Category: ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS

THE SURFER AND BILL

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Soaring Crow and Gavin

Smiley’s Dice
DEL MAR TIMES
The Surfer and Bill.

It begins in San Francisco, in the late fifties, in the section of San Francisco known as outer mission. A pencil thin surfer wandered the streets visiting surfer pals; like Tambi, Minor Lo, and Da Fly.
One day his friend George suggested they go to Hawaii, and being of surfer consciousness, they left that afternoon. During this trip, the surfer went out seeking work, and discovered he didn’t have much to offer. The epiphany broadened into an apprenticeship as a carpenter on the mainland. After a few months of instruction, he was ready for the Contractors State Board exam. He passed the test, and returned to San Francisco to pick up the license.
About this time, he met Bill, a man who owned a home in Sea Cliff. Bill was often seen puttering about his house, attempting to fix things that he didn’t know how to fix. Bill and the surfer became friends. Bill was happy to hear that the young man was carving another wave in his life. Bill was a sort of western style renaissance man, who chose people because of character, leaving behind details like, age, occupation, and all the other things that divide us.
He invited the surfer into his home and asked him if he could make some alterations to the fireplace. The surfer complied and began his first job in the trade of carpentry. Bill and his family liked the surfer, and it was a mutual friendship. After the fireplace was finished, the surfer began another job and another and soon, if you wanted to find the surfer, you had to ask Bill.
The surfer lingered around San Francisco, and the years ripened the friendship between the surfer and Bill, his wife Martha, his three sons, Carl, Gavin, and Walter, and his daughter Wendy. Now the surfer was of the age that falls between peer and pupil, and all of his friends belonged to the surfing colony. Bill once told me that the surfer told the most astonishing stories, and that he was loved like a part of the family.
One day, the surfer decided to leave San Francisco, and follow his girlfriend to Santa Barbara, where she was studying at the University. This didn’t work out the way the surfer thought it would, and so he returned to San Francisco. He went back to the old neighborhood where Bill lived. It happened that Bill decided to move to San Diego, and so the surfer was waving goodbye. A few more years pass while the surfer hung around his surfer friends down at Kelly’s Cove, and watched the city of San Francisco from the lap of the pacific. When he needed money, he worked for Tambi, carrying his ladder, or stirring cement, and then returned to the stillness of floating with the ocean.
One day the surfer received a phone call from Bill, asking for the surfers help. Bill bought a home and business in La Jolla and both needed renovating. The surfer knew the area as he had surfed the Pacific from San Francisco to Ensenada. Bill asked the surfer if he would move down to La Jolla for a while. Naturally, the surfer accepted this offer, and so Bill flew the surfer down to La Jolla. He paid his expenses and gave him a key to an ocean front hotel room at Capri By the Sea. The surfer hung over the terrace of his new post, watching the Board Walk and thought he was the luckiest man in the world. Bill introduced the surfer around La Jolla, and he began working and meeting Bill’s friends. The time fell into one long sunrise to sunset, of work, companionship, and surfing.
Now, we take a giant leap forward to the summer of 2007 and to Colorado Springs. It would be the first time that I would meet Gavin, one of Bill’s sons. It had been many years since the surfer, whom you may have guessed by now, is my best friend, who goes by the name of Soaring Crow, had seen Gavin. I had heard about him for so many years, from Bill and Martha, and from Soaring Crow. Gavin was the travel writer; he covered ski resorts, ranches and rodeos.
We drove up a tree-lined street and parked in front of an unpretentious Victorian house. A man galloped down the walkway, he was tall and broad, with an easy grin, and mercurial eyes. Gavin brought us into his home and placed our luggage in his bedroom.
“You guys sleep here, the sheets are clean.”
“Where will you sleep?” I asked.
“I’ll sleep outside, I do all the time.”
The welcome was expansive, as if I was about to go on a Ferris wheel, or ski lift. SC and Gavin had seen one another at a family wedding years ago, but this was the first get together. I adore these inevitable reunions tied to our past, and so I sat on the edge and mused their fellowship. We filed into the den, where Gavin picked up a pair of electric guitars and the two strummed away the years inside surf tunes. I poured wine, and took photographs. After dinner, the room was familiar and quiet. Gavin showed us a picture of Bill dressed in western gear next to a horse.”
“I never knew he was a cowboy?” I said.
“Well, he was. He grew up around horses.”
“And you’re a cowboy too?”
“Used to be a cowboy, not anymore. Once a cowboy stops riding, he stops being a cowboy.”
“You sound just like Bill.” I said.
“Everyone says that.”
We lingered around the table until late in the night, and stories rolled out from the heart. Gavin’s rooms had exploded with his story telling tools, piles of black and white photography were stacked on the ground, books, and records and sporting equipment. He raked through a stack and handed me a photograph of a rodeo rider.
“ I love that photograph, it’s wonderful.” I said.
“ Take it, take any of them you want.”
The next morning, we had breakfast at the Broadmore Hotel, surrounded by gardens and river walks. I exuded small bites of Gavin’s adventures, as a freelance journalist, columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, and traveling with the Rodeo. He was the sparkling image of Bill, authentic and understated.
After breakfast, we drove to the Valley of the Gods.
Gavin jumped out of the car and trotted ( he does not ever walk) to a spot overlooking the rugged insubordinate Valley.
“ This is where part of Bill rests, the other part is in the ocean, isn’t that neat.”
“ You can visit him all the time.”
“ Yep, I do.”

