ADVENTURES IN SINGLENESS

I’D LIKE TO RIDE A CLAIRVOYANT CIRCUIT INTO THE MINDS OF SINGLES OVER THE AGE OF SEVENTY.

I’ve often wondered why advertisements, the media, and politicians don’t address the single segment of society. We don’t hear the beginning of a statement, whether it is legislative, political, social, or cultural. Singles around the country are not traveling, purchasing more products, refusing to get vaccinated, and are unemployed…etc. We are a minority class; I found statistics on The UnmarriedAmerican.org website. More searching led me to the American Association for Single People website.

There are 106 million unmarried adults in the United States. Singles constitute more than 44% of the adult population in the nation.
About 44% of the nation’s workforce are unmarried employees
The Census Bureau estimates that about 10% of adults will never marry.

I’m not going to make a huge leap into this as my thoughts are more about adventures in singleness.

This conversation is from a close friend, married for twenty-some years.

“You are so lucky you have no idea. If I were single, I’d move somewhere where life is simple, maybe Greece.”

“You don’t know about the loneliness, the awkwardness of holidays, the fear when you get sick and have no one to care for you, so many things really.

“I can think better when I’m alone.”

I told her I understood. That is the crucifix of making my pen my mate rather than a three-dimensional man( Temporary singleness). Some of my interactions go like this; going out to dinner, “Are you alone?” She or he leads you to the most obscure table. Then she or he removes the second table setting and suddenly aloneness is visible. An hour later another customer asks if they can use the spare chair. That’s when I ask for the check and leave.

Taking a road trip and feeling vulnerable when I’m pumping the gasoline and a stranger is gawking at me and I’m in the middle of nowhere. It is usually truck drivers and I immediately think of Thelma and Louise.

Dressing for an event that I’ve never been to on my own. In my closet, I lay out three different outfits. Then I have a wary of decisions on which shoes, flats or heels. When I’m all dressed and ready to go self-consciousness billows up and I change the outfit. It’s a ridiculously amusing routine.

Taking myself out for a cocktail just to get out of the hotel has numerous consequences. I end up sitting next to couples who are having a roaring twenties time of it, and the only single man or woman at the bar is fixated on their phone. Instead, the woman next to me strikes up a conversation about her boyfriend.

The other side of these dismal forecasts is; I have no arguments at home (just interior dialogue), I can eat whenever I choose, watch what I elect on television, keep the bedroom light on, adjust the thermostat to my body temperature, and make all the decisions myself, the most infuriating and worthwhile to building courage and self-reliance.

One of the lines in The Godfather struck me as an authentic gangster testimonial: “Women and children can afford to be careless, men cannot.” As a teenager one of the repetitive reminders my father said angrily was, “Watch what you’re doing!” This was the most relevant and truthful observation he made of me. Admittedly, I am easily distracted, careless, and ignore risk.

Without someone to look after my carelessness (I’ve been on my own now for six years), one three-month friendship ended strangely. When he asked me if I had been boosted, I said I hadn’t. He punished me, citing his father, who lives hours away, and he rarely visits. I had Covid, vaccinated twice, that wasn’t enough, so he vaccinated me out. Now, living in hotels I find men talking to me, but the substance is absent, trivia or weather. I have inducted my interests, literature, art, philosophy, culture, travel, and those subjects return, a glazed stare most times, or they are married. I am not in a rush, I’ve learned that scaredness comes when I’m ready… guess I’m not ready yet!

HOTEL WRITING- FROM THE WEST TO THE EAST IS LIKE …

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I used to sit on the stoop in front of my Los Angeles studio. The dog walkers, gardeners, and residents formed the stage, with a backdrop of high-rise, two-million-dollar condominiums and vacant concrete terraces. From that, thoughts randomly tapped: I wish I owned that, wish I had that car, wish I had that garden. It is amusing how one’s view can determine one’s thoughts.

In Ballston Spa, where I lived the last six years, homes are two-hundred years old, or newly built to emulate the Victorian era. The automobile is sturdy, practical, and unwaxed. The way of this wonderment brings simplicity into my life. There’s no need to dress up and fit in; it’s the opposite here, dress down to fit in, or, like me, a combination. I am omitted, observed, and questioned, because, well, I never learned the answer to that, until this moment. Locals love locals, and I have never been one.

