I RECUSE MYSELF FROM NOISE, LOUD TALKERS, LOUD LAUGHTER, LOUD MACHINERY. I RECUSE MYSELF FROM CLUTTER, AS I DISASSEMBLE MY HOME, AND PLACE BOXES AND BUBBLE WRAP IN EVERY ROOM, SO I AM PREPARED TO PACK. I’M DOING BETTER THAN 2018 AND 2019, WHEN I DISASSEMBLED AND REASSEMBLED HOMES 5 TIMES. NOW I FEEL LIKE GIVING IT ALL AWAY, AND LEAVING WITH TWO SUITCASES. THE INCREDIBLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, A FILM, BUT IT APPLIES TO MY STATE OF MIND. I LOVED COLLECTING EVERY ITEM, BOOK, RECORD, PRINT, BRIC-A-BRAC, AND FURNITURE I CHOSE. AT THAT MOMENT, I LOVED IT. BUT BREAKING UP WITH POSSESSIONS IS LIKE BREAKING A RELATIONSHIP. ITβS TIME, WHEN IT COMES, UNPREPARED, ANXIETY AND APPREHENSION TAKE AWAY SLEEPING SWEETLY AND WAKING UP SMILING. THE PASSAGE FROM ONE ERA TO THE NEXT TAKES WHAT IβM NOT SURE I HAVE, BUT MUST.
ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS FALLS ON. An unusual time to be writing at four in the afternoon. The clouds drew me up to my writing desk, where layers of clouds forms teased me into believing it wasnβt hot and humid outside.Β I decided to write the column.
I knew I shouldnβt write on my laptop because it is deconstructing. I can’t part with this laptop until I outline my next book. The sky drew me to the desk, and so I worked around internet outages.
I only had a few paragraphs from the afternoon, and when I returned to the column after dinner, the whole piece took another course, and I was writing not what I intended, but it was like sailing on a perfect course. It was writing without the editor, meaning the inner editor that sometimes swoops down and cuts your nails off. I was writing about many things that happened. When I finished, I went to save the document and the laptop responded negatively. It vanished. I thought about trying to recapture the column, trying to reinvent the stream of consciousness that seemed to be marathoning through my soul.
There were so many voices speaking all at once. I had to figure out how to connect the moment the leaves reminded me of Saratoga Springs, and how we must place our print on the tablet, on the screen, and dismiss the reader who judges where writing takes us. Sometimes, a reader knows me from the halcyon days, when my light was neon and my spirit a flame. They don’t want to see me now, draped in muted gray and hardship hardened. “Nobody loves you when you’re down and out.” Jimmy Cox
I posted a column on Sunday, The Mind Hike. When I checked my stats, it was rising like a new sun, and hit a record-breaking 127 views! That has not happened since I published my book in 2017. I did not optimize the column or take any steps to increase readership. Today it is up to 126. Whomever you are, thank you so very much for reading my columns.
Writing somberly is parallel to writer’s block. It’s not a block, really, more like a resistance to engaging feelings. Β 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. Β 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 isΒ 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.Β
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 Iβve 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, β Henry Miller on Writingβ βWhoever greatly suffers must be, I suppose a sublime combination of a sadist and masochist.β 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.Β Β Β
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. Β Iβve 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. Β
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.Β If you are an artist, the limit is not the sky; it’s everywhere. Natureβs 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. Β Outdoors is where we see the best of life.
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 Iβd 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.
Caseyβs first gamble was at sixteen years old. She sent in a photograph of herself for the Redbook Magazine modeling contest. If sheβd 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 5β 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 Caseyβs 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.
Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β 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. Β Without that dream, many lovers would not have found their mates.
Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Casey did marry her love and spent her life trying to keep her children from harm and Allen from going to prison. Β I met her husband just after he tried to reform, and was beaten down by the FBI. I called him Daddy. Β
Some of us are not rushing to wave the I made it flag.Some favor holding back until the other elements of our character life are solid; Β our fear, pettiness, falsity, greed, so many steps to climb. I have to trust in the pattern of our lives; the invisible thread that taunts us, teases us, and even torments us. I am discovering the shame and greed, the absolute indifference to my security, and finances.
