AN EMOTIONAL ATTITUDE

September 15, 2019September 15, 2019 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Earlier today, I stopped into bring Blossom a gift, recently renamed from Christine as she reminds me of a flower. Her curly braided brown hair, pink lipstick, birch brown eyes, and flowing printed dress, just formed that image of a bouquet. She was leaning on the glass display of her boutique, (Amazing Finds, in the village of Ballston Spa) eyes wide and bonded to the glass
window.

( Downtown Ballston Spa, settled in 1771)
An instant greeting of, “How’d it go? You look happy. Was it painful?’
My bandaged nose, from surgery last week to remove cancer concerned her, as her flowery eyes turned into studied binoculars. Our conversation drifted into a dialogue about attitude. In the eight months, I’ve lived here and stopped to chat, like four times a week, Blossom has not once displayed melancholy or agitation. Instead, she draws me out of my moody anxiousness (I’m that way. Too emotional) and into laughter and joviality.
” You’re always so positive. How do you do it?” I asked.
” Here’s what I do, I will tell you. Every morning I wake up and write down whatever comes to mind– don’t even think about it, just listen to your thoughts. Write down five thoughts, then go back and cross off the negative ones.”
” Interesting. I journal.”
” That’s different– this works. I wake up grateful, no matter what shit is going on in my life.”
” I’m not that way. I’m too emotional about what happens in my life.”
” Why?”
” Wish I knew, I guess I’m a reactionary. I wish you knew me when I was really happy, content with my life.”
” Forget the past, you gotta let that go. You have it inside you now. I see it, even though you have a lot of obstacles, I know you’re a good person, and you got legs!
” Wish I had your breasts!
“Hah-hah! Listen I want you to do what I said, wake up with what you have and not what you don’t have. Love the purse too by the way.” We hugged and I trotted off, a bit of a dance to my step and a smile on my face. She touched my emotional gear, gave it a push, and into the night. Instead of arguing with myself that I should go out and meet people, mingle, laugh, my evening was music and film, emotions like floating musical notes until midnight.
Three days later, Dorian strikes and my head turned outward, the images on television seemed staged, the aerial footage presented an island of trash floating in dump water. How do they rebuild those miles of destruction? The emotions we have monitored from the comfort of our homes or wherever you happen to be are as one. News anchors drop bashing in the tidepool of politics, and sordid revolting details about Jeffrey Epstein, or the latest protest. I imagine every one of you is horrified, maybe slightly in shock to grasp the velocity of Mother Nature. Floridians are locked up like school children. My friends in Miami cling to one another, as the warnings are now so intensified, the fear detonated functioning life. I’ve never lived through a hurricane; a few tornadoes and my nerves were wiggling from those events. Life, when we come together in emotions is the hope that we can do it when we are not threatened.
Sitting on the porch of Follies House in the wooded hillsides of Saratoga County, NY sealed in verdant shades, tickled by a tap of breeze, only enough to cause the slightest of tones, much like what I am listening to Little Girl Blue by Oscar Petersen. Anais wrote extensively about jazz writing when she lived in New York and frequented all the jazz clubs. So, with my emotions, the music, the serenity of East High Street on a Saturday, white butterflies and cotton ball clouds granulate into daydreaming, and neutrality.

I tried Blossom’s idea and surprised to find that the negatives are not life-threatening, painful, or disastrous in any way. The positives are it is September in New York, my windows are newly cleaned, so I can see the leaves sprout into golden shades, nothing broke in the house this week, and my refrigerator is full. The essentials of livingness, a partner to warn me from misadventures, a working laptop and printer, friends phone call and texts, oh, and money for perfume and lipstick.

Yesterday I stopped in to see Blossom. ” Pick something out, I love your present. … here try this shawl. It looks like you.”

WEST LOS ANGELES TO EAST SARATOGA SPRINGS NY

June 30, 2019July 19, 2019 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

A metallic sky is blowing the cotton ball clouds with the force of a lawn blower, a collage of sunflower leaves brush beauty in the windows of my home, and the act of observation becomes my pastime, here in the Northeast.

The Village of Ballston Spa.

When I used to sit on the stoop in front of my Westwood studio, it was the dogwalkers and gardeners, visitors and residents that my eyes laid on, with a backdrop of high rise two million dollar condominiums, with concrete terraces, usually vacant, that formed the view and from that, thoughts randomly trapped, wish I owned that, wish I had that car, wish I had that man. It is amusing, how one’s view can determine one’s thoughts.
West Los Angeles.

