“Today is postcard perfection, even now, with sunlight too harsh to look at, the trees with tongues hanging for water, and the dead plants in the garden. I think of the ocean, the look of the sea from watery suntanned eyes, in Malibu and Santa Monica or Del Mar beach, the splashing of waves around my shoulders as I sink beneath the surface.I’m going home to the flowered gardens and avenues of palm trees of Del Mar to see where and if I belong. I spend the days interviewing movers, making last-minute appointments, separating wardrobes, rummaging through my storage unit, and staring into an unknown future for the first time in thirty-five years without my partner.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Pip: There’s a site called Adventurers in Livingness, and that title is doing exactly the work it promises — no hedging, no irony, just a full commitment to the examined life.
Mara: LouLou’s writing here pulls from journal entries and a work-in-progress book, and today we’re sitting with one piece — the insomnia of separation, what it costs, and what it reaches for.
Pip: Let’s start with the 3 a.m. accounting.
Insomnia, Separation, and the Geometry of Longing
Mara: The post opens with a claim about emotional posture — that a fractured life shapes how we carry ourselves the same way physical posture does, and that the antidote isn’t neutrality but active love.
Pip: And the specific image that anchors it is the racetrack. She writes: “My heart is at the starting gate to love again, but the racetrack is missing.”
Mara: That’s the whole tension of the piece in one line. The readiness is there. The context for it isn’t. And what follows is an inventory of exactly what that missing context looked like — the particular textures of a particular partnership.
Pip: The list that comes next is where the writing earns its keep. It’s not abstract longing — it’s forensic. The shoulder a head bows to. The laughter that erupts in spontaneous passion. The man who finds humor in her attempts to open bottles with a dull spoon.
Mara: That specificity is the point. She’s not mourning a category of companionship. She’s mourning the precise choreography of one relationship — “feeling his eyes in a crowd, undressing or admiring me, for some folly or expression.”
Pip: Inventory as elegy. It’s a genuinely old form and she uses it without apology.
Mara: She brings in Henry Miller to close the emotional argument — from Henry Miller on Writing, the line: “Whoever greatly suffers must be, I suppose, a sublime combination of a sadist and masochist.” Her response to it is dry and immediate: “I think he’s looking at me.”
Pip: Self-recognition without self-pity. That’s a harder balance than it looks.
Mara: The piece ends in a different register entirely — outdoors at twenty degrees, three years of a doctor urging flu shots, her steady refusal, and his chuckle when she explains she hasn’t had a cold since 2012. It’s a side-step into the ordinary, and it lands as relief.
Pip: The body keeps its own ledger, separate from the heart’s.
Mara: What stays with me is that the piece refuses comfort without refusing warmth.
Pip: Longing that precise is its own kind of presence. More from this corner of livingness next time.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
JOURNAL 12/6/2022ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS FALLS ONEXCERPT FROM NEXT BOOK.
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 being stagnant, we romance; and we live to love. My heart is at the starting gate to love again, but the racetrack is missing. I’m undercover! The vortex of discontent is a punctured life.I spend more time watching sky stage plays, my favorite window tree, sculpted into aberrations of animals and faces than on cognitive thinking.
What I think of at three in the morning spirals into realizations and recognitions, and a time when my mirrors move toward me.The insomnia of separation from a man’s shoulder bowed to my head, tweaks my worries like soft bread. The mind that directs me when driving adventurely maps our journey safely. The voice that encourages and applauds my success rather than swaying with 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, nightmares, cancer, and falling down the slippery wooden stairs. The man whose balance evens my wrinkles, lets light into my eyes, and opens my shell with wonder and shelter.
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 think he’s looking at me.
Every moment needs attention. It’s twenty degrees outdoors. I am modestly adjusted, and receive a thousand warnings a week 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.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Overlapping Father’s Day is a mirage of life experiences tucked into memory prescriptions you take on a stormy day. A relic of my history rises and reminds me of the fear I once broke through.
