Three days later: The door is locked now, it will pop open now and then, in my interior rearview mirror. My secret can only be revealed after mounds of trust have been sifted and sealed. The former LouLou trusted, effortlessly, so the truth is I cannot behave that way anymore. Or can I?
It is the most destabilizing force of emotion to accept I trusted someone who betrayed our thirty-five year “Huckleberry Friend” song. I don’t know how anyone else adapts to this. I’m kinda staring out the window, like a cat staring at an unreachable mouse. When I’m in this mood I listen to Bobby Darin and Tony Bennett, I’m a bleeding nostalgic.ย Photo Credit Philip Townsend. ” London in the Swinging Sixties.” 
Category: 60 YEARS OLD
AN ADOLESCENT ADULT
Remember when you opened the door to your own car and took hold of the steering wheel without any parental supervision.
As a teen, my Chevrolet Impala was a haven away from my father. I rolled all the windows down, turned the volume up on the radio, and smoked. My secret joy was hoping the driver next to me would hear the music and notice me. If he was a suitable face I turned around and bobbed my head. Then, just as he looked over at me, I turned away, and looked in the rearview mirror, or sang my heart out to show off brazen behavior, the kind I couldn’t express at home.
There was a sense of freedom from examination and explanation. When I drove my spinning Impala that leaped over road bumps in three waves, I was going somewhere alone.
ย It was the only self-contained space my father wasn’t attached to, and he didn’t like driving with me, because he didn’t like me being in control. That is the sensation that life brings to us in volumes as teens; explosions of discovery. Today I donโt experience that sweat of discovery; my life is deodorized.
Remembering the sensations I felt as a teenager, reminds me to intertwine more challenges, sports, mental and academic thought into emotional adventures. If Iโm lucky to break through all the percentages of disease, that the late night commercials warn me off, the edge of my rhythm is asking me to make a commitment; to put the Bo’ Jangles back in my steps. I heard the voice yesterday, almost a whisper, asking me why I exclude long term commitments: joining groups, classes, associations, serving on committees, planning ahead, even magazine subscriptions are not worth the trouble because I am always planning on moving.
The answer always comes in the photographs that bring back that moment in time, and the immediate recollection of the internal places I moved from venturing into the unknown.
Many years ago, I was in therapy, and in one discussion, this discourse occurred that I considered an awakening then.
โI think you jump into unknown places, and situations, to test yourself, and you do that because that is what your father did most of his life.โ
That is what adolescent behavior is meant for, to learn by experiment, to see how far our strength of character will take us.ย We each have a different set of alarms and temptations. Why compare what one has to the other? My path is familiar to me, I am a born mistress of unfamiliarity; the quest for discovery keeps me moving.
As a teenager, I remember the most remarkable configuration of images, that passed by while I was driving, the faces of shopping mothers walking the streets of Beverly Hills and Westwood, the prostitutes positioned along one section of Sunset Boulevard, and their counterpart degenerate gin-soaked soul mates inched up against abandoned buildings, the Ocean Park joggers, and walkers, and picnickers, waving to each other, as they slapped together hard boiled egg and tuna sandwiches. Like a playroom without walls for Europeansโ and senior citizens to elope with each other. I didnโt favor one street life over another, they all made sense to me.
Living in the Northeast calls your pragmatic and sensible strings. I’m still learning how to tame my lust for unpreparedness; like going out without an umbrella, leaving delicate brick a brac on the porch, driving with caution for deer, rabbits, and turtles, maintaining a close eye on water in the basement,and dressing down so I don’t look like I’m from Los Angeles.ย Every day is experimental in some way.ย I don’t know how long I’ll be here, maybe that is how I like it. With every intention on writing about living in a village of five thousand, surrounded by forests and fields, my pen of expression is a bit too wobbly to publish. I’ve had this post up for editing all week, and it’s not a new one. Most of it was published in 2011. Is that cheating? ย ย ย
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FOLLOWING ME ON WORDPRESS
It’s the hour of dinner and listening to A Man & A Woman soundtrack like I do every night and I thought of you. Your likes and loves and comments, that come to me when I post, does what WordPress strived for: a message, I’m here. Now, the amusing rainbow to this;ย you are following someone who doesn’t and never has known where she is going. Truly, I dive into dry pools, imagining there is water. My soul sees honesty where there is betrayal, my heart feels love when there is jealously, my body dances when no one else is dancing. Thanks to you all for being on my screen when I am screaming. I love you! The photo is from a New Years in Santa Fe, NM, can’t remember which one! But I had a lot of fun.