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

I rose at 3:00 AM to turn the heat on, pick up my writing journal, and discern the week’s theme.

The house is unfamiliar at this time, as it is my first middle of the night experience here. I wonder for a moment if I should boil water for tea or coffee, and settle on decaf. Alice and Bugsy follow my footsteps, circle their feeding table, and then begin to cat play. Bugsy gallops around in circles and Alice watches. Their presence kindles the stark rooms. While the water boils, I step outside to the porch I hear the distant sound of pounding surf and sit down to listen. The moon is shaved from the fullness of the previous night, and reflects my own disposition.

The street is hollowed like a tunnel, the light of day is shining in some other distant country, and the sky is appears tinted with primer. Somewhere someone is dressing for work, breathing by the tick of the clock until he must report for work.

The draft of sleep lingers in my eyes, and my feet shuffle on the cold tiles, while I grind the beans and think through the remains of the week. There are themes to our lives. Sometimes a year, sometimes one single day launches the theme, or it may just tumble into our path unexpected and replace whatever we were holding on to dearly, and deliver something unpleasant, like sickness, or separation. The sensations leading up to my theme jilted my creativity, and the pages I wrote were jammed with contradictions, maybe they still are.

Thoughts begin to form and ruminate, what is important? The theme of my week began when I was informed a Frog’s member I knew only slightly died very suddenly. From that day on, conversations, books, and televisions shaped the theme.

I see what is in front of me, and I am dissatisfied with the surroundings. The temperature, color, textures and placement of furnishings is flawed, and I have abated good temperament, creativity, and affection. I have tried to replace my incompleteness with substitutes: new shoes, scarves, and half a dozen books. Ah Hah! I have caught the intruder, the inconsequential  arrangememt of new stuff.

Several more incidents aided my awakening. One came while reading Mark Twain’s “Following the Equator, A Journey Around the World.” It is a first person narrative of his lecturing trip on a sea voyage around the world bound for Australia and New Zealand. His diary pages are as powerful as water sprung from a fire hydrant; and I flowed into the adventure with him. A few days later while I was vacillating between reading and watching television I channeled onto a movie, “Shadows Over Tuscany.” Harvey Keitel emerged as a familiar character; a writer who has stopped writing. Along with the added irony of his resplendent surroundings in a villa over Tuscany, he still could not write.

I have settled into a corner of the sofa by the light, and now Alice is purring into my robe. Writing with pen is so different from keyboard, journaling is always with pen, but columns are on the keyboard. The next incident occurred in conversation with a woman who relayed her elated experience from meditating. She asked me about my own source. I understood that to mean what tranquilizes all the peripheral complaints, mental pains and wounds that lie dormant or at least manageable. Without thinking of the tormented hours, I thought of the comforts of exhibiting my life on paper.

The shallowness of that answer makes me uncomfortable. I return to the porch for one more gulp of landscape that I share with the stars.

The street is unfamiliar, a temporary scene like a bus stop, and I am merely waiting to move on. The neighbors are strangers, and stories do not blossom here. My desk is sealed into a corner of the bedroom, and too small to stack all my photographs, books, notepads, and dice mementos.