It was 1983, and I was poised on a terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Venice Beach. It was March, the month my father died, and I stared at the horizon at dusk, imagining my freedom taking flight. Where would I go? Without his presence in Los Angeles, and my sister, who had already moved to New York, I was terribly alone. The replacement came in summer flings, with men who had crossed my path; a photographer, a New Jersey computer technician with a brassy voice and Joe Pesci humor, and every few days, Kenny, a former boyfriend, dropped by to smoke his pipe of philosophy and blow long-winded ideas on where I should move.
“I really want to move to Canada,” I said.
“For what? To go ice-skating?” He said between puffs.
“I have family in Vancouver.”
“What family? You’re an orphan now.”
“I am not. I have cousins in Vancouver. My father’s nephews.”
“Oh, yeah. When was the last time you saw them?”
“When I was twelve.”
“Terrific! That’s a solid-ass plan. So what will you do in Canada?”
“Get a job in real estate.”
“Lue! Wake up. You can’t get work in Canada unless you’re a citizen. Forget that idea. You’re better off staying here; look where you are: Santa Monica, the beach at your feet. Are you crazy?”
“I don’t belong here any longer.”
“You don’t belong to anywhere; what you need is to stop trying to be a big shot like your father.”
“I am not!”
“When was the last time you left the country? When you were eighteen? Go to Rio, you’ll have the time of your life, or Italy, or Greece–it doesn’t matter. Just take the chance and see how you land on your feet. You’re a dreamer; it’s about time you made one of your dreams come true.”
In the next few weeks, I met with Larry, my boss, who was liquidating his real estate portfolio to retire at 45. Larry wasn’t just an investment visionary; he was passionate about social, political, medical, scientific, and human interests. He was a genius.
“You can stay here another year–I’ll find something for you to do, but you’ll be bored,” Larry told me.
“Larry, I don’t know where to go.” I wiped a tear. He ignored it.
“You have to get out of LA. You’ll never meet anyone here. You think you’ll be introduced to someone riding up and down the elevator in Century City. I’ve spent a lot of time in Del Mar and Rancho Santa Fe. They’re nice people. You have a chance there; go down, spend a few days, and tell me what you think. I’ll help you. Now, stop crying. “
I drove down in Dad’s black El Dorado, and parked at Del Mar Beach right next to the lifeguard station at the Poseidon Restaurant. I opened my suitcase, took out a bathing suit, and went into the beach bathroom. The tile was wet and smelled of seaweed and salt. I walked barefoot down to the beach. It was early spring, and the sand was unmarked. A few surfers jogged past me, blonde and bronzed like the Beach Boys. I followed them down to the seashore. In every direction, there was this untouched canvas of light and color; even the beach houses retained their natural sandy simplicity.
After I swam in the ocean, I went back to the bathroom, changed into dry clothes, and walked into town. A man with a beard rode past me on a horse and waved. I picked up a Reader and read the rental advertisements on the patio of Carlos and Charlie’s, the corner café. A roommate advertisement caught my eye: “Roommate Wanted to Share large two-bedroom overlooking Torrey Pines Reserve.” I called, and a man who went by the name of Smokey answered the phone. He invited me to come by for a look. His voice was predominantly ranch-friendly, so I took a drive over. It did occur to me on the drive that I was taking that chance Ken was blowing in my ear, and I was listening to Larry, who told me that people in San Diego were different.
“Hi, I’m Smokey. Come in—would you like something to drink? Too early for cocktails, unless you want one.”
“No thanks. How long have you lived here?”
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
His eyes were animal-alert, his face tanned, and his hair cut short but made to look long. His smile was unfiltered with hidden motives, and he was bull-legged.
”I moved from Pittsburgh; I’ll never go back except to see my folks. This is paradise. Don’t you think? I’ve lived here for two years. I rent out one room, because I hate full-time work. I’m more entrepreneurial. You don’t have to worry about my motives. I have a girlfriend, and I’m in love with her. She doesn’t stay here. I go to her house. You’ll have your space, and if you need a friend, I’m here. Come out on the balcony.”