PART TWO: DIVINE DIANE
PART TWO
The summer I dropped out of college I lived with Dad for six months. I’d saved enough to get my own apartment. Calling on a few childhood friends to get together, brought Diane. When I told her I was looking for an apartment, she suggested we roommate a two bedroom. Diane was at USC and my father had complete trust and admiration for her, he loved the idea. When Diane told her Mother, she recalled the story to me on the phone.
She said, “You know her father’s a gangster, you won’t be safe!”
Diane responded, “I’ll be safer with him around!” Her mother conceded.
We found a place on Clark Avenue right off Melrose. Diane brought the living room furniture, a daisy darling sofa and the apartment was transformed. She was in charge of the utilities and made perfect notations on paper of my half. I loved her for that, because she knew I would ignore them! She was teaching me, and cautioned me a few days ahead of the bill date. In my mind, we were opposites that complemented one another. Although, I can’t recall what I taught Diane.
We stayed a year, I moved into Westwood and she got married. Over the last thirty or is it forty years, we find each other. I feel like I’m twenty-five when we’re together. She has a down to earth practical connection to life, where I use abstraction and risk. Those are the ones who make up, our cradle of our friends.
ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS- LA.
- The exhilaration and expectations of stepping out of one grid, of eighty thousand people in Santa Fe, NMย to one million people in Los Angeles is something I didn’t really think out, it was more like, I’m going home, to Tara.ย
Santa Fe slow as a rippling stream manifests when I’m at a yellow light, and I think the driver behind me is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t get through before it turns red. How serious, overly stimulated, exhausted and determined the Angels of Angeles evolved.ย Either you are so rich you don’t have time to say hello, or you are struggling with loneliness and can’t wait to say hello. When I lived here in the eighties and early nineties, the vibe felt in social arenas; Hollywood, technology, the arts, and real estate were promising ventures of investment. People in the know were opening shops in ungentrified neighborhoods, warehouse space was scraping the horizon downtown,ย real estate was affordable, and technology wasn’t the flag we saluted, it was more like we’re in real time paradise.
Century City, very close to my front door, is a memory. My father lived on Century Park East in the last few years of his life. He didn’t like it because it was all concrete, newly built, it didn’t have a history.ย Now when I drive into the satellite ofย HIGH RISES,ย mall music, billboards, shops, and cafes, I know what he means. It is changed, rushing executives, employees, shoppers, a pace that makes one slower feel extradited. ย ย 
Then the parking, you will need a ticket to park, a parking pass, or you will have to circle the block four times before you find a parking space.ย The line outside the restaurant is too long, or not long enough, the business of dining here is a mouthful of expectation. The business owner of a shop sells me what I did not come in to buy, and the sales pitch is like a Hollywood script, and I’ don’t know the language.ย The wait for the Doctor is two months, and that’s if he takes your insurance, which I found out in California has very few Medicare physicians.ย If someone does speak to you, you can’t hear them because there is so much construction noise,ย pulsating bass music in surround sound, you find yourself shouting.
Flip the coin. The day after I landed a woman walked up to me and said, ” Oh, you just moved in, I’m Barbara, I’m at 1203 welcome to the neighborhood.”
We walked together with her little Boo dog.ย She asked questions, and I answered because she was that kind of person you want to talk to, she soothes, applauds, and comforts all in tune with your admissions.ย The next few days as I awaited my furniture, she glided by, and we continued our life stories, some from the past, some of the moment. My first friend materialized, like a new moon in a new city.ย 
IN LA, because of the immeasurable density, people are always close by, not a foot between us. Itโs the life here, it’s not the LA I remember, but it is home.ย So, like family, I am learning to accept and stay individual.
BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME.