It is not the act of writing with pen and paper moving along at a steady rhythm; it’s the activation of the heart and mind, collaborating to unravel the relevant from the irrelevant. To reach this state of matrimony a writer needs not a Tuscan Villa, or a Moorish Castle, but experiences that flake off the skin, or recall of the experience that gives it relevance. A story is flickering at my source, asking to be written and I’m avoiding the introduction. Fear is shining like a spotlight on one end, and insecurity is the temperature that stifles my pen. It is not the cold tiled floor, and cramped desk.

I wrote a novel in a 99 square feet room that SC and I shared for a year and a half.

If I continue to roam around the task of writing this story, the intensity of irritation will escalate, my neck and shoulders will not loosen, my walk will be feigned, my smile forced, my heart longing for padding, my ego striving for recognition in the wrong places, and my soul roaming the hallways at 3:00 in the morning.

My spineless spirit that sends me out shopping for shoes, scarves, and earrings will finally halt. I will return to shopping for inspiration, courage and confidence that I can write the story.  folliesls@aol.com

MY HOODLUM SAINT- A COMPLETED SCREENPLAY

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

SCREENPLAY:  My Hoodlum Saint is the story of a woman whose survival is wedged between love and fear of her father. It exposes my struggle to survive adolescence while growing up in my father’s secret and terrifying world, where only family could be trusted.

For more information contact me: folliesls@aol.com

DREAMS OF A FLAMINGO HOTEL WEDDING

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On Sunday afternoon, while I was sitting in the bridal room at Neiman Marcus, I was in a head on collision with the past and the present. I was not in the bridal room to buy a wedding dress; I was there to store my mink coat. While I waited for a sales clerk, I imagined myself in the chic trench coat with diamond buttons hanging from the rack. If I did have to choose a bridal gown, it would have to be something unconventional, like my mother chose. She wore navy blue taffeta to her wedding. If I did get married, I would have to save my coins for a long time to pay for the reception. Where would I get married? At one time, I dreamt of the Bel Air Hotel, but that was in the 1970s. With inflation, the wedding would cost no less than $100,000 today. By the time, I saved that much, I would be 100 years old! Besides the hotel is not the same. The last time I dropped by, I was chased out of the river walk for taking photographs of the swans. Just before my father took ill in 1982, he told me my wedding would be at the Flamingo in Las Vegas. I remember it, as if it was yesterday. We were walking together in Holmby Park, where he walked his five miles everyday. Very often, he stopped at the public phone booth and made a few calls. He whispered so I could not hear his conversation. I know now he was laying his bets for the day. I waited on the green lawn watching the older men and women playing Croquette. When my father returned from the phone booth, he looked perturbed. That meant he lost money on that day’s sporting event. We walked a long time in heavy silence until he decided to break it.

“You know, I’m very proud of you.” He said looking straight ahead.

“You are?” I was stunned.

“Of course I am! I hope you don’t think any different. I have not said it often, because I’m coaching you all the time, so you will be independent, and know how to look after yourself, after I’m gone. I don’t want you to fall into a rut with the wrong fellow, like so many women. It can ruin your whole life.”

“But I haven’t accomplished anything really great…. like you.”

“What the hell are you talking about!” he stopped in the middle of the path. “I made more mistakes than you ever could. Are you kidding sweetheart, I broke all the rules, and made some new ones, and I’ve paid. Like I’ve always said, you make your bed, and you lie in it. I’m proud of the career you made in real estate, without any help from me. Now you have to concentrate on the right fellow. When you do get around to finding the right one, we’ll have the wedding at the Flamingo.

“The Flamingo? Do you still know people there?” I asked timidly.

“Of course, I was a major stockholder … at one time.” Then he cleared his throat, and I wondered if he was choking on the memories. “That’s where Mommy and I had our wedding reception.” I thought of the photographs of Mommy cutting the white cake. It was the first time he ever mentioned my wedding. It was the first time, he seemed to say, okay find a fellow, and I’ll let you go. I sensed his detachment from everything around us except for me.

“I would like that. How long has it been since you were there?”

“I didn’t want to set foot in that place after Benny… (Benjamin Siegel) I didn’t care if the whole place burnt to the ground. There’s no reason why you can’t have your wedding there. I can still arrange a few things.”

The vision of father, my future husband, and me was an aberration without incident or purpose at that age. However, he was dreaming that the day would come soon. When the sales clerk finally appeared, I was glazed over, in some marbled state of melancholy, clutching the mink coat on my lap. The mink is the oldest garment in my closet. My father gave it to me in 1978.

