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 sundisappeared 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.
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 stoodout 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.
A candid and enthralling memoir, CRADLE OF CRIME – A Daughter’s Tribute is the debut release from Luellen Smiley and it proves one of the most gripping and powerful books in its genre. Certainly no mean feat, given the swelling number of similarly themed offerings but Smiley does well to distinguish hers with painstaking research, a broad narrative sweep and intellectual grip to deliver a fascinating and revealing read, for the events it covers.
The storytelling isn’t redemptive with much of the most compelling material in this book being intensely personal but it is a very human story that dispels hype and myth and gives us a telling glimpse of a remarkable life. Weaving together several stories it makes a vivid and notable contribution to the mafia debate which invariably swings between the codes of honor and family values so often portrayed on the silver screen to a brutal criminal organization focused only on the accumulation of wealth. In contrast, Luellen finds a far more equitable balance in her reflections, and it makes for a genuinepage-turner.
Extremely well written, fans of this ever popular genre will find CRADLE OF CRIME – A Daughter’s Tribute a fascinating read and it is recommended without reservation.
MY BEST FRIEND, Lucille Casey was a woman who threw the dice all her life. She gambled on her instincts as if they were already tested and approved. She never told me much about herself. When I learned of her struggles as a young woman and her chosen life, she became more real than when I’d known her. During the years we were friends, she handed out selected stories, abbreviated and censored. Being the inquisitive character I am, the shallowness of her stories bated me. I had to pry the truth out from other people who had known her.
Casey’s first gamble was at sixteen years old. She sent in a photograph of herself for the Redbook Magazine modeling contest. If she’d won, the Powers Modeling Agency in New York City would grant her an audition as a model. Casey was living in East Orange, New Jersey with her mother and sister. Her father had died suddenly, leaving the family without a financier. Casey’s mother was lost without her husband and unsuited to join the workplace. Casey didn’t tell her mother about the contest until she received the letter of congratulations.
John Robert Powers met Casey in his office on East 56th Street and signed her as a Powers Girl. She was stunning to look at, photographed like a movie star, and was modest. John Powers did not look for aggressive, pouty-lipped fearlessness. The PowersGirls were captioned “Long Stemmed American Beauties” because they were wholesome, beautiful, tasteful, courteous, and virtuous. They were so far from the runway models of today that it is almost a reversal of the industry.
The models of the thirties were ordained to set the highest example of classic good breeding and education. John not only schooled them in fashion, and individual taste, he instructed them in moral integrity, independence, and community service. Casey went to school at John Robert Powers and became one of the top ten models in New York.
She was a blue-black-haired Irish beauty, with emerald green eyes and perfect teeth. She stood only 5’ 7″ in those days that was fairly standard. When I knew her, she was still thin and beautiful but she did not fuss about herself or spend a lot of time at her vanity. As a Powers model, Casey had a long line of gentlemen callers. Powers Girls were invited to all the nightclub and dinner show openings, sporting events, community galas, and fund-raisers. Social engagements were part of her job. Casey was not a woman of idle chat, in fact, a lot of people thought of her as restrained and unfriendly, maybe even snobbish. I think it was more secrecy. People were always prying into her life because it looked glamorous. There was another side to that glamour she didn’t want to put in the mirror.
One evening Casey had a dancing engagement at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. She was on stage with some other dancers when a certain gentleman noticed her. The next chapter of Casey’s life began that night. At twenty-two years old, she fell in love with a man thirteen years older, of the Jewish faith, who lived in Hollywood. The consequences of her love forced her to change and adapt to a new lifestyle and different people.
She did not bury or rescind her love after she learned he was Bugsy Siegel’s partner and best friend and that Allen was a part of the Jewish Mafia. She asked him to reform his criminal activities. He agreed, provided she would marry him. We all know at twenty-two a woman believes she can change a man, and a man lets her think she can. Without that dream, many lovers would not have found their mates.
Casey did marry her love and spent her life trying to keep her children from harm and Allen from going to prison. I met her husband just after he tried to reform, and was beaten down by the FBI. I called him Daddy.
I was walking the streets, and the descriptive details had since evaporated. I mentally pluck myself out of this moment and open the shades to thought and memory, where all writers meet on some psychic level, the place of imagination and creation, an abnormality of reality.
