve this?”

“I don’t know, I’m trapped.” Then I noticed they were not convinced.

“I think you should come with us for an evaluation.”

“No, that’s not necessary, Really, look at me. I’m enjoying a movie. ” Greta got back on the bed in a gesture of defiance.

“We think it is.” We have an ambulance out front.

“What? Oh God. No, I’m not going.”

“You don’t have a choice. It won’t take long, if the Physiatrist thinks you are not in danger they’ll release you.”

“I’m not going in the ambulance.”

“Okay, you can ride with me in the patrol car.”

“Well, let me put on some lipstick. A girl can’t go to the Psychiatric Ward without lipstick.”’ They smiled, and in her pajamas and robe, she slid down into the back seat of the Patrol car avoiding neighbors’ observance.

The ward was a take-off of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. One woman was shaking and mumbling herself out of a drug withdrawal, the nurses were telling jokes, one man was in a hospital gown striding up and down the corridor, talking to himself and Greta seated on a chair watched. In the distance, she recognized Lally, a potential renter of her home.

” Lally, can you come over a minute?”

“ How are you? What’s going on?”

“ Oh God, I said the wrong thing to a friend, and he called 911.”

“ I’m sorry to hear that. Are you here for evaluation?”

“Yeah, can you do it?”

“ No, I’m assisting in another department. Don’t worry… I’ll talk to the Physiatrist so you get through quickly. It’ll be fine. Just wait here.”

I thanked him and ten minutes later I was led into a private room with bars on the bed. A nurse took my vitals, then a Doctor asked a few questions like,’ What day is it?’ and then she left without adding anything very comforting. Another knock on the open door and a petite female tiptoed in. She infused sincerity and concern into that bleak sanitary room, and I opened up the story from start to finish. She used expression, voice, and patience to keep me talking. She didn’t inflame the rage against Dodger, she suggested I find counseling and asserted that I was indeed in a very traumatic situation. ‘ I will call the the department supervisor and suggest you be released.’

The six hours Greta was in the hospital centered on the absence of a phone call or email from Dodger. Aaron must have told him to get the address. It’s about two am and Greta is thinking about her birthday; another sort of ménage of meaning, she feels like ten years have passed rather than one. Another doctor came in and released Greta, with a promise to call for counseling. She slipped into a cab in her pajamas and went home. Never had been so terrified of losing control.

The next afternoon brightened when Audrey showed up with roses, champagne, a gift basket, and a happy birthday balloon. She sang the entire birthday song and danced around Greta as she opened the gifts.

“It is a big deal! I always was taught to celebrate friends’ birthdays with everything,” her smile remained and Greta’s surfaced. She told her the story of the previous night and Audrey just sat there, eyes widened like two camera lenses, and told her. “I know you would never commit suicide.‘ She cradled Greta as they walked downtown for dinner. One of her gifts was five hundred dollars. Greta was so stunned she tried to return it, but Audrey blatantly resisted. At our dining table, she waved at guests and waiters with her long arms, “It’s her birthday.” She reminded Greta of her childhood when her father hired magicians and clowns to entertain at her parties. Greta felt sensationally spoiled, and that’s not always an indulgence, sometimes it is the only path to joy. The end of the evening placed her in front of Facebook where friends posted birthday wishes. It was a blessed day and a reminder that she is loved. Aaron was trying to help, and Greta felt his concern with appreciation. There is no replacement to cure your mental doubts than a visit to the Physiatriscat Ward.

Six years later, upright, achieved, and grateful for that day.

OF MICE AND WOMAN

December 9, 2023December 9, 2023 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

In the mood for pasta tonight, a few hits of green chili to flavor fest the marina, shrimp, garlic, and heaps of asiago cheese, yes sounds good. One step into the kitchen, and there on the electric stove burner is a mouse … I screamed, did you hear me? Then I stomped my feet and it lowered back into the passageway.

” I need emergency treatment, you won’t believe what I just saw,” The receptionist at Pest Control, replied, it sounded like she may be smiling.

” What?”

” A mouse found his way up to the stovetop grill, I mean not all the way, half his body was visible! ” She chuckled, for a full minute.

” I’m more afraid of mice than bears, foxes, or anything. I know it sounds irrational but I didn’t grow up here. “

” Well, let’s get you scheduled… let’s see now, we can get there on Thursday next week.”

” I cannot go in the kitchen..”

” Gee, I am sorry. I noticed that we were there in March of this year.”

“Yes, nine-hundred dollars here! You won’t charge me for this next visit.”

” Well, let me see what I can do.”

Enter, Gary, with a toolbox, and a howdy doody kind of introduction. He appeared as interested in ridding mice as I do shoveling snow. He’s going to retire soon, he says as he pokes around the kitchen, points to the openings, talks some more about retiring, and applies a bit of killer foam behind the stove.

He sets a few traps in the basement as I watch and snap photos.

” Are there any dead ones in the traps from last time?”

” Sure, I see two.”

“Okay, I’ll be upstairs.”

I covered all the stovetop grills with pot tops, ordered disinfectant, and covered every counter with paper towels. I went out to dinner for the next week, feeding on grilled sandwiches and soup. More sightings and drips of mouse visits provoked a second call to Family Pest. They sent out another treatment expert. Gary shuffled in, forty years younger than the previous technician.

My friend JoMarie who is Martha Stewart without a TV show told me to place pine cones dressed with cinnamon. So I listened.

” Mice are difficult, they slip through a fingernail-wide opening.”

“Well, then let’s foam up all those fingernails.”

” I’ll set some traps downstairs. I will move the stove out and see if there is an opening.”