I followed Smokey, and we stood on the terrace overlooking the lagoon and marshlands of the reserve. To the west, the ocean and the stump of Torrey Pines Mountain.
“Wait till sunset; you’ll never want to leave. Come look at your room. I can help you move if you want.”
The room was downstairs, his upstairs, and a stairway of trust in between.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
FEEL, THINK, AND REACT. Tumbling through all the transitory advice forces me to examine more closely whom to believe. I’ve never been a leader, nor a follower, I walk in between, trying to pave a pathway to peace of mind. Maybe that is unattainable as I am in a cultural, political, medical, financial, and socially reimagined world. It reminds me of being a teenager when life was questionable, and confusion was like a stinging bee we couldn’t swap away. So, in my senior year in high school I started writing in a notepad. Gradually, almost supernaturally I withdrew from my gang, and spent the weekends in a Cafe with adults, or in the library. The loner label pleated my pants.
Loners were portrayed in film, books, and art as mysterious, untouchable icons. They even became romanticized as people of superior cerebral awareness. I’ve met and gained friendships with several over the last few decades. It may be that loners have thin skin, they absorb the ethereal and reality, so in many situations the absorption is too weighty and the loner cuts loose before the party is over, cancels at the last minute, and doesn’t answer the phone. Talking, engaging, evaporating into another person feelsherculean for me sometimes.
Does isolation relate to the intensification of rancorous physical assaults in streets and shops, which is my pestering pursuit today. Are all these perpetrators unloving, and live amongst the unloved? People are shot because their hamburger wasn’t properly served on time, or they have a different opinion. I was living in Los Angeles in 2018, and one day driving down Pico Blvd I noticed a sign, “Walk in Anger Management.” Maybe we need to convert a few drive-thru food diners to Anger Management centers. It sounds amusing. If I was financially able, I’d open one in every major city.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS CULTURE is unimaginable for a woman who grew up in the Love and Peace generation, or even into the eighties and nineties. We didn’t shoot one another, maybe a fist fight, or a shouting match, but not murder in cold blood.Could this macabre movement be abated by friends who love you more when you are gentle and kind? It cannot be that simple, or could it? When I used to rage about some occurrence that tattered me personally, Dodger would come to me and say,
‘Greta put your guns down,’ that always made me laugh, and then we’d talk out what triggered my fury.
THE COMFORT OF EXHIBITINGlife on paper. 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 doesn’t need a Tuscan Villa or an English Castle, but experiences that flake off the skin and shake out relevance. What I’ve rediscovered is that without a lot of stuff to organize, the mind is free to think, more time to create and effect essential decisions. Narcissism is sacrificed and replaced with more visceral makeup. Minimalist living has erased my past, and that is as transforming as day to night.
PUZZLE OF SOLITUDE will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are puzzled by too much solitude, or not enough. 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 in my irregularities; wearing a sweater inside out, pouring coffee into a wine glass for a cocktail, and chuckling when I keep forgetting where I left my phone. Laughing at myself is a funnel that leads to writing.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
There are reasons to quit and more reasons not to. The one reason that hovers above all is that 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 torevise your valor and conviction.
Revising the position you walk, talk, judge, form opinions, contribute to your home, friends, and partners. Discovering what you’ve learned, dreamed, and mastered is your novel. Just as writing a new chapter when the knot tightens, and you are trapped by decisions that are outdated. Antiquities of a former persona.
Changes in life are like undeveloped photographic images, blurred. Mentally, the angles don’t fit, like schedules, routines, and commitments. Returning to former lifestyles and looking at old photographs, what I see is someone else.
This week, I walked into Scripps Clinic for laboratory testing. The last time was 2012, when I was with a former boyfriend. J was all encompassing, all consuming, generous, intelligent, outgoing, and he had to be near me like a new pet. I lasted a year, the obsession of closeness suffocated my spirit and my writing.