RELOCATIONย isn’t just about the physical exertion of packing, and unpacking,ย I’m learning On the 4th of July my transport from Santa Fe, NM to the city of Angels, ended in the late afternoon as I pulled up in front of a new place to call home. ย Fireworks beginning, palm trees rippling, dogs barking, and sirens escalating, all a safe distance from my front door.ย Noise in Santa Fe is Church Bells, bad-ass guys on motorcycles and an occasional siren. First step to ‘when in LA,’ block out the noise or turn up your head set-by the way everyone is strapped to a headphone. I noticed this phenomena on the few trips I’d made to LA while deciding if I should move back after twenty-five years. ย 
As I entered the 1940s period bungalow for the first time all was very familiar. Thirty five years ago I lived in the same compound. Mine was across the common garden area, but the floor plan is the same with a built-in vanity, windows on every wall but one,ย fireplace, and a small kitchen. It’s like a doll house, four-hundred square feet. The landlordย delivered a newness to it withย freshly painted walls, polished wood floors, and a spotless kitchen and bathroom. I set my luggage down, took a shower and bounced.ย
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I headed for Westwood Village, where I spent years eight through thirteen.ย I remember the Dog House, Mario’s, Fedway, Capezio, Bullocks and Desmonds where I worked one summer in Women’s Apparel. The best of all was Ships. My gang used to go there for breakfast in our pajamas to celebrate one of our birthdays. The Village is so close toย my defining history, why I ended up there and why I left. We lived on Hilgard in what was then called the The Hilgard House, a microcosm of modern living in a new hi-rise with a pool. It was like living with a family; unguarded neighbors that knew my name, a Fred McMurray type Building Manager, a few famous actress’s, and me, one of four or five blossoming teenagers.
I drove past the renovated building now condominiums renting for seventeen times what I expect my mother paid in 1962. The neighborhood hasn’t been gentrified! It is stillย a quaint collection of Mediterranean and Mission style homes and four-flex’s.
I stopped in front of the second Hamburger Hamlet location, now Skylight. ย It took about five minutes to decide I’m going to love this first experience in Los Angeles.ย On the 4th the restaurant was empty, the room exposed and free of human camouflage. The brick walls remained, giving off some whiff of history and the rest of the room was finished in youthful coziness.ย Coming from Santa Fe, a city of minor extravagances, the two mirrored lit up bars, stacked with more choices of liquor than what I know existed is my focal point.
” Hi, how you doing? Do you know what you’d like to drink?”
” Well looking at the selection, what do you suggest?”
” What do you like?”
” Wine, white wine by the glass.”
“That’s easy.”
They don’t have as many wines as they do Bourbons, so I ordered Sonoma Cutrer and a seafood pasta dish.
” I grew up here, right here in the village.”
“No way, that’s cool. I’ve met a few guests who lived here a long time ago and they tell me stories.”
” What happened to Westwood? Last time I was here, around the late nineties, it was really depreciated and unkept.ย It looks better now, but not completed you know?”
” Yeah, Westwood went through some really hard times. We opened this a few years ago, and now more restaurants are coming in.”
” So you’re busy during the week?”
” Oh yeah, we get a lot of businessmen, and some students, you should come back and check it out”
” I will, it has an openness about it, room to move.”
I was the only customer until the staff’s friends showed up to have a party of their own. The high-kickers in mini shorts, and skimpy tops, they were cute, like cut-outs from a magazine.ย I’d been on the road all day, and skipped the meals, so when the seafood pasta arrived, not only was the dish plentiful, it was deliciously fresh and spicy.
After dinner, I strolled along Westwood Boulevard, in a cube of surrealism, the homeless man hunched over his life remains in garbage bags, a Security Guard in front of an abandoned storefront, students striding along as their phones lead them,ย What happened to Westwood? Why are the store displays bland and conventional, street art,ย vendors and performers absent? The unmistakable sense of abandonment piqued my curiosity so I drove around the neighborhood, simmering in the memories of my gang.ย What a utopian place to go through puberty; the College boys spilled out after classes and we waited to see them, on Saturdays we’d meet at the UCLA cafeteria and test our flirting finesse.ย We spread out on skateboards along Weyburn and Westwood Boulevard flexing our budding egos and breasts. They are the flagship years of my life, maybe that’s why I came home, to flex my bruised ego and budding independence.