MOODY BLUES TUESDAY

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MATISSE

Writing somberly is parallel to writer’s block. It’s not a block, really, more like a resistance to engaging feelings. If I place all the options on a puzzle board, this leads to the center. A fractured life impacts emotional posture and is not unlike physical posture. We slump or stand tall. We love instead of neutralizing, we are inspired instead of stagnant, we romance our passions, and we live to love. My heart is at the starting gate to love again, but the racetrack is missing. I’m undercover! I watch Blacklist or some foreign film in the evening. Most weekdays, I’m circulating between finance, selling furnishings online, shoveling snow, and researching acronyms because the news uses them so often.

The vortex of discontent is a punctured life. The windows of my home reflect the splendor of nature that plays all day long in the winter. I’m spending more time watching sky stage plays: clouds still, clouds moving, colliding, changing colors, sculpted into aberrations of animals and faces, than cognitive thinking. My collection of records and CDs accompanies the scenery. When I’m sorrowful, I listen to Ennio Morricone; when I need a lift, Vivaldi, Sundays it is Turandot or some other Opera. When I’m a go-go girl, Swing, Salsa, or The Stones, when I feel alone, Sarah Vaughn, Nancy Wilson, and Etta James, for writing inspiration Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Annie Lenox.

I don’t see any remedy commercials for a fractured heart. By tomorrow, the despair could vanish, like the rain that puddled us for the last two weeks. Everything I’ve experienced is good in the beginning. So, to begin, I will listen to Begin the Beguine.

“Begin the Beguine” is a popular song written by Cole Porter. Porter composed the song between Kalabahi, Indonesia, and Fiji during a 1935 Pacific cruise aboard Cunard’s ocean liner Franconia. In October 1935, it was introduced by June Knight in the Broadway musical Jubilee, produced at the Imperial Theater.

Henry miller writes in his book, “ Henry Miller on Writing” “Whoever greatly suffers must be, I suppose a sublime combination of a sadist and masochist.’ I suppose that a few of my friends have aligned me as such, and now that I write this, as in all writing, answers blink at you, and then the soul receives them like a wafer of wonder. Perhaps I am, but where that evolved and manifested, I have no time to think about it because the sun is out. I must sit in my newly designed sunroom, a small book library alcove that receives the sun at noon. When I returned with my phone to snap a photograph, the sun disappeared like a footprint in the sky. Every moment needs attention. It’s twenty degrees outdoors. I am modestly adjusted and receive a thousand weekly warnings to get a flu shot. My doctor has tried persuading me to get a flu shot for three years. I responded that I’d never had the flu and that my last cold was in 2012. He chuckled and asked the next question.

WRITING WITH NATURE

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In one of my books on writing, I read that most writers face the demon in the middle of the novel. The beginning is a gallop, and the end is a relief, but the middle wiggles in and out of your grasp. The middle of our lives reflects this same obscurity.

The middle of a life span reflects all we have accomplished and all we have left incomplete. This is what they call a mid-life crisis. I get it every year. I’ve finally accepted that my constant relocation, reinventing, and restlessness will not be solved. At the bottom of the restlessness is the fear of finding rest more enjoyable than movement. This flotation of comedy rotated around me last night while I stood out on the porch observing the peacefulness. The scenery of this street is a comforting, historical beauty that comes from the harmony of architecture and nature. The flow of villagers downtown is along two main two-lane streets; all the shops, services, and restaurants are a patchwork, and all the business owners know each other.

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. If you are an artist, the limit is not the sky; it’s everywhere. Nature’s artistry is a full-time exhibition in the Northeast. The view now is of tumbling clouds rolling over; they move slowly, like dough, across the road, while squirrels dart about. Outdoors is where we see the best of life.

March 12, 2025March 12, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

ICE, SNOW, AND RAIN… MIX THOROUGHLY AND SERVE CHILLED

WINTER 2025 … BYE BYE

Winter in the Northeast is a door to the interior, not just physically living indoors; it’s a mental withdrawal from outdoor activity. Yes, some have adapted. I’ve seen men in shorts on a snowy day and women runners passing by my window on icy sidewalks. For many of us, I believe the winter is the time to ski in your head. Take a word puzzle section of all your experiences and ski down your mistakes, misjudgments, and behavior in all its rights and wrongs. A sort of sabbatical for the soul.

