THE MEMORIES are fading, like images floating through a mist, not just of Dodger but the life pre-break-up, a carousal of my favorite places; swimming, hiking, running, new restaurants, gallery openings, shopping, concerts, clubs, dancing in the street and our porch parties, but I cannot remember the state of grateful, emerging in the vortex of sensations, stimulation, surprise.
Do we ever return to that kind of forever spectrum, as if it will never end, and then it does, and we cannot go back. Itโs not too late to feel grateful, fortunate, and lucky to have lived so many acts of my choice.
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5Carolyn Gootgeld-Levine, Erika Marie Schwalbach and 3 others
Academy of Loulou Awards. All of you that respond to my nuanced writings are awarded. A Star award for a few that push my cart.
Marc Romano, Historian, J’amie Rubio, author, and archivist, Antonio Mendoza for the best photographs of the Rolling Stones, Alison Martino for Vintage LA, Rare Jazz Photos for the best photographs of Jazz, Eric Dezenhall real friend and author, Cynthia Duncan, my consiglieri, Santa Fe Bulletin Board to bring back the memories, Scott Varley, the best real estate broker I ever met in 25 years, Las Vegas Mafia History… I’ll think of more later. Warren and Annette Hull, filmmakers, Danielle Haynes, an angelic warrior who joined my battle, William Winant, a high schoolmate and acclaimed musician who remembers me, Larry Henry, torch-carrier of Mafia history and Greg Price, my UK 911 call, along with Gloria Devan, Tere Tereba and Armen Ozaynan who settles me down. Friends, when you are single, are food for the soul.
My direction is following Lawrence Durrell, โSpirit of the Place,โ and living where I would never expect to live.ย I wish I could control my impractical, impulsive, and annoying spirit of adventure. I think about architecture, Jewish deli’s, Italian restaurants, at one movie theater built in the 1930s, and neighborhoods of unfamiliar lighting, expressions, and conversations. Gambling on yourself is how much you can adapt, change, influence, and accept the days of your life.
In my syndicate, there must be a dozen pals with the same unsolved equation. Is it age that blocks me and maybe you from relocation, or is it the trauma and stress? What liberation to just pack a suitcase and board a plane like in the movies. Separation from the familiar. The spirit of adventure has arrived. My home sold and so relocation isn’t a muse any longer, it’s reality. Today, coincidently is Independence day and so am I. It is a day of nostalgia. The Rudster painting Follies. It took two summers to remove the aluminum siding, scrape, caulk, prime, and paint my chosen seven colors to resemble a wedding cake. Mr. Doolittle built the home in 1883 as a wedding present for his daughter.
The Rudster painting Follies. It took two summers to remove the aluminum siding, scrape, caulk, prime, and paint my chosen seven colors to resemble a wedding cake. Mr Doolittle built the home in 1883 for his daughter as a wedding present.
Curiosity doesnโt always kill the cat, sometimes it brings confidence. I asked my British friend, โis it common for people to lose their curiosity, passion, and desires as they age?โ He responded, LOL, yes. Thatโs where we are different, he has certainty, whereas I don’t. Being single and living alone affords you freedom of thought, and so it was this weekend, while enveloped indoors to avoid the chilling grip of winter, my thoughts were in a heated argument.
Go to Saratoga and visit the Casino Museum, have a croissant or lobster roll, roam the gallery district, window shop, and get out of this house now.
Itโs too cold to walk, Iโve been to the museum, I donโt feel like dining alone again, and the galleries Iโve been to are arts and crafts.
Thatโs not the reason, is it?
No, Iโm not curious.
Just four years ago, Iโd pop out of my Santa Fe home and walk up to Canyon Road Friday Night. All the galleries are open and serve appetizers, some live music, some street vendors, and some costumed characters and it was a party. I didnโt mind eating alone because I knew the restaurant owners, bartenders,and regular guests. Sedation of spirit came in the last six months. The first year coming back to my home after a six-year absence was invigorating and new, and unexpectedly in need of serious maintenance and lease management.
In front of El Farol, Canyon Road on a stranger’s beauty mobile. Twice a week for live rockin music and dancing. One of my favorite dance floors because the stage is three feet away.