After the appointment, I looked across the street at Torrey Pines Science & Research Park, where I was appointed Marketing and Leasing Director in 1986 over 150,000 square feet of vacant space. I visualized myself taking clients, Qualcomm, and the Jonas Salk Institute through the newly built office buildings. My confidence was slightly off when scientists asked questions about the mechanics and cable routes, but I loved that job. My boss was the most intelligent developer I’d met; he carved me into a broad thinker, allowed my off-the-chart ideas and proposals to progress. Tears welled because the memory was enflamed by my long-distance running days up Torrey Pines hillside. I doubt I’d be running today, maybe scuffling. Life is a runway that we have to steer for ourselves. If we allow others to take the wheel, we are not authentic. No one is steering my wheel, and I have hit a lot of potholes and assholes along the way.
The puzzle is how to live, where to live, and for whom. It is the same with manuscripts; they improve with each revision.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
White Wolf introduced himself to me when he worked Valet at La Posada Resort. He was the kool one with enough style and manners to attract attention. I learned he also provided private airport transportation and luxury limo service. A trip to Albany, New York was on my schedule, so I asked White Wolf if he’d drive me to the Albuquerque Airport. When I told him my flight left at 6:30 AM, he didn’t flinch, ‘I’ll be at your house at 4:00 AM with Starbucks-what’s your drink?’
He showed up, loaded the car, asked me to select my own music, and off we went. I felt like I was riding with James Bond; smooth shifts, minor breaks, all the time engaging me in conversation. The combination relieved my pre-boarding stress and woke me up. From then on, I chose White Wolf’sairport service. When he picked me up from Albuquerque, he had Fiji water, Travel & Leisure Magazine, chewing gum, and he played Vic Damone. ‘Chill, sit back, tell me all about the trip.’
At my kitchen counter, on a twenty-below morning, White Wolf leaned back against a bar stool too petite for a swarthy 6’ 4” man. His Johnson & Johnson silky blond hair is swept back, and I want to touch it, but we don’t play with physical affections. White Wolf’s forty, looks thirty, and thinks like he served an attitude and values apprenticeship under a wise guru. He’s on a break; from plowing snow at Albertsons, the Yoga Center, and private homes. This is before he reports for work at Geronimo Restaurant, where he not only parks the cars, but walks the ladies indoors, keeps the Zapata’s outdoors, and directs traffic on Canyon Road until midnight. He’s wearing a sheet white Polo turtleneck and black slacks, his day look, and I’m about to serve pesto, prosciutto and feta cheese frittata for late breakfast.
White Wolf is sipping a sixteen-once Chai and unwinding his broad shoulders in a circular motion as he considers current consciousness of Santa Fe.
“It’s a different kind of materialism. You really want it but you can’t have it. The most simple things; a toaster, a new phone, pinion wood–cause we’re cold–it’s so cold! The guy in front of the Homeless Shelter was near frozen when I drove by to drop off a bundle of clothes. Why is it so cold? Even the valet has to wear BMW beanies. These are some funny times.”
“What’s so funny about not having money?” I smirked.
White Wolf breaks into a full-body laughing recess. His sailor-blue eyes are just slightly turned up when he laughs. This transmits his effortless, humorous pitch on life.
“It’s different,” I said. ” I mean everything feels unfamiliar.”
“Yeah, it’s okay to feel,” White Wolf said. “Things are rattling around. That’s why the Gorge Bridge felt so stable the day I drove up to Taos. I think it’s the most stable thing in my life right now! Hah.”
I had placed the frittata in front of White Wolf, but he hadn’t touched it yet. Even when he’s starved; he lets the food sit there and cool off. I’ve never seen a man not eat when food is placed in front of him. I was already biting into the frittata; relishing a real meal.