It’s as if it happened yesterday. My father called one Saturday and asked me to meet him at Mannis Furs in Beverly Hills. When I arrived, my father was seated in a chair, facing a three-way mirror. Manny rushed over to greet me. “This is my daughter, Luellen, “Manny bowed and kissed my hand. In the other hand, he was holding a mink jacket. “Try it on for size,” my father ordered. I hesitated, and looked at him for explanation. It never occurred to me I would be trying on mink coats. He was always asking me to meet him in shops, and restaurants. He held meetings wherever he knew people, so I assumed he had a meeting with Manny.

“Go on—try it on. I didn’t say I was buying it, I just want to see what it looks like.” Manny tucked me into the mink coat, and pulled the waist sash through. He stroked the fur up and down, and then I did the same. The coat was solid, like a cloth wall that buried my body in warmth. I stood before the mirror and watched the transformation.

“Turn around, “my father ordered. I took a few steps in a half circle and slipped my hands into the pockets, and turned around slowly as I’d seen my mother do. Suddenly his eyes welled up with tears and he took out his handkerchief.

“If you dressed in a proper outfit and not those silly jeans all the time, you might look like something!” he barked.

“Well I didn’t know I’d be trying on minks today.”

“What the hell did you think you’d be trying on, pianos? For crying out loud! “I don’t know what you’re thinking sometimes. Take it off.” Manny untied the sash and took the coat. My father was in a mood, it was my fault again. I shouldn’t have worn jeans. Why did he start crying? Manny disappeared, and my father stood in front of the mirror to affirm his reflection. After he took off in his Cadillac, I stood in front of Manny’s and looked at the mink coats. He never mentioned it again, but I knew the coat was going to show up one day. Six or seven months after that first meeting at Mannis, the mink appeared at Chanukah.

“Daddy, this is so extravagant, I won’t have any where to wear it.”

“Oh yes you will! Just wait and see. If you quit going out with those misfits and find yourself a decent fella you’ll have numerous occasions. That’s the reason why I gave it to you, so don’t misuse it!”

When I left Neiman’s I was drenched in his memory. The mink coat has outlived all of my possessions. Every time I put it on, I’m reminded of his wisdom. It’s not the expense or signature status. When I put it on, I feel transformed. I discovered the bill of sale from Manny’s, and the balance due, after my father died. I called Manny and asked him for more time, to pay it off. He told me to forget about it, my father had brought in so much business to the store.

Last year I called Manny to see if I could have the coat remade into a vest; as the sleeves were too short.   ” It’ll cost you the same as the mink,”  he told me.  I had the holes repaired, and the coat glazed and will pack it in the suitcase for the trip to New York, now thrity two years later with a decent fella.

JAMMERS PART TWO

~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

ME AND MASTER JAM, AND RUDY IN LA
ME AND MASTER JAM, AND RUDY IN LA

San Diego was still into rage and rock and roll. The people I was calling for gigs didn’t know Hip-Hop yet.   That was too bad, because we were  having the greatest experience of our  life.  When I ran out of money I took a job managing a condominium project, where I lived rent free and had weekends and evenings for Jammers.  After a time of observing their self expression, I asked myself, where is mine?  I still refused to get on stage, Vince used to bawl me out because I made Piper introduce the group. We were good for each other, the three of us. After two years Piper moved to Los Angeles to launch his career, he had showmanship in the way he held his hands.  Vince took over the troupe and added twelve more dancers.  These two young men, they were the sparklers in my life, like that star you think you’ll never hold.  When I left the Jammers I was a different woman. They put the rhythm back in my spirit, and faith into my soul. I mean there are things a business career will never offer, you have to go into the arts for this kind of stuff.

THE JAMMERS LAUNCH

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Free your mind and the rest will follow, the words from EnVogue’s latest release became a sort of mantra.

 It was a decision that came at a moment when everything else stopped making sense, except my happiness.  I tossed out the two-piece suits, and turned off the world outside. Insulated in my tiny North Park bungalow, I merged into  music and dance. During the hottest of summer days I was seated cross legged on the worn carpeting  watching MTV and flipping through magazines. 

       Imploded with music videos, magazines, and dancing;   Hip-Hop was the most exhilarating choreography around.  I watched the music videos over and over. When I searched the yellow pages for dance classes; no one was offering Hip-Hop.  With that, I thought why can’t I be the founder of a dance troupe?  