The second year was getting about town and exploring and then Covid so it was an incomplete year. The third year was a wicked winter and when spring came, the ebullient appreciation of the sun and flowers renewed, and my curiosity temperature was down but not dormant. Circumstances too complicated and gruesome to write, force me to stay here. Iโm one of the millions, that live where they donโt choose to live anymore. When the day comes, the freedom to relocate is my curiosity. My next nest is undetermined. My friends, ask me, โwhere are you going to move to?โ This comes up in every third or fourth conversation. And the answer is the same, ‘when I know Iโll tell you.โ
Upstate on a clear day.
Poetic justice for a life-long wanderer. Curiosity I call on you to visit my spirit and paddle me out to waters and roads unknown. Give me the confidence to keep my oars afloat; confident, curious, and passionate.
On the road from New Mexico to somewhere… I can’t remember.
He’s digging my grave For the dragon he pays With our nest, now shaved Tumbling into the abyss I visit the comfort robes of the past Monogrammed in stone
The will to relive what’s past comes at night
And must be excluded by daylight.
Of HUMAN BONDAGE
The sky hasnโt decided if it will let clouds overturn the sun, and I havenโt decided if I will pack the stack of books on the floor. No, I donโt feel the drive to lift and organize, my bed is warm and the house is not as warm.
I brought my coffee and peanut butter and honey toast upstairs, on a tray, I happen to collect trays, reminiscent of times when women ate breakfast in bed. Propped upright, I explored a movie about uneven love, tragedy, and resurrection. Of Human Bondage lit my taste, featuring Bette Davis and Leslie Howard. —– FILM MADE IN 1930 IN GRISLY BLACK & WHITE. Uneven love. Days now remind me of reading 1984 in high school, and Fahrenheit 451 on film. We did evolve from a simplistic, hand-carved culture, built on rebars of freedom to a house full of furniture, relics, gadgets, screens, gates, and beeps. The beeps for me, make me jumpy, not seductively strolling around my apartment lighting candles in peace. I really do shimmy every time I hear the beep. I chose Sunday to shut down all communication with the mainland, take the longest bath I can stand, and write. I need a rest, like a chaise lounge on a spacious veranda with honeysuckle, wisteria, and lavender, and then a mile away is the ocean, let me swim again.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
I feel artists, and their works are not featured in the media, or maybe it’s because my scrolling is stuck on the essentials of living. In times of war, people must have known, see it now or never. Over two million working artists in the country, so google says, and when was the last time you discussed it at dinner, with anyone. I haven’t, and I don’t know why? Pop-up thoughts on life.
Iโve adopted a savant to facilitate making decisions. I donโt want to use the word hate, itโs useless, but this time I will, I hate making decisions. Whether to go out for dinner, or go to one of villages’ festivals, parades, or events, they rake up events during the winter to keep us off drugs. This weekend was a ย village-wide Friday sale for shopping, the lighted tractor parade, and appetizers at all the shops in town. Sounded pleasurable and Iโm proud of the village to induct us into a community of we care about you.ย I didnโt go, but I did go out for Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant Iโd never been to, festive crowded, and the tempting buffet twinkled like the first time Iโd seen decorated food. Itโs been five years since Iโve gone out for Thanksgiving so the jubilee of food was a bit musical.ย I ordered a glass of wine at the bar, the only customer as everyone had reserved tables for grandparents and children and the roar was melodious. My order to go would wait, the celebratory ambiance shattered my loneliness. The bartender, Jovida was like a lightbulb, she kept coming over to me maybe three times asking me polite questions, have you been here before, you must come on the weekends we have live music, while youโre having your wine can I bring you something from the buffet. I wondered if Iโd be charged, she noticed my hesitation and said, No charge. So I choose smoked salmon, capers, onion, and horseradish. On m wish list if Iโm allowed to eat in heaven, along with Gruyere cheese, tacos, salad, and croissants. ย The bliss, was a sandwich of bustlingeager activity, laughter, and the children. ย I remember our family Thanksgiving when my parents were divorced and we went to Nanaโs home in San Fernando Valley, through that old tunnel. My motherโs mother is full-flecked Irish so the dinner was grand, and she was a dedicated cooking slave.ย She made mashed potatoes like Iโve never tasted since, and homemade pies, everything spiced with Nanaโs kinship with making the family love her.