I found a momentary silent inlet and asked him if the food was cool enough. White Wolf looked down, touched it with his index finger, and then his appetite fired off. After a few pensive moments, as if he were saying grace, he took a proper bite. He takes the food seriously, intensely. He’ll make a remarkable husband for some woman. He talks a lot about marriage, and the songs he’ll sing to his bride’s mother the day of the wedding. He confides in me uninhibitedly, as if we were two teenagers, cutting class. I feel youthful when he’s in the house; the absence of masks, emotional camouflage, and exaggeration is how I remember adolescence.
“What’d you say Wednesday was–on your new schedule?” he asked.
“Wednesday… I forgot since you showed up. I know! It’s Gallery LouLou marketing.”
“We have to give out two cards a week. I want you to pass out two every day.”
I nodded my head, ” I will, 2013 is just not the year to buy art in a vacation rental during the winter.”
“Geronimo has been slow, no A-list celebrity types, no mothers and daughters; cause the daughters don’t want to come here anymore.”
“Neither do single men, I interrupted. And if they do, they’re from Los Alamos. Can you see me with a scientist or an engineer? I’d make them crazy.”
“Listen–someone asks you out for an Ecco latte, don’t be a bitch. Just do it! You reverse sweat it. If he’s a jerk, Deebo him.” Deebo is the guy who shows up late, and should have been on time. His quip is unabashed, and he handles himself like Sean Penn; smoking and all smiles while he reverses blame.
“Can we change the subject?” I said.
“No! I want to know why you’re not even trying to hook up?”
“Because I’m convinced the man I want isn’t in Santa Fe. The ones I’ve met are looking for a caretaker, a fly-fishing partner, or a biker. Look, there are two types of men: one loves a woman because she’s not a man, and the other one seeks a mother who he can bash around.”
“I want to rat those guys out–like the ones that pinch and don’t tip. Give a name to that.”
“ Listen to this; the newly coined slogan for New Mexico is Truth.” I said.
“ Truth. About what?”
“ Exactly! What truth are they referring to? How bout’ the naked truth? Picture a Native American woman out in the arroyo in a leather crop top, her black hair elevated in strands by the wind, dust on her cheekbones. New Mexico is naked, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It’s isolated. If you can afford to come to Santa Fe and not blow your brains out, or go broke, you deserve to be here. Right?” He is smiling. Even the painful truths, are reformed as tests of endurance rather than complaints. He developed his own poetic rap dialogue that I suppose comes from growing up in two cultures: one in the hood, and the other in the wealthiest homes in Santa Fe.
“ Then it’s a good place for you. Like your friend that takes her poodle to Hospice. I really respect her for that. That’s what she’s doing with Santa Fe.” He said.
“What do you do with Santa Fe?” I asked.
“I’m the union organizer for luxury limo drivers. Like, iron your shirt and shine your shoes, have CD’s in the car, and water. You know–like this is New Mexico but we can spell Burberry. On the weekends I’m the ladies traffic controller!”
“ What is that?”
“At the clubs. Some of the guys are okay, all suited up, hoping for a dance, but some are like, I’ll buy you acocktail if I can follow you home. Someone has to protect them. Ladies can’t drive home cause they’ve cocktailed all night, or they can’t find their car keys, or they want to impress their friends with the Viking chauffeur. It’s chill; they’re good girls during the day.”
The morning turned into afternoon, and I was cleaning dishes, and watching the birds from the kitchen window. Every hour or so I stop responding to White Wolf, and let him talk. I can feel the rush of his life; how he sprints from limo driver, to Geronimo valet, then to Albuquerque, the gym, and his family. People who live intensely engaged in a variety of relationships; stir their surroundings like a human wind. Every time White Wolf leaves, I’m bouncing through the living room and dancing.
When I tuned into the conversation he was recounting his day in ardent animation. His laughter echoes, almost like he’s singing a song, and it lasts a long time.
“I don’t mind giving back to our greedy city tax roll. I feed the meters at the Lensic; that quarter made a difference. Huh?”… more laughter and he repeats, ‘we’re down to quarters.’