When I laid my body down on a blanket, with fireworks as my backdrop, it was like a celebratory musical overture to a new beginning. The painfully hard wood floor slapped the idiocy of not bringing foam or a sleeping bag. I’ll buy a bed tomorrow and my furniture will arrive Friday. The first night faraway from my La Posada de Santa Fe Hotel family, friends, my old Discovery SUV, my house, my cat, and my best friend who initiated the change is not in my head! To be continued.
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COMING OF AGE AT SIXTY-SOMETHING
Iย don’t know at what age reasoning and understanding took over daydreaming, was it in my thirties?ย No, fifties. No sixties, no; this week.ย The time of change without my someone to guide me, map out the course, and hold my hand when I take the wrong turn is here.
In a few weeks, I’m leaving Santa Fe, heading west, to Los Angeles, my home that hasn’t been home for twenty five years. This leap of change came about after I decided to leave Santa Fe, where to go was easy, back home for a refresher course in metropolitan living. Some time soon I’ll write about Santa Fe, the land of entrapment.ย I looked it up on google, its not a tin-pan myth, the force of gravity here is like a wave you can’t swim at your own pace. Nature in New Mexico is the ruler, mankind just passes through. To describe it should be left a mystery. If you feel the draw to Santa Fe, do it, there is a reason.
I wonder if I left a mark. Ifย someone years from now will remember Gallery LouLou, or the Wild West Vacation Home, or just where Rudy and Loulou live. It doesn’t matter does it? I remember.
Packing is also unpacking; everything I did, bought, wrote, or wore is in the house, so as I pack up what to take, I leave behind the collapsed friendships, fortunes of moments inked in my head, like letters that play the past.ย Four years ago I was ready to leave,ย maybe longer, a force much more powerful than I, said, no, not yet. Justย as the dice lined up, the tables turned against me. I thought I’d lose everything.ย A year and a half later I’m a few days away from the road trip to Westwood, where I was raised.
When I arrived in Santa Fe in 2007, I felt powerful, focused and determined. Now as I close the door, I feel humbled, like a wild animal whose been fed just enough to keep going.ย That has not been one of my strongest points as I am constantly pulling out new canvases to caress, and forget to say, thank you for the meal.
The door to relocation propelled me to trade in my car for a convertible coup, sell or give away and now I’m taping up the boxes of Santa Fe memories to take with me to the next adventure in livingness. To be continued.
THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER IS…
SEASONAL AND SENSUAL OVERTURE TO REVERIE.
SUMMER is not a memory yet; my skin too sensitive, and my heart still attached to the moments.ย Iโve misplaced my journals and so I have to read my to-do list to recall the events. ย Letโs go back to June; well my headย was bent like a candle wick in this memoir. By then I was into the first rewrite, the worst of the next ten. That first one is deceivingly promising, the chapters line up, the suspense tickled, and it was five-hundred pages. ย The first draft was actually two books, as I dared to try and run the 100 meter in two different directions.
I must have had some standout memories, but I donโ recall June being amusing.ย Writing about my deceased parents was not summer reading.ย A year had already passed since I began, and I was now at the last stretch.ย My sense of completion was annoying.ย I began to hate the word focus. My body ached for water, in any form, a pool, a river, and the ocean.ย June was also the month when rejection letters arrived. ย For a moment, Iโd forgotten. Whoa! Stay away from LouLou, her nerves are visible! On the flip, it was also acceptance of those letters.ย I had to prove to myself that I could take it, and continue writing.
Outside my window, Palace Avenue raised to motorcycles, skateboarders, conversational bicycle riders, and families out for a walk. My concentration was beguiled. ย So I turned on the fan, the loud kind that screens the room in a hum. ย I tried to imagine as waves just after they have capitulated into bubbles.
Memorial weekend was gemstone sunlit of color and clarity.ย Iโd decided to break and go to a party at La Posada.ย Yes, that was my first grasp of summer, the sudden appearance of flowers, greenness of the landscape, flowers, and light. I think it was warm enough to sit outdoors all night.ย We were not yet ready to kick and scream, it was more of a real memorial kind of party.ย For our troops who finally are reaching us through the news, the films, and the books.
