My emotional tail is wagging; curled up in my desk chair, I feel almost as if I were born in this chair. It’s cushioned me through a cyclone of adventures in livingness. Solitude will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are perplexed by toomuch solitude or not enough. The editor I used before submitting to a publisher asked me, “Why do you keep switching between past and present tense?” I told her I don’t control that until I’m in the final editing stage. 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 don’t 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 and regrets. Honor is more critical; be proud not just for yourself but because someone out there needs you.
Sometimes, solitude feels like a draft no matter how many sweaters I wear. There are not many soloists residing in the village, primarily second and third-generation families with dozens of members. Living unstructured is a discipline that threads some days easily; when it doesn’t, I must rein in my passion for daydreaming. Today, it is the island of Capri. A friend is there posting photographs, so maybe I need to stop watching other people live their dreams. Yes, that’s it-take a reprieve from FB.
Bohemian living was always in my dreams, having been raised in a perfectly pressed pinafore and seated on velvet and satin furniture. I am not really very gypsy like when it comes to home. Once upon a time, I lived out of one suitcase, but I have since been corrupted by the joy of controlling what comes into the house and finding a place for it. Loss of control. Once faced with this alarming epiphany, I vowed to give up control and accept the disorder and disruption.
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 for more visceral makeup. Losing control is a replenishment of youthful spirit. It’s free and painless.
The throw of the dice this week lands on adventures in livingness; one day at a time. People with terminal illness, suffering from a shattered romance, a death of a friend, a natural disaster, always say the same thing; One day at a time.
Walking up Palace Avenue on a day spread with sunlight, and a continuum of power walkers, bikers and runners, passing by in whiffs of urgency, I took my time. I didn’t feel like flexing, just evaporating into the shadows, and the moving clouds. I walked by a little adobe, that once was a dump site for empty bottles, cartons, worn out furniture, and piles of wood. A year later, the yard is almost condominium clean. Just as I was passing the driveway, the little woman whom I’d seen walking up Palace with her bag of groceries, appeared like a gust of history in the driveway of her adobe casita. She wore her heavy blanket like coat and a bandanna on her head. Regardless of weather, she’s bundled up in the same woven Indian coat and long wool skirt. I stood next to her, a foot or so taller, and she unraveled history, without my prompting. She told me about the Martinez family, the Montoyas, and the Abeytas, all families she knew, all with streets named after them. Estelle asked me my name, and then took my hand in her weathered unyielding grip, ‘Oh I had an Aunt named Lucero, and we called her LouLou.’ She didn’t let go of my hand, and then she told me that the families, some names I’ve forgotten, bought homes on Palace in 1988 for $50,000, She shook her finger to demonstrate her point. ‘You know how many houses the Garcias bought? Five! Then they fixed them up and sold them.’
I could have stood there in the gravel driveway listening to Estelle all afternoon. She owns the oral history I love to record; but it is difficult to understand her, she talks with the speed of a southwest wind. We parted and I thought about the times in my life when the smallest of interactions elevates my spirit. In older people, who are not addicted to gadgets and distant intimacy, I’m reminded of how speed socializing has diminished the opportunity for a sidewalk chat.
I’m one of you. Adrift, without a direction, waiting on the shore for a wave to break and include us. It is not ho ho ho for us, it is whoa whoa whoa. I’ve learned my lesson; I will not repeat the dissonance, selfishness, and fear that prevent me from engagement with life. My cradle of friends is my family. They want everything to work out. For their patience and comfort, I will not let them down!
How much stronger must I be? Isn’t five years of punishment enough? My smile is feigned, my heart is sliced in two, and my spirit is spoiled. Today, the darkness outside and within shatters what could be a day different. I could be outdoors, and brave the cold, work out in the gym, window shop on a whim, and fill someone’s frown with smiles.
I have the hours to transform; it is eleven am, but I haven’t slept a night through in a week or more. I live a melodramatic life in my dreams; they are symbolic messages of my vulnerability, fragility, mistakes, and unrealistic expectations. My former self lived with all I wanted and needed. I woke with enthusiasm, direction, confidence, and exhilaration. I loved and was loved in return. You ask what happened? Betrayal, and then gaslighting, using callous actions, of destruction, emotionally, psychologically, and financially. What I cherished in him vanished, and a ghostly evil power, within another woman, chained him and locked me out.