“Those meter guys were writing tickets like, here take that, and then on to the next car. Don’t bother coming back to Santa Fe, and it’s the weekend! That’s the barometer of my city—-hurry hurry write that ticket. Once it’s done it’s done.” Suddenly he stands, positioning his legs a few feet apart, he leans over, picks up his keys, and his phone.
“Come on let’s go for a quick creep.”
“A what?”
“Cruise the plaza, get you outdoors, come on it’ll make you feel better.”
“I’m not dressed for outdoors..”
“Put on a pair of low brow boots, and a jacket. Not fashioning this afternoon. You won’t even get out of the car. Come on.”
I listened because White Wolf is definitive in decisions. He doesn’t waver back and forth or want to argue. I rushed upstairs, zipped up my boots and grabbed a down jacket. He was standing by the window.
“We have twenty-minutes.” He said pointing to his watch.
We hopped into his silver VW GTI and he told me to pick a CD. I shuffled through the stack, while he backed out. Just then I noticed a car pull out across Palace Avenue.
“Wolf! Watch out!”
“I got it.” He leaned back, shot eyeball calmness to me and asked what CD I wanted to hear. He didn’t scold me for my alarm and doubt. After that I knew my caution was unnecessary. You learn a lot about a man by his driving. It’s a graph of his responsiveness, confidence, and how he handles sudden movement. White Wolf cruised over the icy asphalt and into the empty Plaza, all white and brown like a two envelopes sitting side by side. He was now slouching back, one hand on the wheel, messing with something in the open compartment, and driving 15 mph. There weren’t a lot of cars, but I had the feeling White Wolf didn’t care if there was someone behind us. We drove past Santa Fe Dry Goods, and he stopped, “Empty– that’s sad. No one buying fuzzy boots or hats.”
He drove by every shop and looked in, as if he was monitoring shopping trends. His eyes swept the streets, the alleyways, and I mimicked him, because I knew this was for me. We went slow as a couple of tired horses, so the eyes could bring in the unknown: a homeless man on a corner, the Indian woman selling jewelry, the Mideastern jewelers smoking cigarettes, and a few locals trotting back to work from a break. I looked up to the sky and found a patch of blue, and pointed it out to White Wolf,” and he turned to me and said, “I’m happy you noticed.”
“It’s two o’clock already,” I said.
“How’d it get to be two o’clock?” White Wolf kept the engine at crawl speed all the way back to the house. “You have to go to Santa Fe Spa–at least go see people! And go after six.” I nodded my head as I got out of the car, went inside, turned on the Rolling Stones, and danced.
Gallery Hendrix film concert in the garage for his exhibition.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
She closed the shutters to his wanting eyes and alchemized from a cocoon to a butterfly beneath a circle of friends in tune. She removed the photos, gifts, and letters and put them in a box to reminisce later. Talking out loud, “She takes just like a woman,” but she will not break like a little girl. “No more hours fanning the past; on this day, my view spans.” She sat peacefully by the fire into the night and let her broken wing sing as she watched the wood turn to gold.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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!
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
He pushed her on a swing, so high she touched the sky, viewed the world through his eyes, lived for a time without lies, then as mystically as he appeared, he let go of the swing, and she fell on her wing, broken but with the will to begin again. A broken heart hasn’t stopped her from loving him.
For ten days, just thinking of her spoken words, how they made their way to his ears and returned the sounds she so wanted to hear. When he stopped contacting her, she wiped her tears as some people find love at the core of their fears.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Living in Del Mar from 1982 – 1996 enriched my spirit, health, and distance running. Even though I’ve heard, you can’t go back, I’m striving to break that fact.
As children, our waiting depends on how long it takes Mom and Dad to finish what they’re doing and pay attention to our needs. It takes hold of us, like a fever, and we resort to nudging them, whining, even sobbing, If we are made to wait longer than we expected. During the school year, I waited all semester for the summer. In Los Angeles that meant it was hot enough to go swimming in the ocean.