  I needed to find the  dancers to suit my concept of integrating  jazz funk, hip-hop, and Afro-Cuban  into a collage workshop.   

      Piper Jo was the first dancer to join. He came at me with everything he had; talent, faith, intelligence, and belief in this crazy white chick who wanted to hip-hop.  Piper played Miles Davis, emulated jazz-funk, and moved like Michael Jackson.  He was twenty years old and this was his first teaching job. When I asked him who taught him to dance he answered;

“Michael Jackson and James Brown. I danced in my living room every day. My mother couldn’t get me out of the house. God blessed me with this gift, and I want to share it. So if you put me in your dance troupe I guarantee, you won’t be sorry. NO, you won’t.”  

 At our first audition Piper said,  “How you expect to pick dancers, if you don’t know what to look for.  I swear Lue, you are crazy.  But don’t worry,  I’ll show you. And don’t be picking every guy out there cause he can Hip-Hop, there’s nothing to that. We want dancers with classical training.”  He was right.

“Vince Master Jam”  was a former break-dancer and studied classical dance. Vince was the coolest; he sat back and waited for his chance, unhurried, relaxed, but when the music came on, he flipped everyone out. He was thirty. Both of them belonged to the no smoking, no drinking, no drugs, group

At that first audition  I wanted to select half of the thirty some dancers that showed up.  They came dressed in street clothes, wearing scarves and bandannas.  I watched them leap, kick, split and turn inside out for the job.  I knew that I was in the right spot. Then we added Monique, a startling beauty with Afro-Cuban dance training, and a perpetual attitude of carefreeness. 

For the first few months, the Jammers taught classes under a leaky roof, on a tiled floor, without any heat.  Piper rode a bus from the other side of town to get to the building.  Vince drove an hour each way to teach one class at night. The first few months no one showed up for Vince’s Hip-Hop class.  But he kept coming back every week.  When I apologized, he said, “ That’s okay Lue. We get it going on,  they’ll show up soon– I’m sure.” 

They did show up and we moved into a well positioned Health Club downtown San Diego. The classes filled up with students, dancers, and working women looking for a new challenge. They came from all different races;  Asian, White, Hispanic and Black.  I danced with the classes and promoted our troupe. They laughed at my attempt to be a soul sister, and I laughed with them.  We were reviewed by KPBS magazine, and a photographer took photographs of us and featured the Jammers  in the magazine. People began to think I knew what I was doing. The Jammers thought I could take them places.  I pictured them on the front page of Variety, the problem was I was too early. 

THE JAMMERS KICK

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

In the fall of 1993, I was working for a king-sized jerk in his commercial real estate office.  Dirksen used every opportunity to remind me that I was not as successful as he was.

I was the only female in an office of twelve better suited men. My Chanel 5 was used sparingly and I dressed in navy-blue two piece suits and low-heeled pumps.  With a leather briefcase slung over my shoulder, and a HP calculator that I refused to master, I was a shrimp swimming with the sharks. On hot blue sky days I drove around San Diego searching for new listings, meeting prospects, and showing space. One eye was always drifting; scanning the horizon, museums, artists hang-outs.

I tossed out the two-piece suits, and turned off the world outside. In the next weeks my attention was drawn to music and dance. During the hottest of summer days I was seated cross legged on the worn carpeting of my little bungalow, watching MTV and flipping through magazines.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

DOUBLE VISION – 1998- FOR NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

 

DOUBLE VISION

 

 

 

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

 

 

THE HAPPIEST MAN ALIVE

~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

The throw of the dice this week is a continuation from last months column, which is too long a time for a continuation.

I left off, where I was about to stop by Maurice’s home. I’ve written about him several times over the years. Maurice was raised on a small modest farm in Iowa, where he used to race his horse across the open fields, when he wasn’t milking cows and picking corn. When he turned seventeen he left home, and hitchhiked to Solana Beach, where his girlfriend was working in a home in Rancho Santa Fe. Maurice worked on the ranches of Rancho Santa Fe, until he was drafted into the army. It was Christmas day, and the day after his wedding. When he returned to his wife three years later, they began a life in Solana Beach. He began living as the happiest man alive.

I had to wait a year or more before I could drive by his house in Solana Beach, knowing he wouldn’t be out in the garden, or fixing miniature furniture, or baking cinnamon rolls for all his girlfriends.  

I had to wait, because the little white house with the white picket fence without Maurice was like a flower without petals, or a child without a mother.