On the street where I live now, homes are two hundred years old, or newly built to imitate the Victorian era. The automobile is sturdy, practical, and unwaxed. The way of this wonderment brings simplicity into my life. No need to dress up and fit in, it’s the opposite here, dress down to fit in, or like me, a combination. You are not watched, observed, questioned or complimented, because, well I don’t know the answer, not yet. This is the day after a storm. Half of a tree collapsed in my front yard.

The Polar Freeze had to arrive with me, and the test was not so much about the snow outdoors, it was how to stay warm indoors without running up my gas bill to five hundred a month. Luckily, I found my Irish wool sweater in the basement, that is so large I can wear three sweaters under it, then the leggings, knee-high woolen socks, hats, and gloves even indoors. My activity was limited to bringing the furniture from the attic, basement and unloading the UBox from Los Angeles. Boxes of books and china, photographs, records, and bric a brack from so much antiquing. Three months later the house was staged. I was left with a fractured elbow, but the scenery indoors plays a critical part in your emotional health, because it is too cold to play outdoors.

Most of my conversations came in Nomads, where I’d have a Cortado and some eggs, and talk with the owners who were also my tenants. I begged myself to interview them properly with a recorder, but I never did. They astounded my fictional idea of a millennial, not being general but based on what I observed in Los Angeles. In LA they don’t talk to adults unless you have a common bond; a tattoo or a protest sign. Nick and Alex have the play stations, all the tech knowledge of a Microsoft department, but, instead, they talked about literature, foreign films, and psychology. These are my subjects so if we began the conversation at eleven am, we finished at noon, minus the interruption of a customer. Many times, I’d ask for an explanation, and they’d answer without snickering or amusement. I recall one time I asked, ” Don’t you get tired of hearing adults say, you’ll understand when you get older (they are both nineteen years old) and Nick answered within a second, ‘No, because I know a lot they don’t. ‘Don’t forget I used the internet when I was five years old.’

The customers, mostly local residents, come solo or in large groups, families with toddlers, mothers and daughters, uncles, and nephews, everyone here that I met has a huge amount of family, which caused me some hesitation when asked, ‘you have family here, don’t you?’ After that question dozens of times, I thought maybe I should make one up. I’m not and never have been a believable liar.

The volume of their voices is another adjustment, not in a bad way, just a curiosity, they do not contain their vocal strength. Maybe it is a part of the heritage, just the New York way of conversing, but it is self-effacing genuine. I never detected a play on pretense or arrogance. Imagine how refreshing, like a gulp of spring water from a waterfall, after the playacting that overrides conversation in Los Angeles. To be continued.

Saratoga Spa Park.

AN ADOLESCENT ADULT

June 15, 2019 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

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.
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 don’t 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 I’m 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.
“I 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.”
That is what adolescent behavior is meant for, to learn by experiment, to see how far our strength of character will take us. 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 Europeans’ and senior citizens to elope with each other. I didn’t 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. Every day is experimental in some way. 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?

Follies House in Ballston Spa. Renovating myself and the house. Not sure which needs more polish and stain. Upstate NY is on a slow wheel,with a heavy load, plowing through the seasons unified.

October 20, 2018October 20, 2018 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS- LA.

October 3, 2018February 8, 2019 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

The exhilaration and expectations of stepping out of one grid, of eighty thousand people in Santa Fe, NM 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.

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. 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, 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. Now when I drive into the satellite of HIGH RISES, 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. 20180704_140814(1).jpg

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. 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. 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. If someone does speak to you, you can’t hear them because there is so much construction noise, 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. 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. 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.

IN LA, because of the immeasurable density, people are always close by, not a foot between us. It’s the life here, it’s not the LA I remember, but it is home. So, like family, I am learning to accept and stay individual.

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS- SUICIDE

June 10, 2018June 10, 2018 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

I feel like a butterfly wing, trying to fly without my twin. Hang on, we have to fly solo. The world feels harsher, the obstacles immense, one wing is better than none. e4ef93000387449b61736ab73c004536

One winged flight with breath of fright, just a step I have to take to the next destination.

330px-WLANL_-_MicheleLovesArt_-_Museum_Boijmans_Van_Beuningen_-_Eva_na_de_zondeval,_Rodin In a week of famous iconic people who’ve committed suicide, my heart breaks and my mind asks, why is everyone shocked? Chronic depression, anxiety, and loss of a life view are not particularly inviting topics of conversation. I know, the last two years of my life these disturbing emotions tried to get a noose around my neck… NO WAY. Enemies cannot win, whether they are in your head your heart or at your doorstep.

The answer is to get involved in someone’s mental decay, agony, and hopelessness is a risk most people are not willing to take. I suggest the simplest of remedies; accessibility by way of phone calls and drop-ins.

