I’m breaking and entering the past. I wrote this 4/26/2016 and didn’t publish it. I’m sweeping out documents to ease reviewing my folders and documents.
It is five in the morning on a Sunday. This is the time when silence is my symphony. The Aspen tree leaves on the other side of the street are turning the shade of pumpkin. It may be a very early fall. I prefer to write in the morning, very early before even the farolitos’ lights go out across the street. When I write at night self-reckoning secrets seem to seep out like drops of water from a faulty faucet. At three in the morning, there is a silly MGM musical comedy on the television. I used to watch these by the hour. I even left my office job in Westwood and drove home to my little cottage studio to watch the afternoon AMC movie. That was when I was in my 20’s. There was a draft of solitude in my room and in my soul. Those movies always made me feel better. They allowed me to cry; as I shifted my melancholy to the heroine of the movie: Betty Davis, Norma Shearer, or Susan Hayward. I’d close the drapes, make a sandwich and watch the movies. When it was over, it was an emotional whiplash to return to my stark white cubicle in an office building in Westwood.
After watching the silly musical at three in the morning, I looked over the rooftops through the living room window. Are there writers and artists stalking the rooms in the middle of winter night? Stationed beside the heater or kiva, in thick wool socks and heavy robes? Are they drinking tea to settle their thoughts or coffee to stir them up? I imagine there is another woman far away from the plains of the Southwest, in Europe or Asia who is also at a desk and writing down all that she cannot say during the day. It would be magical to know another writer awake at the same exact moment, is thinking something similar, something you save for yourself.
The secrets of a woman. One woman is thinking of a different man than the one she faces each morning. Another woman is thinking how she could never survive without the one she has. I am thinking of the continuing discovery of self. Our needs change; with season, age, and exposure to contrasting, confrontational and complex situations.
I met several women this past week, well-heeled international travelers, on the road with enterprising spirit. They’ve lived abroad, met an assortment of celebrities, and made enough money to finance their leisure sprees. For a moment I imagined myself, with a large Prada tote bag, sitting in first class of Jet Blue keying in appointments with my Blackberry. Then the image evaporated. It’s like the daydream of another person, not who I am. My dream is to finance a crew of photographers and writers and performers to capture some moment in history in Cuba, or Moscow, on film and in writing. The expeditionary life of someone like travel guru Bruce Chatwin.
Dressed in my robe and wooly socks, I imagine this, and then I sit closer to the fire and feel the warmth. How do we drag ourselves away from the hearth? I see my reflection in the mirror and question my buying this huge bulky white robe. I really hate big white robes. I never wore these when I was younger. My choice was a kimono, or a sleek velvety full-length drape that sort of trailed me like a veil. When did the white robe enter my life? Tomorrow I’m going to find a robe that makes me feel like silk, preferably silver or deep Safire green.
Now I feel like eating cookies. I could sit here all-night eating cookies and wondering about this other woman in Moscow sitting at her desk.
There are moments of regret. The most pressing is that I refuse to settle down. This home is temporary. I know the feeling; it has been part of my baggage most of my life. I cannot trade it in for a new brand, its mine, and it gives me enormous drama, change, and adventure. It infuriates my friends; who continually must erase and insert new numbers and new zip codes next to my name.
The secret of what’s ahead in the journey. Wouldn’t you like to peek into ten years from now and see where you landed? There is still a dot of danger to my passions. Not the danger that comes with racing cars or extreme sports. My danger is in the incurable obsession to combine all the things I love in one package, place them all in close proximity, and live happy bold and free.
I’d have a mid-century black bottomed swimming pool and not far from the patio a grove of olive trees. The tree house studio would be my private writing room. On the branches of the tree, wild colorful birds would flutter, and I’d watch them with joy. In the main house I’d have a library with a thousand, and one books, an outdoor dining table with plenty of dinner parties for twelve, a basement filled with rare wine, and an assortment of animals. There would be a little village in walking distance with a fresh produce market, a bakery, a jazz club, and a French bistro.
I can still dream about this in the middle of the night.
LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 