Most every evening Iโd walk across the street to La Posada, have a glass of wine while listening to the chattering guests, age-out themselves by immobilizing a very liberated and young spirit. Itโs a beautiful sight. Most people in my experience, come to Santa Fe and strip 
down to vulnerable. They invite conversation and are genuinely interested. I am asked, ‘What’s it like living in Santa Fe?’ย To be continued.
IT’S UNLIKE ANY OTHER CITY I’VE EXPERIENCE.Dย It’s called the city different, it is also the city difficult.ย She ( I see Santa Fe in the feminine gender)ย has to be treated gently. Herย weather patterns resemble a menopausal woman,her stature demands respect, and she can be congenial and patient.
You can walk this city as if it were a neighborhood. If you do that consistently you’ll meet people, and get to know them. Unless you’re like me, a standoffish fast walker dazed by the outdoors.
If you’re dazed and illusional you can master this city very well, as the drowsy pace and cordiality allow freakishย freedom.ย I ‘ve seen the liberating soul of Santa Fe,ย teenagers racing down the middle of a commercial street one foot on the skateboard, bad-ass bikers talking with bad-ass cops, women with parrots on their shoulder, dogs in baby carriages, cats in a bag, and women on horseback galloping up Palace Avenue.
At night you’ll see raging midnight ramblers dancing on the sidewalk, and all of this is appealing to an LA transplant.ย I have driven in my robe, danced in the street and broken the heels on most of my shoes because of the pot-holes. They are always working on a street, but never the sidewalks. I ‘ve been bounced out of the locals night-howl El Farol for accidently pushingย a dancer, who knew the manager, who came running after me and took down my license plate.
So many of us are loners, the serious kind, that have to be rigged out of our nests.ย Luckily I live on a commercial street and have no choice but to be commercially friendly. After nine years, my seasonal behavior is obvious: sprite in summer, blissful in fall, giddy in spring, and withdrawan in winter. I’ve learned patience, understanding, and adopted a mixture of cultural traditions. I’m close to fifty percent certain I’ll miss Santa Fe terribly when I do leave.
Has living in Santa Feย given me more than I’ve given back?ย Yes, it has and that’s why when I’m asked what’s it like living in Santa Fe, I try to reveal the blessings here and not the bullshit.ย 
PUSHING POETRY
Iโm reminding myself to write more poetry.
DOUBLE VISION 1996. ย ย I was empty pocketed then. 
Neckties choking thin men with beepers
I want to strip the needles pricking inside their ambition
Stone the waxed smiles spitting false promises
Shatter the pointed arrogance
Wrapped in crisp bills
Inside brand wallets
Strapped on trendy trousers
Driven by rovers and jeeps
Never been on life’s edge
Save the Artist
Who wears his life holy
Waiting for the moments to create
Starved from meat and wine
Sits on a ray of light
Enraptured
FRIENDS
ย
A VERY CLOSE FRIEND that trades you in for a step up the ladder, to improve their bank statement is unjustified malice. This is the most disappointing of all adventures in livingness. At my age, I am still adapting to this egregious consciousness.ย How do we all get through the maze of life’s obstacles?ย FRIENDS ANDย FAMILY. Your pet loves you, your home and garden blooms, your car runs because you service it, your teeth don’t fall out because you go to the dentist but REAL FRIENDS HAVE YOUR BACK.
Thank you to all of my friends that are in my cradle of LIFE.ย ย I am sensitive and Im proud!.
life.
Sojourn in Europe
Intersections between mid-late-lifeย adults with youth; anyone under the age of forty is an adventure in livingness.ย ย I remember strangers thatย counseled; passed on a prized preface to life.
It was my first solo trip to Europe.ย Emboldened with the freedoms in every cupboard of life: abandoned career, home, and possessions I lived out of a suitcase for about a year. Three of those months were in Ireland, France, and Italy.
I was dining in Venice, alone, down to coupon crushing finances and no interest in going back to the USA.ย The rise to relocate plunged a new view ; find a job in a glass foundry or a museum, and rent a little room in Venice.ย The Venetians of my age,ย artistic, independent, and humanely trusting enchanted a woman who’d been sharking San Diegoย in commercial real estate.ย I got eaten alive.ย Venice was the shore that I wanted to curl around and become fluent in Italian, learn to cook,ย and wrap a scarf.
