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 hasnโt 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.
SUN, a goose-bumpy joy and celebration. Thatโs what I love about my education here: the first class you must take is weather management. Iโve destroyed dozens of artistic bric a brac by leaving them on the farm table on the porch, forgot to shop for groceries when a storm was approaching, and ran out of salt. I drove through town, taking photos at the red lights; the scenery is like Little Women, dressed differently but still rather swarthy in their determination to survive. Now some men, probably like the fourth or tenth generation, bear the strength by wearing a T-shirt or shorts. The other day, after a snowstorm, I noticed a man crossing the street in shorts, a long white beard, and working boots. Thatโs an EXACT badass around here.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Beguine the Beguine is on the record player, and Iโm swinging around the music room, elated with the energy that forced me to dance, turn off the mind entirely.ย Total bliss.ย Dance has been with me since as far back as I can remember, the answer to a mood change, without drugs or alcohol. ย
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 Iโd 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 donโt 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 โwas in the business, am in the business, or want to be in the business,โ 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 6โ 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 Chantalโs, 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.
Adventures in livingness aren’t just about extroversion, what we say, how we behave, or how we respond. More importantly, they are about our inner changes when life demands that from us. No one hears what threads are spoken in our heads, the ones that are flawed from indecisiveness, the ones that have been molded from things long past, the new threads that are unfamiliar, and the ones we need to rip out entirely.ย
Sunday thinking: future, plan, prepare, implement. What if I go West, East, North, or South? One at a time. I use it a lot; itโs my mascot, mental disability. If I got over it, I would delete it from wherever it rose.
It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling’s If Poem. I am fearless one day and fearful the next, a collage of paradoxical thoughts. Emotions are my yellow brick road and also the vouchers of the victim. Iโve never been an A student of defensive tools; my acquiescence serves my need to be approved, which is so annoying.
I am not going back to childhood experiences; that cathartic tunnel has been examined, and approval and cherishing is the pillow of my contentment.
Today is the day to stop punishing myself and outlive what has aborted my adventures in livingness.
No longer incubate to avoid disappointment, irritations, chaos, uncertainty, and senseless fear. I’m not alone, and you’re not alone. Friends of marvelous careers and lifestyles admit the same. We remain at home, where comfort, familiarity, control, and sustainability are our foundation.
No longer! Debasing my flaws, failures, and finicky flashes, manage them like I’m preparing dinner. If the pasta isn’t fabulous, I don’t go into a fit of failure.
I no longer will have apprehension and anxiety when buyers arrive to tour my home. The great philosophers advised me on Facebook that anxiety never solves problems.
I feel artists and their works are not featured in the media, or maybe itโs because my scrolling is stuck on the essentials of living. In times of war, people must have known, see it now or never. According to Google, over two and a half million working artists live in the country. When was the last time you discussed it at dinner with anyone? I havenโt, and I donโt know why. Pop-up thoughts on life.
The embryo of thought. Sometimes, it is negligible,ย as is life.ย I am the puzzle maker. Every time I try to carve the right size square, I fall off the board and have more material to write about!ย The puzzle is so vast that it covers our lifetime and the pieces are the choices and non-choices that fit into themes.ย We are all a puzzle.
My life is like a melody, a Gershwin tune. As a dancer and prancer at heart, I feel and think with movement of mind. Today, on a translucent composite of sunshine and clouds, my heart is on the people surviving Hurricane Helene. Climate, warnings, rescue efforts, and the stories of human sacrifice to save lives will analyze this puzzle of devastation. All of those risking their own lives to save strangers are my heroes. One hero saves one life. Just imagine.
I’m angry. We can go to the moon, build cities, and predict weather, but why are we waiting now to rescue North Carolina, Florida, etc.?
The hurricane was reported days ago. I looked up the exact date but couldn’t find it. All federal resources should have been there before Helene took lives, animals, homes, streets, businesses, and infrastructure.
It’s impossible to feel personal tribulations when I see Helene’s destruction. The shock is unimaginable unless your home has been removed by earth, wind, or fire.
When our family home burned, my mother drove me up a day later to see what remained. I was eight years old. I felt lost. My stomach was empty, and my breath held. Nothing but ashes; it changes your perspective on what to hold on to.
Burt Lancaster lived above us; a spark dropped from his home onto our house. Ours was the only house that burned on Thurston Circle. We direct our life, and then it returns a different ending. Lucky to have had those years in Bel Air, a paradise of charismatic neighbors, children up and down the street, parties, and safety.
My emotional tail is wagging. Curled up in my desk chair, I feel almost as if I was born in this chair. Itโs cushioned me through a cyclone of adventures in livingness. This piece of writing was handwritten on a tablet back in late January. Iโve made some minor additions and deletions. Before submitting to a publisher, the editor I used asked me, โWhy do you keep switching between past and present tense?โ I told her I donโt control that until Iโm in final editing. My control over my writing is identical to how I live. Acting on impulse, expanding the mundane into a musical, feasting on all the emotions, and fabricating thorny Walter Mitty encounters. I donโt even think of applying proven methods; I make up new ones. Back to this plateau of solitude. Love what you have, and especially yourself, with all your flaws. Integrity is more critical; be proud not just for yourself, but because someone out there needs you.
PART TWO: After reading this and while emptying the trash, I was struck by this: the big payback to living as I described is an adaptation to proven methods. I’m learning pragmatic over poetic.
It is my mother’s birthday, so I am thinking of her. If she had been here today, we would have had this conversation.
Mom, I can’t hold up, I’m so beat down.”
” You have to. I know your situation is degrading and frightening, but you don’t have a choice. You have to use all your strength.”
” I wish I was more like you.”
” You are like me, and I know you will overcome.
After our home burned down in the Bel Air fire, my parent’s divorce was in motion. Dad moved to Hollywood, and Mom moved me to Westwood to a studio until she found work. Mom returned to modeling to support us.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 
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