Gravity has dropped, and so has my sense of structure, health, and self-discipline. Making a bed was too tedious, and grocery shopping was needless because I didnβt care about food; I like tuna sandwiches with avocado and bananas for breakfast. The comfort comes from writing, cloud watching, and phone calls with friends. Β Β
The loss of direction and ambiguity lurking in the future is a place any person can find themselves in, especially those sensitive and artistic, without a map, familiar signs, and a plan. You have to ride it all the way to a new horizon.
It is a day later; the sky is unchanged, and the cloud cover is still nailed to the sky.Β In random conversations, I have heard of peopleβs hardships, sacrifices, and compromises. Β I tell myself not to be too sentimental , but it’s a useless force, I am sentiment. DonβtΒ open those links to real estate values, how much money you need to retire. OpenΒ the link to redesign my interior life using new colors, textures, and backgrounds.
Β 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. IΒ can’t wait to open the door to Luxury Limo Loren and make him brunch.Β 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.
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 hasnβt 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.
Β Β Β Β MONTHS LATER ON THIS DAY, she closed the shutters to him and alchemized from a cocoon to a butterfly beneath a circle of friends in tune.Β 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 is spanning.βΒ She sat peacefully by the fire into the night and let her broken wing sing as she watched the wood turn to gold. Β
In a current of unexpected life moves, I floated towards the Pacific Ocean and landed along the fragile, factious Santa Monica Mountains to Malibu.
The salty seaweed smell of the ocean streams through my car, driving down the Pacific Coast highway on my way to buy groceries.Vintage Marketis new to Malibu, and clerks are giddy about their jobs. They may be aspiring actors or former actors.
I walk in and get a phone call that Iβd been waiting for so, I set my cart down on a shelf and took the call. During the half-hour conversation, my eyes were fluttering through the scene: tanned surfers, affluent college students, and diamond-rich men and women of age that donβt check their bank balances. Because of this, expressions are chilled as fine wines, and smiles are sublime or radiating. They are a mostly content population of 13,000. The median home price is $901,000, and the median income household is $127,000. Here in Malibu every thing looks different from Santa Fe: The staging of βwas in the business, am in the business, or want to be in the business,β surfaces and dominates the scenery.
They are beautiful-the young teenagers who surf and paddle are true blondes, the blue eyes scintillating pools of water, young women are saddled onto 6β platforms, and then there are the stand-out power people, who will not acknowledge anyone, and expect everyone to acknowledge them. Tucked in the mountains, are extraordinary artists who live off the grid the way most people prefer to live in Santa Fe. I am learning slowly and still hiding out at Chantalβs, where I am living, two miles up from PCH off Malibu Canyon Road, behind a gate. Bohemians, artists, home-office screenwriters, producers, and famous heirs of recognizable movie stars live there.
In the last hour, I walked down the road in the hands of sloping hillsides, horse ranches, and signature homes behind walls as high as the palm trees, built to withstand the typhoons of nature and mankind. In thedaylight a swirl of rain and clouds, it was as if I was in Ireland, walking along a road in Kilkenny. I roped in my imagination and returned to the mountains, which will teach me how far to go, how to duck a racing motorcycle car, or confront a coyote or a snake. A full transcendental moon dipped into the black-out mountain evening, and has cured me of interior turmoil for the time being. This is part of adventures in livingness in what locals call the bu. Chantal’s artistic compound of eight cottages and seventeen acres burned to chips in the Woolsey Fire. One night with Chantal and Neighbors.
Today, as the Bu, Palisades, and five other fires demolish humanity’s lives, I am grateful I was able to return to my childhood memories in Malibu for one summer in 2017.My family home burned in the Bel Air fire in 1961… No WATER.SAVE THEM THIS TIME, LA, AND DON’T LIE TO THEM.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 