I was standing next to a bar-bistro melting in the lustrousย conversational elan’ย when a couple in their sixties approached me.ย ย ย Theย corner of the bar waxed us in and for the next hour, thatย man changed the direction of my life.
” Yea, I knew you were American.ย Where you live?
” San Diego.”
” Oh! I’d move there if I could. ” I cannot recall where they lived other than the Midwest.
“What kind of work do you do inย San Diego?” He shouted.
“I was in commercial real estate–leasing and marketing.”
” Good for you! That’s a great career.”
” It was.ย I want to live here… in Venice
He set his wine on the counter, I remember that, and pulled at his trousers or tie, and then he said,ย “What would you do here?”
” I don’t know yet?”
” You can’t beat what you left.ย Are you crazy?”
Before I answered he continued a breathless sermon peddling the virtues of my life;ย not jumping into a fantasy, and to forget about moving to Venice.ย My referencesย to challenge, adventure and change met more opposition than I’d expected. He deplored my naivetรฉ. ย “You shouldn’t go through with it.ย San Diegoย has the best climate. It’s coming up in the world, not just a little getaway resort. If I were your father I’d bring you back myself.ย ”
They departed when his wife begged him to calm down and I returned to the evening’s allure.ย There was a scar left, an abrasion of my plan.ย Over the next few days, I met a group of Venetians, younger than me.ย After revealing my plan to live in Venice, they drew me into their group.ย I haven’t any diary of Venice, so the names and dialogue are absent. The memory is vague, a collage of framed vignettes.ย We went to a friend’s apartment, who had a spare room to rent.ย ย This friend, a young man with speedy senses whipped me around the apartment.ย He spoke English, with saucy speed, and he had more friends. By the end of the evening,ย I was tumbling in a wave of stimulation.ย It was too much too soon.ย The next week I was in Milan unknowingly colliding with Fashion Week.
After three months, my wardrobe was wasted from hem to neckline.ย My shoes:ย a pair of lace up boots,ย lace-up sandals, and flats.ย I landed in Milan at the Train station, and then where did I go? OH I remember. It was my last night with Julius;ย my traveling European Chef companion.ย We stayed at Relais & Chรขteaux, selections for three weeks.ย We dined and slept in surroundings that dubbed European film sets.ย I was dazzled and too overfed.
The last night with Julius was in a very chef gathering restaurant, busy waiters, lots of background noise; ย the place to say goodbye and not cry. After dinner, we strolled around the Piazza and window shopped.
” Look at these shoes. I’ve never seen shoes like this-not even in Beverly Hills. ” Julius chuckled at my unworldly impressionable outbursts.ย He enjoyed educating me on all things European.
” In Italy shoes are the most important part of the wardrobe.”
” You mean seriously. ” I asked.
” Oh Yes. They willย judge you by your shoes. Not every one of course, but the important types will.”
The next morning I rose to the uncertainty of traveling withoutย Julius.ย That’s when I got on a trainย headed for Annecy, France. I have no memory why Annecy, other than the couple I met at Lake Maggoire who might have suggested I visit the Southeastern part of France before going to Paris.
A MEMOIR HAS TO END book 2
The sunlight shatters the curtain-less bedroom window and burns into my eyes at daybreak. From this unsheltered spot I rise to see a pot of blue sky over the rooftops, and the expectant afternoon showers building up in the clouds. The sky is filled with crows, eagles, and magpies lingering overhead weightless and free-falling, beyond all of us caught behind electronics. The daysย filled with desert showers that drench the soil and turn the arid dry land green and lush. For this I am thankful.ย At the end of the day, I am inclined to sit in the courtyard and watch the sky manifest colors unmatched by any Dunn Edwards collection. By the time dinner is topical, I have substituted preparing food, to just snacking, This August underscores the need to sit down, to sort of bob my head to Nancy Wilson music, and do very little. I’m self publishing Cradle of Crime- My Father, Me, and the Mob.ย 
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 