ย ย ย ย ย I left the restaurant after an hour later with a jubilant bag of turkey, fixings, and pumpkin pie. I found my seat on the bedroom sofa, and watched, โ The Trainโ with Burt Lancaster.ย My thoughts were rested, abated for the whole evening, and then the next day, turkey revenge. I could not get out of bed, eat, or think. So I said to myself, itโs okay to do nothing and so I watched a romantic comedy, โ Cardboard Husband,โ with Norma Sherer and Robert Taylor, removed three-year-old lipstick and liners, shopped online without buying, saved for later my way of shopping. Then I threw the dice and I got seven. That is where my decisionsare now made. If I donโt get a seven with seven throws, I donโt go out or make a decision. If I get it once- Iโm on!It was a perfect day for thanks. I think we should have a Thanksgiving Holiday three or four times a year.
ย ย ย Still flustering over how to save more money, and which expense she should solve; the dental appointment thatโs six months overdue, the servicing of her car overdue since June, or elevated reasons to book a trip to San Diego. The urgency to decide sent her into a minor mid-afternoon tizzy and she decided she needed potato chips to solve her physical edginess. She does not use salt in her cooking, and from experimentation over the years realized that salt could elevate her dizzy thinking and lackluster posture. The momentary outdoor freshness stilted her, to stop moving, and breathe deeply like she was in the doctorโs office and they say, โ deep breath.โ ย ย The street is absent of walkers, workers, delivery trucks, and residents, itโs almost like a graveyard and this does not irritate Greta, she uses the bliss to engulf her creativity, and so she began to write.
“Young woman sitting on the books and typing, toned image”
PUZZLE OF SOLITUDEwill always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are puzzled by too much solitude, or not enough.
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. After the first ice rain and snow, the fever dulled, 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 I created. I have to laugh alone so I watch screwball comedies, seek humor in my irregularities; wear a sweater inside out, pour coffee into a wine glass for a cocktail and chuckle 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 could I complain when half of Upstate New York is buried in SEVENTY INCHES of snow and no way out? At the end of the day, pleasure comes in the kitchen; my heart and spirit melt while stirring my weekly slumguillion stew while listening to Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, and swing music. Winter has in the past been a funnel that leads to writing.
Will-powered out of the house on a glory hallelujah day of ballet winds and buttercup sun. I walked along the bike path and observed the cyclists, and joggers, some still masked. Along the way, I smiled at passing strangers, and sometimes even a hello. How reviving to connect with strangers after two years of physical masks. Emotionally optimistic, a rare trajectory of nature and my life within. If nature can survive, why canโt I? What prevents us from launching new growth, mentally emotionally, and financially?
Let me take this day and bless it with hope, miles, and miles of hope and faith that I will land, plant new roots, and bloom.
When do we begin to lie about our life our feelings, our fears, our everything? I ask this because of simple observation, knowing when someone is not telling me their truth and I remain silent, it’s not my way to ask, why do you lie to me? My friends are not lying, it’s more like a social cultural mask. My wise father once told me ‘Tell them your sister or father just died, and they’ll respond, excellent because they do not want to hear your problems.’ But I do, I’ve always wanted to know the truth. Why should we shield our traumas and hardship, more than our triumphs and accomplishments? Do you know who does not lie? ART and SPORTS. That is why we listen to music, read books, go to galleries and museums, films, the theater, and ballet or other dance performances. I cannot comment on sports because I’m not a spectator although I do love basketball.
We, and I mean this in only a visceral sense, do not believe the politicians, news, social media, or advertisements. We want to, but deep in our inner truth, we know it is the manipulation of our individual thoughts. And that my friends is why I trust art to deepen my understanding of the human condition. Thank you to all the artists and athletes who share their pain and glory.
FOUND ON THE INTERNETTHE PHILADELPHIA PHILHARMONIC MAXFIELD PARRISH ZORBA PHILIP TOWNSEND AUDREY HEPBURN – EDWARD QUINN PHILIP TOWNSEND
I think of the comforts of exhibiting my life on paper. It is not the act of writing with pen and paper moving along at a steady rhythm; itโs 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 an English Castle, but experiences that flake off the skin, the mise en scene that shakes its relevance.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 