A passage from Anais Nin’s diary says, “Be careful not to enter the world with any need to seduce, charm, conquer what you do not want, only for the sake of approval. This is what causes the frozen moment before people and cuts all naturalness and trust. The real wonders of life lie in the depths. Exploring the depths for truth is the real wonder which the child and the artist know: magic and power lie in truth.”
I ‘m thinking about Loren, one of the most original characters in my life. He developed a vernacular unlike anyone I’ve met. It came from growing up in the hood of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Later exclusive Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, and then returning to Santa Fe. Joined the upper class clientele as a chauffeur. His vernacular was impressive as it collated honesty, and a wit sharp as a razors edge. Loren visits three times a week at least. Snow means silence and hermitizing. I can’t wait to open the door to Luxury Limo Loren and make him brunch. We harmonize for hours; on tones of fretful fear, wicked secrets, confessions and laughter. The delicious crust of survival and our similarities.
If I write down the pleasantries surrounding my life, the blessings rise up and give me a softened comfort. The sweet peace may vanish the next day, or be intercepted by the news, a wreck in the street, an unexpected phone call. The crossroads of everyday life comes and goes. Between all of these uncontrollable incidents we are writing stories that some day will be told in conversation, or written in journals and books. The essence of our changing lives is universal.
The long list is what you started as a youth or maybe later. It represents one of those adventures you must do before you die. The list you started without even knowing you were making plans for your future. This list does not have to be in writing, keyed in a smartphone, or posted in Outlook. The long list is about shocking the sensibilities: habits, norms, routines, and coming back unharmed. It is an exceptional journey, and we visualize it while waiting for a flight at the airport, waiting in line for a new driver’s license, or the light turning green. All of the things that we monitor in our lives, like the need to have a cavity filled, updating your platform, passwords, or checking the coolant level, are multiplying, and that short list is so long that we rarely have time to consider the long list. If at random I selected ten long list entries they’d read like this: Safari, Lombardi Italy, Greece, a cruise on the Cunard, a gallery of my own, a husband, a dog and cat, and a place that is quiet, like a ranch. The short list, fix the broken window in my bedroom, fix the roof and ceiling in the guest room, get the three non-working electrcial outlets fixed, the dishwasher, garbage disposal, stage the attic and basement cleaned out, and relocating to a place I’ve not named. The short list is a big obstacle in the way of the long list.
By the time we get to the long list, we may be crippled by fear, turned into a sofa shouting grumpy cynic, or worse than all the above, we may have forgotten what we desired.
Waiting too long to start an adventure on the long list is what happened to me two weeks ago. I waited twenty years. The journal entry was written in 1986 after visiting Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the first time. It was the weekend of the Burning of Zozobra. I read about it in the visitor guide and saw pictures of the paper Mache statue standing thirty feet tall. The mystical ritual of the burning of Zozobra is intended to wash away all our grief and sorrow that builds up each year, and so they call him Old Man Gloom. I missed the event that first time, and I made the following dozen visits for business and pleasure. Some years, I was within days of seeing Zozobra, but I left because someone was expecting me, or I ran out of money. After twenty years, Zozobra became a symbolic representation of what I must control.
This September of 2006, nothing would stop me from seeing Zozobra. Dodger and I drove down from Taos to Santa Fe late on the afternoon of September 8, and checked into the La Fonda Hotel. This is where I stayed on my first visit to Santa Fe. The anchor of the Plaza and all that happens outside eventually flows inside and settles beneath the cathedral viega ceilings of the hotel lobby. As we arrived on Fiesta weekend, the traditional celebration culminated in a juxtaposition of historical events, cultural exhibitions, parades, handshaking, hugging and margarita’s tipping from arms air born. La Fonda opened its doors to the entire population of New Mexico. .
You can sit on an old Spanish colonial leather chair , sip a tangy margarita and watch the fiesta kick off right in the lobby. The procession of costumed soldiers replicating the Spanish conquistadors marched through the lobby while Dodger and I were checking in. From here, I wandered over to the Concierge Desk and shouted, over the roaring and singing, about dinner reservations. Nancy, the concierge, made reservations, handed me maps and numbers, and turned us loose. That first night we stood under an umbrella in a downpour and watched the Opening Ceremonies in the Plaza, and later hopped in a Pedi cab to Ristra, where we dined on appetizers at the bar and I watched the activity with my notebook stare. I love being inside a strange room full of people, to me it is like starting a new book. I make up stories about the people, or if I am feeling brave, invade someone’s privacy to find what they are about. The diners were too removed, so we left and returned to the Plaza. In a few hours, I would be descending the far side of town to meet Zozobra. Twenty years had passed, and the moment was finally here. I was wearing my new cowboy boots and seated on the Palace Patio, looking into the sheets of rain that soaked all the out-door booths.