Maurice came into my life, in an almost fictional way. I can see him now; standing amongst the hundreds of Christmas lights he strung up every year across his lawn, over the roof, winding around the trees and over the garage all the way to the street. He even had one of those talking toys that sang, ‘Ho Ho Ho  Merry Christmas’ when you rang the door-bell. Inside the tiny living room, he filled every shelf and empty corner with ceramic glass or tin ornaments, a dedication to his wife who passed away ten years earlier, and their wedding anniversary.  

When Maurice opened his front door, he laughed out loud, when the mechanical voice, shrieked, Merry Christmas. Before he even said anything, his smile beamed as he waited for me to laugh with him. Then he led me to the sofa, in front of a coffee table covered with homemade powered sugar cookies and chocolate covered almonds and cashews, and said, “Go on, sit down and I’ll make some drinks.”  But that wasn’t the first time I met Maurice. The first time I met him; I was walking down the street at dusk, just taking a walk with a moon shadow following me.

     “How are you tonight?” We talked only a moment or so before he asked me inside for a drink.

     “Thank You. I’m going to take a rain check; I live right down the street.”  It was such an innocent invitation; I felt absolutely no fear other than that ground in nuisance fear that precedes any invitation from a man. 

     “I know where you live.”

     “Oh? I’m going to come back–really I am.”

     “I sure hope so. I love to have company.”

That was Christmas 1994.

The next night, I dragged Rudy with me to look at Maurice’s flickering Christmas lights. We didn’t get a chance to knock on the door, he must have seen us through the window, and he opened it.

     “Are you coming in this time?” 

     “Yes, I mean if it’s not a bad time.”

     “It’s never a bad time for friends.”

I clutched Rudy’s hand and we crossed over the reindeers seated in the flying red sleigh and magical little toys that glittered beside Santa Claus, and went inside.  I was already sure that this was going to save me from a mediocre Christmas, while Rudy was still quizzically observing Maurice’s easy behavior. Maurice was seventy-nine years old, cut lean and taught like a racehorse. His long white hair was combed straight back without a part, and he was dressed in faded Levi’s, Nikes, and a pressed bottom-up shirt.  

“Are you hungry?” He asked.

“Hell yes,” Rudy shouted. Maurice jetted out to the kitchen leaving us to sink into the worn cushions of his sofa, and listen to country western Christmas Carols. We stayed and laughed through an assortment of snacks, music, and Maurice dancing about as we hooted and howled like Iowan farmers.

When I stopped by a day or two later to thank him, he said.

  I’m the happiest man alive.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I have so much to be thankful for, and I have such good good friends.”

  “Maurice, are you happy all the time?”

  “Oh yes-all the time. I get angry like everyone else, but I’m so lucky.”

  “Why?”

Then he told me the story of the three days he squatted along the beachhead at Buna, Australia within the confines of tropical diseases, rain, mud, and without water or food.  By the time the last Japanese positions had fallen, one thousand or more Americans lay dead, with thousands more wounded or sick.

  “They was much stronger and more equipped than us.  I made a vow with God, if he got me out alive, I would never ask for anything again and never complain about anything again. “

  “You kept your word.”

  “ I sure have. I watched my whole squadron die, almost all of them. They was such young boys, you just couldn’t believe it was happening.”

I went back to Maurice’s house almost every day, and asked him how he was. “I feel so good; I’ve never felt better in my life.”  Sometimes he’d alternate and say, “I’m the luckiest man alive.”  I never caught him complaining, or tilting forward with regret. He didn’t waste his time judging, avoiding, or renouncing change. He kept his old fashioned machinery, furnishings and style and let everyone else go crazy trying to be modern and chic. Every knick knack had some special meaning or story to go along with it. Like the corn husker he hung out in the garage, the same one he used when he was a kid. But what he loved most about that house was his orange tree. He always loaded me up with a grocery bag filled with oranges. “They make the best orange juice you ever had.”   

Over the next four years, I was at Maurice’s home, at least twice a week. I watched Rodeo with him, watched him plant tomatoes and cucumbers, cut sweet peas and roses for his friends, fry chicken, fix furniture, feed Bugsy the cat when he was only a day old, and dance in the front room while singing some country tune.  I recorded his whole story on tape, and then wrote a book about his life.  “I don’t think I’m that interesting, but if you think so, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”  I learned what it was like to grow up on a farm during the depression in middle America. His family lost the farm, and that’s when young Maurice put out his thumb on Highway 80, and hitchhiked to San Diego.