He pulled it out, and alas, a five-by-five opening into the basement.

“ I have to have this blocked off right?”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea, we don’t do that.”

” I figured.”

The next call went to a carpenter, he showed up and hammered in sheetrock as he talked about his six kids. He is twenty-four, I tried to do the math, maybe it’s a sympathy card. He agreed to take care of five more repairs in the house and charged me modestly.

A week later after three canceled appointments I crossed his name off the list and explored more carpenters on the web. This will be the seventh I called. Paul showed up, speaking amicably, obliging, harp-like voice and, ready to work. That was two weeks ago, he said he had a bad cold. I’ve read about Lazy Girl Jobs, but carpenters and handymen? Half the population in my village are in the trades so I’m miffed. Utube is not going to teach me how to drywall ceilings, replace a window, box in a pipe, or bring down heavy antique furniture from the attic down thirty stairs without falling down, and most likely on a mouse.

I’m an elf who spends her days writing, translating legal documents, and fussing over the unfixed. I’d rather be monitoring sunshine, waves, surfers, and seagulls… until then, home away from home are adventures in livingness. DEL MAR, CA.

ADAPTATION-HOME AWAY FROM HOME.

December 2, 2023January 1, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Sunlight seeps through the glass window and tickles the silk flowers, autumn leaves left over from the last street clean-up, lay flat and lifeless.

The street is silent this weekend, the neighbors with three high-pitched voluminous barking dogs are gone, and I notice my shoulders softened from the daily dose of their irritation. The neighbors are tucked indoors, avoiding the freezing atmospheric clutch of winter. In the village, it is Shop Local weekend so I took a walk and stopped at one of the gift shops. A mirage of unrelated items from chocolate bars to errings, tai die dresses, and scented candles crusaded side by side. The owner repeated her lines, ‘ I represent eighty-one New York artists so if you have any questions, no question is refused.’ Feeling brave I asked, What is the meaning of life?’ The result was not what I expected, she did not respond, and the other shoppers, maybe two chuckled. Time to move on.

Rarely do I run into anyone I know, my circle here is a half-circle of acquaintances. The next stop is the Social Club where my curious humor is appreciated.

” Jackie! She just started a few weeks ago. At first interaction, this twenty-something woman avoided conversation, not even a smile. After a few sips of a Manhattan, I pulled out my mini perfume sample.

” Do you like this?” she sniffed, I watched.

” Oh, I love this, What kind?“

” Tom Ford Noir.”

“I Love Tom Ford, he’s so expensive.“

That’s why I buy the body spray, sixteen ounces, forty dollars. I’d rather turn the heat down than go without perfume.”

At that moment, we leaped into gal pals. The Social Club serves up exotic cocktails, irresistible tacos, and an assortment of soups and salads, my kind of table setting. Horace the Bar Manager wears a beret and is always somewhat distracted by his list of duties. He moves behind a narrow back bar pathway as if he is power walking, and always greets me with a genuine ‘How are you LouLou!’.

I meet a cluster of female bar-friendly women, who invite me into their festive fiasco of celebration for one reason or another. We may never see each other again, but the moments count. Sometimes we exchange emails or phone numbers. The adverse effects of alcohol are sometimes diminished for undiluted expression.

I’m learning to understand upstate New Yorkers, their resilience to extreme climate, limited source of funds, pragmatic decisions, family comes first foundation, and quizzical curiosity when they learn I moved from San Diego to purchase a Victorian rental property in Ballston Spa, ‘ Why did you do that?’ I answered, ‘ I fell in love with the quaintness and the house.’ Still visibly unconvinced, I wonder if they think I’m in hiding or avoiding some criminal offense. I’ve not met one person from San Diego, Los Angeles, or Santa Fe, NM in three years. Maybe if I dressed in Pendleton or Northface, I wouldn’t stand out.

On another night, in desperate craving for French Fries, I stopped at Henry’s Pub. The man next to me opened the conversation,

“You’re not from here are you?”

” What gave me away?”

” The way you dress, it’s a nice jacket.”

” I just wear what’s in the closet, urban clothes I suppose.”

” That’s cool. Where are you from?”

” Los Angeles.“

” I’ve never been there, I’m planning a trip to Hawaii, my first time.” He outlined a history of why now, breaking up with his girlfriend, and then he jump-started into a conversation about needing a haircut. This went on for some time, although he was almost shaved. Then he went onto his beard. I listened attentively, imitating interest because he needed to talk, and I knew that feeling so well. Sometimes conversation is not what we need but what the other person needs.

LONERS, SOLO, RECLUSIVE, still human.

November 25, 2023November 25, 2023 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Thanksgiving seeps into a day of light and dark, like a trajectory of blissful silence transitioning to watching the Macy’s Parade, then dancing around my bedroom to old-school hip-hop. Internally feeling more adept than last year, the solitude and absence of friends didn’t snake rattle me, it was more like a day of moving effortlessly between desires without contemplation or sorrow. As the year ends, the comparison of achievements and digressions seemed to evoke a visceral epiphany. I’ve always preferred less chaos and crowds to intimate gatherings, and being alone. Looking in the internal mirror, the reflection released a liberation of abasement, it is who I am, and if refusal of this characteristic triumphs, I will never feel self-affirmation.

Without that, life is an interior war.

I snapped this off a film, I cannot recall which one.

ROSH HASHANAH 2023.

September 16, 2023 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

VULNERABLE…. weakness and emotionally exposed, failure. Otherwise the moment of courage to rise and understand our fragility without self-degrading,. Excerpt from Rabbi at Temple Ebet Emeth.