When I lived in Hollywood, I rode two buses, to get to Santa Monica. The second bus dropped me off on Ocean Avenue, above Santa Monica Beach. I ran down the ramp that connects to Pacific Coast Highway and headed north to Sorrento Beach. I jumped into the sand running to find the place where my schoolmates clustered: in a caravan of towels, beach chairs, radios, and brown bag lunches. I couldn’t just run to the ocean, I had to sit and talk and have something cold to drink, and then I made myself wait until I couldn’t stand it any longer. Then I ran down to the shore, and embraced the waves, tumbling inside their grasp until I lost my breath, and floated into abandonment.
After I moved to Santa Fe I stopped thinking about the ocean, I had to remove the memories from my thoughts, so I could continue to experience this spark of New Mexico. The dry sage ocean of pink soil, and radiant blue sky that pinches your eyes when you’re driving, the sunlight, the warmth of a desert night, and the white snow on pink adobe rooftops. It had postcard perfection, even with fallen leaves spread like trash everywhere, the trees almost naked, and the dead plants in the garden. I tried not to think of the ocean, the look of the sea from watery suntanned eyelids, or from the bluff at Del Mar, or the splashing of waves around my shoulders as I tumbled beneath the surface.
I waited, as I did as a teenager, for that time to come in the fall of 2010, so I could return to the sea. I stood at the water’s edge in Del Mar, it was like summer without all the kids screaming, barking dogs, volleyball and paddle board games, lifeguards thrashing the beach in their jeeps shouting, ‘no dogs off the leashes, no glassware, and no surfing today’. They were missing, and so were the parade of beach runners, and surfers. In fact, I was the only one swimming, on that first day at the beach. Before I went into the water, I reclined on a big black boulder and faced the sea, letting my eyes wander amongst the scenes of the beach on a Tuesday afternoon. In front of me was an older man with graying hair, in a beach chair reading. He must be retired, he looked perfected adapted to his spot about five feet from the shoreline. I thought about retirement, and how I still cannot come to grips with spending my days on park benches or in cafes watching younger men and women live. There was one swimmer, on a bogeyboard, he was far out, and floating along, and I wished I’d brought mine with me, but it was in Rudy’s van. The last time I used it was when I lived in Solana Beach in 1997. I also wished I had a new bathing suit, because the one I was wearing was too loose, and the neck straps were tied together in a knot so I could swim without losing my top. The sun baked my body, and I let it without abatement, without shading my limbs or wearing a hat, just enough sunscreen to keep the rays from trotting over my lily-white skin. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, the waiting suddenly felt so imperial, so much so that I began to think about waiting as an aphrodisiac or something like a good cocktail that you have to make last for hours, while you wait for that moment that makes you feel immortal, childlike, and emancipated.
I felt the beach flies, and the tang of salt water on my lips, and when the seagulls swarmed above the water’s surface, like so many beads of a necklace, I thought, that this is about the most beautiful day I could have, and it’s all because I WAITED. I didn’t give up on the ocean, or my place in it, or believing that I would have my day in the sand, under a faded denim blue sky, with cotton ball clouds floating above me. I baked until the sweat drenched my pours, and then I raised myself up and walked slowly to the edge of the water. The surf made tiny breaks not enough to shatter my body warmth and I felt the first sting of the water on my feet, and then my knees., I submerged and found that the best way to celebrate this day was to keep flopping backward on top of each wave as it crashed, and I did this for a dozen rounds, until I felt giddy, submissive, and dented with the surf. That waiting thing again, meant something that I should write about because all of us are waiting for the election, the economy to recover, wars to end, streets to be safe and our real estate to be worth something again. We are all waiting for this big change so we can feel secure and optimistic about the future. There is something useful about waiting, something predisposed, that gives us the support and substance we need, so when the waiting is over, and we are all flush with optimism again, it will feel like the first time. It will overwhelm us with power and joy, like the ocean.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 