SOLITUDE will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are mystified by either too much or not enough solitude.
ย I contest what seems endless solitude with my Irish Russian temper, condemning irritants like: street noise, absence of friends, short-tempered customer service reps, world news, and mindless tasks. The fever dulled after the first ice, rain, and snow, and mindfulness triumphed. I imagined my basement of survival would sink. It did not. There is an inner exploration happening, unfolding like spreading new sheets on my bed, that solitude has befriended me all my life. In the best of times and the tedious. I have to find the frolic and follies in the world that I created. I have to laugh alone so I watch screwball comedies, seek humor of my irregularities; wearing a sweater inside out, pouring coffee into a wine glass for a cocktail, and chuckling up and down the staircase, because I keep forgetting where I left my phone. My head is elsewhere daydreaming. Iโve learned how to repair house calamities; unscrew windows, seal up cracks, fix clogged drains, replace air vents, read the meters, and rejuvenate every wood board, handle, chair, and table with Old English Oil. As one pal commented on a visit to the house, ‘ It’s a perfect day for Old English! The winter forecast is blizzardy and full of warnings I havenโt experienced here; and how can I complain when half of Upstate New York is buried in ten feet of snow. The end of the day pleasure comes in the kitchen; my heart and spirit melt while stirring my weekly gumbo, stew, or casserole while listening to Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, and swing music. Winter is a funnel that strips the trees and branches and lets us see through the forest and ourselves.
It is the Kentucky Derby and Cinco De Mayo weekend at La Posada. Kristen from the hotel said I should go; it would be fun. Sheโs a feisty young woman with clear, penetrating blue eyes and silky brown hair. Youth dances in her expressions; other times, it wilts from being locked down to an indoor job. Sheโs an adventurer who camps out in Belize and South America. Now, sheโs talking about Antigua.
I walked out to the courtyard to see what was going on. The tables werenโt set up yet, but the Donkey stood idly and annoyed at the other end of the yard. I donโt know why they bring him, maybe for the kids. In the bar, a few guests were watching the Derby. The elan of race anticipation is shining like a light. I ordered a Mint Julep, and the guys were all watching as Dude whipped it up with finesse.
โ How is it?โ Dude asked without needing any approval.
โ Magical. Who are you betting on? Greta asked.
โI want a Titty Tut, something nasty.โ
โ Oh, stop that. You do it too much.โ She replied.
โ Not nearly enough! Okay, hereโs my horseโPromises Fulfilled. Oh yes, thatโs mine.โ
โ Everything you say is a metaphor for sex.โ
โ You bet it is.โ Whoโs your pick?โ
โ My prick is Justify.โ
โHah, see, now you get it.โ
I sipped my drink and wandered around the lobby, stopping to greet Jackie, Monserrat, and Danielle. They donโt know what their smiles and caring comments do for me. I must tell them more often.
โ I donโt know what Iโd do without all of you.โTo be continued.
Adventures in livingness aren’t just about extroversion, what we say, how we behave, or how we respond. More importantly, they are about our inner changes when life demands that from us. No one hears what threads are spoken in our heads, the ones that are flawed from indecisiveness, the ones that have been molded from things long past, the new threads that are unfamiliar, and the ones we need to rip out entirely.ย
Today is the day to stop punishing myself and outlive what has aborted my adventures in livingness.
No longer incubate to avoid disappointment, irritations, chaos, uncertainty, and senseless fear. I’m not alone, and you’re not alone. Friends of marvelous careers and lifestyles admit the same. We remain at home, where comfort, familiarity, control, and sustainability are our foundation.
No longer! Debasing my flaws, failures, and finicky flashes, manage them like I’m preparing dinner. If the pasta isn’t fabulous, I don’t go into a fit of failure.
I no longer will have apprehension and anxiety when buyers arrive to tour my home. The great philosophers advised me on Facebook that anxiety never solves problems.
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.ย ย My theme is unbalanced; I take the extreme path instead of the path with arrows.ย It is why writing settles my sea-saw.ย 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!ย ย The sedate and quiet surroundings relieve my spinning head, and I just continue to sit and not fidget.ย ย
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.ย 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. ย This street is part of my theme;ย 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.ย If we feel the chord of festivity,ย we should not hold back.ย I am going out now to see ifย I can feel more.ย ย
Sunday October 20,ย
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.
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.
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 donโt 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.
โ Why are you keeping them? I assume youโve read them.โ
” No, I have a lot of photography books I’ haven’t opened once. “
โ 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.
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 everyoneโs 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, โIโm just a regular guy.โ
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 startthe first in a series of historical perspectives.
“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.ย
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 3RD 2024EXCERPTโFROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS
ย .
ย 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. โ I am so sorry for you both.’ He thanked her and then sealed his tรชte-ร -tรชte 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 weekโs 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. โ โOh, for the love of God, I left it at the tavern. How humiliating. Maybe Iโll find it in the morning.โ 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.
This a refreshing, wonderful story in the fact that I got to see the unfolding of Allen Smiley and Ben Siegelโs story through the eyes of Allen Smileyโs 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 fatherโs 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 Siegelโs murder which helped shape the bookโs framework. I felt like a detective myself as I read through the story and found out more and more about her fatherโs other life.
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.’
โPolice, open up.โ You couldn’t cut her tension with a semi-truck head-on. She opened the door to five male Policeman and a Medic.
โ Greta we are here because someone is very concerned about your welfare. I understand you made a reference to taking your own life.โ
โ Who called you? It was Aaron right?โ
โYes. 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?โ
“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?”
โI donโt know, Iโm trapped.โ Then I noticed they were not convinced.
โI think you should come with us for an evaluation.โ
โNo, thatโs not necessary, Really, look at me. Iโm enjoying a movie. ” Greta got back on the bed in a gesture of defiance.
โWe think it is.โ We have an ambulance out front.
โWhat? Oh God. No, Iโm not going.โ
โYou donโt have a choice. It wonโt take long, if the Physiatrist thinks you are not in danger theyโll release you.โ
โIโm not going in the ambulance.โ
โOkay, you can ride with me in the patrol car.โ
“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 Cuckooโs 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?”
โ How are you? Whatโs going on?โ
โ Oh God, I said the wrong thing to a friend, and he called 911.”
โ Iโm sorry to hear that. Are you here for evaluation?โ
โYeah, can you do it?โ
โ No, I’m assisting in another department. Don’t worry… I’ll talk to the Physiatrist so you get through quickly. Itโll be fine. Just wait here.โ
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. Itโs about two am and Greta is thinking about her birthday; another sort of mรฉnage 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.
โIt is a big deal! I always was taught to celebrate friends’ birthdays with everything,โ 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.‘โShe 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, โItโs her birthday.โ She reminded Greta of her childhood when her father hired magicians and clowns to entertain at her parties. Greta felt sensationally spoiled, and thatโs 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 felthis 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.
LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 