My car was stuck in the snow, and my eggplant pasta was stuck in cheese.

WINTER’S SERMON ON SOLITUDE

March 3, 2025March 5, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

SOLITUDE will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are mystified by either too much or not enough solitude.

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.
I’ve 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 haven’t 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.

DANCE and, MUSIC AGAINST THE NORDIC BLAST OF WINTER

January 31, 2025February 1, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

FROM THE JOURNAL 2025

SUN, a goose-bumpy joy and celebration. That’s what I love about my education here: the first class you must take is weather management. I’ve destroyed dozens of artistic bric a brac by leaving them on the farm table on the porch, forgot to shop for groceries when a storm was approaching, and ran out of salt. I drove through town, taking photos at the red lights; the scenery is like Little Women, dressed differently but still rather swarthy in their determination to survive. Now some men, probably like the fourth or tenth generation, bear the strength by wearing a T-shirt or shorts. The other day, after a snowstorm, I noticed a man crossing the street in shorts, a long white beard, and working boots. That’s an EXACT badass around here.

Beguine the Beguine is on the record player, and I’m swinging around the music room, elated with the energy that forced me to dance, turn off the mind entirely. Total bliss. Dance has been with me since as far back as I can remember, the answer to a mood change, without drugs or alcohol.

WHICH WAY TO TURN…IF

November 17, 2024November 19, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Sunday thinking: future, plan, prepare, implement. What if I go West, East, North, or South? One at a time. I use it a lot; it’s my mascot, mental disability. If I got over it, I would delete it from wherever it rose.

It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling’s If Poem. I am fearless one day and fearful the next, a collage of paradoxical thoughts. Emotions are my yellow brick road and also the vouchers of the victim. I’ve never been an A student of defensive tools; my acquiescence serves my need to be approved, which is so annoying.

I am not going back to childhood experiences; that cathartic tunnel has been examined, and approval and cherishing is the pillow of my contentment.

WHY I ASK? AND THEN THE ANSWER.

October 14, 2024October 14, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Why can the leaves turn lemon, plum, and tangerine? Why does the sky allow storms to shake up its translucent surface? Why can nature reinvent momentarily with wind, rain, hurricanes, and earthquakes? Why can’t I change the colors of my mood? I get daily messages from an Instagram member named Asad—inspiring, and he circulates around the themes of mood, attitude, loneliness, and inner strength. All of these have toppled my life since I can remember. I’m more taciturn than most people perceive. I can display a mannequin of poise and joy, but if you remove the surface, beneath is a conundrum of self-doubt, second-guessing, punishment, and fear. What’s even more destabilizing is I actually think I’m alone.

Last week, I observed the cashier’s facial expression and gestures at the Stop-& Go, which alerted me to her distress. I was buying a Cadbury chocolate bar after reading that chocolate is mood-changing, not just the hip-hop of energy; it can change your mood.

” I read that chocolate helps with depression, and these dreary dark days don’t help,” I admitted.

” Oh, I know. I used to be a registered nurse,” she said, facing me squarely into my eyes. I noticed a lot of cashiers don’t do that anymore.

” I suffer with anxiety and depression so I had to quit. I can mix up a Cadbury bar with a Snickers but not with medication.”

” I have the same as you, it’s changed my life as well. ” I looked at her name tag, without my glasses.

” You’re name is America? She laughed and her smile emerged.

“No, underneath, Dolores.”

” Thank you for listening to me,” I said

” Thank you, customers rarely acknowledge us.”

We don’t want pity or empathy; we all need recognition, and not in a text!