Suicides have increased thirty-percent since 1999 and according to Suicide Statistics one hundred and twenty-three each day.

Who do you know that needs attention?

DON’T DO IT ALONE

April 8, 2018April 8, 2018 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS FALL ON… moving without a new address. This is the pinnacle of the If Girl, an identify that suits me. I’ve met dozens of men and women who are transitioning from one local to another, one partner to another, one pet to another, the if is the true arch of our character. If we reach to high we may end up with a knock on the head, if we reach to low we disappoint ourselves. If you are not moving internally, well, I guess you are happy where you are. I’ve never known that. Maybe its the writer in me, without conflict what to write about?

Direction is a choice; move back home, move near your children, move for a job, but in my case I move because my act in Santa Fe has closed. I’m like a space between two paragraphs; a blank slate sounds romantic, no commitments or tangible responsibilities my home is rented and so like a nomad, I’m searching for a new beginning. Some say its an adventure, some say the answer will come in time, as I lay my head down on a hotel pillow, the interim is asking me to be peaceful, as my belongings are reduced to a partial wardrobe, my cat, three books, and my coffee maker.

Its like when I went off to college, a liberating extension of those early days when belonging to things didn’t matter, life mattered. If you are single and without children this is the knife that we must slice into a piece we accept, or no peace at all. hopscotch-bristol-1050x700

MADNESS

October 15, 2017October 20, 2017 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

“YOU NEED A LITTLE MADNESS IN YOUR LIFE.” ZORBA THE GREEK

November 10, 2017

Is it my aging, the world struggling, the politics punishing, the climate destroying, or is it because all of the above feels personal. Every day is a recovery from the disasters, deaths and destruction of the previous day. I can’t decide if my thinking process is changing or the world really is bubbling over the edge of horror. Today the fires in Sonoma hit a personal note; I went to Sonoma State University and lived two years wandering the hills, rivers, towns, farms, and vineyards. I have to remember all the places I lived in: a dorm in Cotati, then Rio Nido along side the Russian River, it was too far to hitch to Sonoma so I moved to Petaluma, then I spent a few months in a hippie house in Glen Ellen and then… I dropped out of college and moved to Mill Valley. Northern California shocked the Beverly Hills plushness off my shoulder and I smothered myself in the outdoors. I used to walk or bike everywhere, I don’t know how I managed without a car. Did you?

My heart and mind turn to the images on the TV news: twenty two fires burning, five hundred unaccounted for and now forty dead.

My family home burnt down in the Bel Air fire on November 5,1961. It rearranged my life as suddenly as it happened, and I discovered growing up wasn’t so bad.

I need a movie to watch that resonates life’s invasive tragedy and triumph; Zorba the Greek. As a young girl that movie moved me in a way so unfamiliar. The writer and Zorba the teacher, the French debutante unzipped, and the widow, whose life was taken because of unreturned passion. Last night, Zorba came to me and said, “You need a little madness in your life.” I listened, and found myself at El Farol on the dance floor. Tuesday Blues Jam used to be a weekly routine. It’s been two years since I went on my own. Dance is always alive in me, moving really fast to great music.

I sat down at the newly restored bar, and looked around, a few familiar faces, and then I looked at the man next to me. He smiled informally, the way someone does when they recognize you. I hadn’t seen Dancing Dennis in years.

” Hi,” he said in a sort of chuckle.

” Do I know you?” I asked.

” Dennis.”

” Oh Dennis! I didn’t recognize you. You’ve lost weight or something, you look so different.” He chuckled and let me talk.

“How are you? How funny to run into you, I haven’t been here in years.” Dennis and I met on the dance floor at El Farol, and I asked him to marry me! I guess that’s why he just listens to me, he knows I’m a grab bag of surprises. I thanked him for reading my book and writing a beautiful review and then he said,

” I liked your hair short but I like this too. “I don’t recall what I said, but I remember feeling at ease sitting next to him, and trying to recall who he reminded me of, I thought it was Michael Caine, but today I remember, its Oscar Werner, when he played the Captain in Ship of Fools. When the band started I jumped, without even asking Dennis, and darted for the dance floor before it got crowed. I took off like a wild bird and let my Zorba dance. I knew Dennis and I would dance later but I needed to let my madness out.

When I returned to my seat, he looked left out, and so we talked about the past times we danced, and moments later, without any discussion of our personal lives, we danced, and danced and danced. I asked the band to play “Honky Tonk Woman,” and the floor regaled with dancers. Every time I looked at Dennis he was smiling or laughing.