  “I was so lucky! I was picked up by a woman in a Cadillac who needed someone to drive her car.”

Then, when I wasn’t paying attention, Maurice grew distant, he turned down invitations to dinner, and he stopped inviting me. I didn’t ask him why, I just accepted it, which was where I went wrong.

I even passed him in the drugstore one day, and instead of confronting him, I darted out the front door. About six months later I got a phone call from his niece.

  “I’m calling because Maurice passed away.”

  “NO.”

  “Yes, he did. But he didn’t suffer, he went very quick.”

  “Was he at home?”

  “ Yes. Lynn found him under the orange tree.” 

I drove past his house, and had to keep on going. There was nothing left of the garden, and the new owners had placed those skinny tall poles signifying, a demolition for a new two-story house.  Maurice is still a part of my life. I realize I was lucky, to have met him and known his story. Any dice to throw email: folliesls@aol.com  

~ LouLou ~ 7 Comments

 

 

THE SUN RISES ON HARDSHIP

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

 The throw of the dice this week falls on the sunrise of hardship, for all of us.

     In my home there is one staircase window that faces east. Each morning before I descend the stairs I stop at the landing, to watch the day begin. The sun must rise above an assortment of tree limbs and trunks, and up over the mountains. By the time I’ve had my coffee, the sun has risen above these obstructions. I am now jerked awake, like a slight nudge a parent might give you, ‘Come on–wake up! You have school.”  

I begin writing, but that shameless sunlight in my eyes and the dance of the birds are tempting me to step outdoors.  When you live in seasonal climate, summer days and nights lure you out of your wits; why stay inside when there’s moonlight, a sage brush breeze, and merriment across the street.

The gradual awakening unfolds layers of thoughts, beginning with the anxiety of the times. The impending hardship of thousands, my friends, and neighbors, oozes out like a bad smell. Everyone seems to be slanting in new directions; some are going home where they came from, others take on another job, or moving out and leasing their homes.    

 

Some mornings I can’t even look at the newspaper. The headlines read like Sunday’s promotional movie advertisements: BANKRUPT, FORECLOSURE, and SUICIDE. The shocking prick of national disaster is a surgical awakening of a disease untreated.  There’s no time to waste, no money to squander, it is a time of reduction and refusal.

     As minor calamities knock on my door, and creditors calling from India, I turn my head to the sunlight and resume what I have to do, and that is write. If you know me, then you know I’ve vanished. It’s the only way I can work, and I’m standing on my head happy that I have the solitude to do it. 

 Last week while I was upstairs, prone on the sofa figuring out a transition between two scenes, someone knocked at the door. Then they fiercely rang the bell. Oh what it is now I thought.   

     “Yes,” I asked the man standing outside. He stared at me while twirling a toothpick in his mouth.

“Are you all right? I’m from Safeguard Security we haven’t had any signal on your alarm.  We came to check on you.”

I stood there expressionless. I assured him I wasn’t held captive or about to throw myself out the window, but he didn’t seem convinced, he lingered and kept looking over my shoulder.  I hastily sent him on his way, and returned to the desk.  I’d been rude; I didn’t even thank the guy.  This is some kind of message, next time he’ll slam the door in my face.      

Later in the day, if I haven’t ventured outdoors yet, I take a walk around the Plaza, and muse over the herds of tourists. I look for revealing expressions and conversations.  I didn’t see panic and anxiety, I observed relief. Couples shuffled together, maybe holding hands, dragging shopping bags, and aiming directionless for a new snapshot. They stand gaping at the churches and shoot photographs while standing in the middle of the street. Vacation is bliss in the middle of discontent. 

When I return to my desk, it is time to print the days work. This is always a ritual of great expectation, filled with disappointments, surprise, and sometimes a whiff of elation.

 By now the sun has made its journey to the other side of the house. The back porch is like starched light, it burns the eyes and flesh, the immediate effect is callous. Now is the time to slouch in the chair, close my eyes, and rewind a few scenes back.

Hardship is like the sun, unmerciful when it is met face to face, and transforming when we are protected. The sunlight is absorbed into our bodies; the effect is invigorating when taken in increments. The light changes the color of the world, we see things differently, and so it is with hardship, we feel intensely, our senses are sharpened, and we appreciate the treats more so than in times of prosperity.