RANDOM THOUGHTS

September 21, 2024September 23, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

My emotional tail is wagging. Curled up in my desk chair, I feel almost as if I was born in this chair. It’s cushioned me through a cyclone of adventures in livingness.
This piece of writing was handwritten on a tablet back in late January. I’ve made some minor additions and deletions. Before submitting to a publisher, the editor I used asked me, “Why do you keep switching between past and present tense?” I told her I don’t control that until I’m in final editing. My control over my writing is identical to how I live. Acting on impulse, expanding the mundane into a musical, feasting on all the emotions, and fabricating thorny Walter Mitty encounters. I don’t even think of applying proven methods; I make up new ones.
Back to this plateau of solitude. Love what you have, and especially yourself, with all your flaws. Integrity is more critical; be proud not just for yourself, but because someone out there needs you.

PART TWO: After reading this and while emptying the trash, I was struck by this: the big payback to living as I described is an adaptation to proven methods. I’m learning pragmatic over poetic.

THINKING?

September 7, 2024September 8, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

ADVENTURES IN

LIVINGNESS TODAY,

SEPTEMBER 7, 2024

Silhouette of sounds: a whispering wind, the freight train blowing the sounds of its coming, Neil Young music, and the flutter of thoughts that sometimes feel like sounds.

The sky is building into a rainstorm, and watching its manifestation is dramatic—nature in motion. Although there are tasks to be threaded, I’ve chosen to retire from pesky vacuuming, wood polishing, laundry, unpacking my winter clothes, and preparing for winter. The clothes are trivial to the transformation of light, outdoor porch lounging, and then the trees. When they turn naked as skinned cucumbers or buds without flowers, I think a visceral adaptation occurs in all of us.

This week unfolded over Dad. The most honorable collector of Mafia artifacts bought some of father’s collection. Years ago, I sold them to the Mob Experience for their Museum in Las Vegas (bankrupt), and the owner resold them to Julian’s Estate Sales in Beverly Hills. I viewed the items for sale; imagine your phone book selling for sixteen hundred dollars and an album of photos taken by Dad’s doll in the thirties for, well, I forget the price. Anyway, Avi Bash of the Avi Bash Collection bought what was left. When he wrote to me, I felt immediate relief that he owned these moments Dad had kept all his life. He said,” Let me know if you want to see photos or anything else.” He’s a prince of a man. That was one slice of the week. When I checked my list today of my crossed-off tasks, it was not too impressive, but sometimes we can’t produce. As I said, I’m adapting from sunshine and warmth to seasonal change.

Digitally, I fixed a few troublesome changes Microsoft made to my documents and feeds.

It’s not me of years ago—driven, disciplined, empowered, and confident. Maybe it is not worth thinking about, not for me. I think more than I act these days. Everything we do in life needs revision. We are never through evolving into more thoughtful, loving, or wise human beings. Every day, there is an opportunity to leap into a saintly hood. It is the same with manuscripts; they get better.

The next adventure in livingness is one I have lived with all my life, moving. I would love to move, even to another part of town.

The dismantling of things gives me a twisted alignment to my life. The beginning is again: unpacking boxes, meeting new neighbors, sunsets, and cafes. If I am ever to rest in one address, I’m sure it will be a headstone and a plot of dirt. I have chosen to relocate because of an internal destiny.

These are the ones I know will happen with some certainty. The inner self concerns me and how it jumps from one dream to one nightmare. When I was thirty, I was afraid of getting married; when I was forty, I was scared of not having children. Now that I am seventy-one, I am fighting another fear: the fear of singleness. But I’ve always been a loner; it just didn’t scare me when I was young.

The Rain came, Dylan is singing, and I’m planning risotto pasta for the night.

I just finished another Denzel Washington film, Man on Fire. DW is my actor of the week, so I watch all his films. An alert popped up, another mass shooting, this time in Kentucky. I wanted to delete my last column.. It’s not what is breaking me apart; personal threads seem vacuous. What I’m escaping in writing and films are mass shootings and unbearable violence. It’s not one every few months; it’s every day. Yes, cure Cancer and all other physical diseases, BUT CONCENTRATE ON CRIME, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. MENTAL ILLNESS.

63 E High St – Dropbox

July 6, 2024July 28, 2024 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

My Favorite home must be sold. After twenty-four years, Letting go is going slow, packing, and viewing my possessions and antiques. Today, I found a matchbook in perfect condition from the Stork Club, playbills, and musical sheets. I wish I hadn’t opened my steamer trunk; it’s like looking at another woman.