November 15,2017

Today I am in a religious mood, not in the sense of Jewish or Catholic, just feeling like I am waiting for God to stop the tragedy.

PUBLISHED

November 30, 2016December 17, 2016 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

PUBLISHED

SOME OF YOU may have already seen my announcement on Facebook. For those that have not, my memoir CRADLE OF CRIME- A Daughter’s Tribute, is now available on Amazon in the USA, Canada, and the UK.

I began writing my way home in 1996.

If you choose to read I’d love to hear back from you!

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THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER IS…

September 30, 2016October 8, 2016 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

SEASONAL AND SENSUAL OVERTURE TO REVERIE.

SUMMER is not a memory yet; my skin too sensitive, and my heart still attached to the moments. I’ve misplaced my journals and so I have to read my to-do list to recall the events. Let’s go back to June; well my head 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. 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 don’ recall June being amusing. Writing about my deceased parents was not summer reading. A year had already passed since I began, and I was now at the last stretch. My sense of completion was annoying. I began to hate the word focus. My body ached for water, in any form, a pool, a river, and the ocean. June was also the month when rejection letters arrived. For a moment, I’d forgotten. Whoa! Stay away from LouLou, her nerves are visible! On the flip, it was also acceptance of those letters. 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. So I turned on the fan, the loud kind that screens the room in a hum. I tried to imagine as waves just after they have capitulated into bubbles.

Memorial weekend was gemstone sunlit of color and clarity. I’d decided to break and go to a party at La Posada. 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. We were not yet ready to kick and scream, it was more of a real memorial kind of party. For our troops who finally are reaching us through the news, the films, and the books.

Most every evening I’d 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. It’s 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?’ To be continued.

IT’S UNLIKE ANY OTHER CITY I’VE EXPERIENCE.D It’s called the city different, it is also the city difficult. She ( I see Santa Fe in the feminine gender) has to be treated gently. Her 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 freakish freedom. I ‘ve seen the liberating soul of Santa Fe, 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. 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 pushing 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. 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 Fe given me more than I’ve given back? 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. 025

PUSHING POETRY

September 14, 2016 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

I’m reminding myself to write more poetry.

DOUBLE VISION 1996. 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

Sojourn in Europe

September 5, 2016 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Intersections between mid-late-life adults with youth; anyone under the age of forty is an adventure in livingness. I remember strangers that counseled; passed on a prized preface to life.

It was my first solo trip to Europe. 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. 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. The Venetians of my age, artistic, independent, and humanely trusting enchanted a woman who’d been sharking San Diego in commercial real estate. I got eaten alive. Venice was the shore that I wanted to curl around and become fluent in Italian, learn to cook, and wrap a scarf.

I was standing next to a bar-bistro melting in the lustrous conversational elan’ when a couple in their sixties approached me. The corner of the bar waxed us in and for the next hour, that man changed the direction of my life.

” Yea, I knew you were American. 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 in San Diego?” He shouted.

“I was in commercial real estate–leasing and marketing.”

” Good for you! That’s a great career.”

” It was. 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, “What would you do here?”

” I don’t know yet?”

” You can’t beat what you left. Are you crazy?”

Before I answered he continued a breathless sermon peddling the virtues of my life; not jumping into a fantasy, and to forget about moving to Venice. My references to challenge, adventure and change met more opposition than I’d expected. He deplored my naiveté. “You shouldn’t go through with it. San Diego 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. ”

They departed when his wife begged him to calm down and I returned to the evening’s allure. There was a scar left, an abrasion of my plan. Over the next few days, I met a group of Venetians, younger than me. After revealing my plan to live in Venice, they drew me into their group. I haven’t any diary of Venice, so the names and dialogue are absent. The memory is vague, a collage of framed vignettes. We went to a friend’s apartment, who had a spare room to rent. This friend, a young man with speedy senses whipped me around the apartment. He spoke English, with saucy speed, and he had more friends. By the end of the evening, I was tumbling in a wave of stimulation. It was too much too soon. The next week I was in Milan unknowingly colliding with Fashion Week.

After three months, my wardrobe was wasted from hem to neckline. My shoes: a pair of lace up boots, lace-up sandals, and flats. I landed in Milan at the Train station, and then where did I go? OH I remember. It was my last night with Julius; my traveling European Chef companion. We stayed at Relais & Châteaux, selections for three weeks. We dined and slept in surroundings that dubbed European film sets. I was dazzled and too overfed.

The last night with Julius was in a very chef gathering restaurant, busy waiters, lots of background noise; 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. 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 will 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 without Julius. That’s when I got on a train 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.