It all translates into less spending and more creating. 

While I lounge in this old house, one track of time keeps re-appearing. It was when my living space was limited to one tiny room, finances on a string as long as my finger and uncertainty a nightmare that turned into a lullaby. It is that time again; and what we all must do is keep the adventures above the circumstances. Any dice to throw:

Folliesls@aol.com 

TUNE TO SPRING

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

 

At three in the morning the walls of reality merge with dreams, timelessness, restlessness, and an alertness of unspoken needs.

What I think of at three in the morning is never the same at ten o’ clock in the morning.  The labyrinth of safety, colliding with the unknown, seems to be the most innocent of emotions. It is also a time that  springs bright eyed realizations, recognitions, and a time when our mirrors move toward us.  I see my looks fading. All I ever wanted was to see myself as pretty as my mother was.

The wind is sudden as it whips through the spruce tree outside my window.

I get up and wander downstairs, listening to the wood floors crackle at my footstep.  I walk outdoors onto the back porch.  The wind is like a mirror to me. This sound, so clear and unmixed in Santa Fe,  brings me back to the years in Hollywood. The nights my father went out allowing me the freedom to explore outside. I would run down Doheny Drive to Santa Monica Boulevard and just keep running.  It was on those windy Santa Ana nights that I’d run the longest.

I was running because the need to express something was bulging through my body.   Back then I didn’t keep a journal at home. My father had discovered it and then questioned me about everything I’d written.

This night is like that, only I don’t feel like running, I am listening to the sound of the chime and the wind. I am thinking of the music of Charles Lloyd, and the shadows that look like people, and the clouds that appear to have message,  and how everything is different when you are alone.

I dine without pause and usually finish before I’ve even wiped my mouth. I have extended conversations with the cats, Bugsy and Alice,  and moments are elongated.  I sit down at the counter and this wind and chime continues to circulate the house. It is an announcement- it is expectant of spring.  I jotted down some notes and knew what I wished to write about today.

April is expectant- there is expectancy everywhere you look. The buds on the stark tree limbs are about to bloom, the birds have evacuated their nests and begin singing early in the morning, and insects eject themselves from their hidden corners. I don’t know what spring is like for a man, I’ve never asked any man, but I am going to tell you what spring is like for one woman. The essence of spring is sensuous, and for a woman it is an overture.

We strip down the layers of clothing; replacing socks with sandals, and sweaters with t-shirts.  When I hear birds and watch them in the trees, I think of babies, and innocence. There are flowers about to shoot through the heavy clasp of winter dormancy, and when they do, the colors remind me to replace all the black pants and turtlenecks with pastel shades of peach and blue.

English: Spring Daffodlils Roadside Daffodils ...
Image via Wikipedia

The sunlight radiates through my skin and warms every thing. My heart  feels like it has been through a tune up.  My body wants to dowse in sea  water, and to eat less, and to run up canyon road, and listen to music, and dine al fresco, and get pedicures. Men, do notice your woman’s new pedicure, it will make her very happy.  All of this preparation is to tune up the romantic notes,  and to get YOUR ATTENTION. It is time to bring you out of the garage, or wherever you go in spring, and to notice that we are blooming. This is what I felt the night I heard the Charles Lloyd Quartet;  I heard him blooming.

 

Surprise us with flowers, a new hat, or a picnic on the banks of the Rio Grande.  Spring is time to redirect your attention to woman because we are at our best in spring.  Our attention is on our surroundings; we will want to buy flowers, and baskets and new cushions for the patio furniture.   We change our lipstick color, comb our hair different, and we look for new ways of expressing how good we feel.

 

Today I see cherry blossoms in my neighbors’ yard.  They remind me of

a day in April at Golden Gate Park.  Then I feel young again, like I was in the park that day, when I was in love with a man who would prove to be one of the great adventures of my life.

If you live in Santa Fe then you understand when I say-hurry up spring and start undressing.

 

“Is there any feeling in a woman stronger than curiosity? Fancy seeing, knowing, touching what one has dreamed about. What would a woman not do for that? Once a woman’s eager curiosity is aroused, she will be guilty of any folly, commit any imprudence, venture upon anything, and recoil from nothing.”

Guy De Maupassant, “An Adventure in Paris.”

 My responsibility as a writer is to assure people taking a chance in life is the only   way to live, and so … I throw the dice.