“ Are you ready to trek in the rain little mama?”
“ Yes, finally, trust me this time, you will love it. Do you have your earplugs?” Dodger has tinnitus and is implacable about loud noise.
“ Yep. Hope it’s better than trekking in the rain to see Funny Cide race.”
“ You hated it didn’t you?
“ I hated carrying that thirty-pound tote with all your junk.”
We walked about a half-mile in the rain, Dodger moved in stern choreographed steps to avoid the mud. “Damn, these are brand new boots. I’m going back to the hotel and change”
“ Cowboy boots are supposed to be worn looking. You can go to Lucchese tomorrow and have them polished.”
“ No, I just paid five hundred dollars woman, f I’ll bring you another pair in your closet.”
“ We won’t get the same place and you’ll never find me, I wander. So, just suck it up tough rugged warrior of earth, land and sea?”
“ Oh, all right, but I’m not happy.”
“ Look, there’s Zozobra!” Dodger stood in stillness, eyes wide as marbles.
My head was soaked cause I’d forgotten the umbrella and Dodger harmonized a lot of cuss words as we reached the front gates. Gangs and families, children, old timers in costume, scurried to reach the event’s standing front row. As we trudged through the rain, I noticed a crescent of anticipation that united everyone on the path. When we reached the arena, we looked down at the muddy slope as teenagers, mothers and strollers, slid down the hill to the front gates. I envied their loyalty to Zozobra. I was within a hundred feet of the stage, I could not remove myself from the unified adulation for Zozobra. As a ritual to burning the curses of life, people bring letters, photos, rejected elements of a personal tragedy and place them in the circle before the fire light. The crowd had expanded into a gyrating crush of participants, swaying back and forth, cheering the appearance of Zozobra, as he rocked back and forth in flames of fire. A convergence of strange mystical wailing, and an encore of audience howls ignite the lighting of firecrackers that set Zozobra in flames.
What I saw was the burning to the ground and the howls from the musicians that accompanied his death. That happens if you let the long list precede the short one. Dodger stopped grumbling when we returned to the hotel and exclaimed to guests, “We saw Zozobra!”
The subject pierced me yesterday morning and came from Anais Nin, a passage in her diary. “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” ― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934.
Today, the first in several months that the atmosphere is ripe with thought, and has brought me back to the writing of the moment. The delivery trucks have not opened their doors, and dropped their ramps, the garbage trucks have already passed, and the traffic is so slight as it is Sunday.
Spring is brushing nature with a varnish of subdued sunshine. I sit at my desk and listen. I hear some cheerful shouting on the sidewalk, a horn breaks the sanctuary, and then a sparrow lands on the terrace, and we watch each other. I breathe deep, close my eyes, and feel my oatmeal breakfast thumping in my belly.
The stream of consciousness is threaded into the deeper blanket of anxiousness. I am in the circle of chaos that seeps into everyday activities. Tempers are flaring, rousing combative street encounters. Business owners and employees are jumping ship everywhere. People are relocating, selling possessions, or using succulent lips and breasts to lure men for financial support. We are all edgy.
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.
The insomnia of separation from a man’s shoulder bowed to my head, tweaks like stale bread. A mind that directs me when I am driving directionless and maps my journey, walks beside me, a guardian of my fragility, acutely conscious of our path. The voice that encourages and applauds my success rather than let it drip from jealousy or preoccupation. How the laughter erupts in a moment of spontaneous passion. The gestures of him shaving and the modest vanity after I re-wardrobe him. Feeling his eyes in a crowd, undressing or admiring me, for some folly or expression.
The humor he finds in my misguided attempts to open bottles, and packages with a dull spoon, and figure out electronics.
How he will pardon and pamper my unwarranted fears of stalkers, sickness, rejection nightmares, and falling down the slippery wooden stairs.
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.
ADVENTURERS IN SINGLE LIVINGNESS 