Now I wait for the final curtain to close so that he will be a memory instead of a menace. Almost there, but will that liberation convert my stagnation into stimulation?
Hope, prayer, discipline, and forgiveness are the weights that build my strength. And of course writing. If I didn’t have this way of expression, I couldn’t have made it this far. My writing is my wand of magic, for me and I hope for you out there. I’m one of you, an outsider, an introverted extrovert, a dreamer, a risk taker, and at the starting gate of my triple crown.To be continued.
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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.
Aside from her legal phantazmorphia, the house has critical repairs, so she is meeting with contractors, plumbers, electricians, and masonry companies to tend to one thing after another. As she reflects on all these repairs and sees her savings account drop by fifty percent, her demeanor is not as she expected; she feels a sense of reward for taking responsibility for the house and hertenants.
“ I decided to eliminate debt by consolidating outstanding balances into one low-interest payment; I didn’t use the air-conditioner, buy favorite foods, go to my favorite tavern, or purchase anything that didn’t get categorized as home repair. I even quibbled with my Physician about an in-person visit and asked for a Telemed visit.”‘
‘No, there would be no frivolous spending. This new style of surviving she called Anorexic Finance. When she relayed this to me, I high-fived her because I’ve never been in that position and thought it was commendable.
I used to sit on the stoop in front of my Los Angeles studio. The dog walkers, gardeners, and residents formed the stage, with a backdrop of high-rise, two-million-dollar condominiums and vacant concrete terraces. From that, thoughts randomly tapped: I wish I owned that, wish I had that car, wish I had that garden. It is amusing how one’s view can determine one’s thoughts.
In Ballston Spa,where I lived the last six years, homes are two-hundred years old, or newly built to emulate the Victorian era. The automobile is sturdy, practical, and unwaxed. The way of this wonderment brings simplicity into my life. There’s no need to dress up and fit in; it’s the opposite here, dress down to fit in, or, like me, a combination. I am omitted, observed, and questioned, because, well, I never learned the answer to that, until this moment. Locals love locals, and I have never been one.
It was her widespread, unrestrained, and contagious smile that I see when I think of her. Her expressive hand gestures seemed like separate limbs from her straight, head-held-high posture. Frankness, unpreparedness, and ebullience made her the embodiment of who I wish I were.
I was on the phone with a friend when the news alert filled the screen, and a photo of her signature smile.
“ Oh my God!”
“What?” he asked.
In a voice trembling with shock, I replied, “Diane Keaton died.”
“ Whoa, how old was she?”
“ Seventy-nine. She was the only contemporary actress I related to. I watched Baby Boom last week, so Keaton. It was like watching me if I had the same experiences. “
“ She was great in The Godfather, not a lot of people would agree with that, but that’s my opinion.”
“ I never thought of that. I watch it once a year. She was in an interview years ago, and the host asked,” Why didn’t you ever get married?”
With her arms opening like a double door, she exclaimed, “ No one ever asked me!”
Her last post on Instagram is worth reading.”
And in the same weekend, I think of this. We can’t feel another person’s sickness, or what it’s like to sing if we don’t sing, or fly like a pilot unless we’ve been one. We cannot imagine what it is like to be a hostage of Hamas.
I wandered about yesterday, in the gym, the veranda, and the lobby, and later, had appetizers in the restaurant. Two flat screens, football, the rest couples except the man next to me. I couldn’t help but notice that he was three inches from me at the bar. A shrimp cocktail showed up, he ate voraciously, then a steak and a large flat potato sort of tortilla, a side of vegetables, and he ate enthusiastically, then a lobster plate, with more vegetables, and he ate, and then dessert. I left before it arrived, so I wouldn’t swipe it from him.
I wanted to say to someone, “The hostages are coming home!” I didn’t. Diane Keaton would have!She lived with squamous cell cancer or many years. That explains the hats and turtlenecks.
Writing feels rusty today. I plow deliberately through the blank mental soil to find a blade of substance in a week of tragedy and cultural chaos. In conversations with men and women about our fractured culture.
” It was never like this when I was growing up,” that is from a fifty-year-old,
” I won’t get on a plane, no way?” from a forty-year-old.
” I don’t talk about my views with anyone at work or out of work, except my family and friends.”
I replied, “Yes, we have to talk niceties, bland boring conversation. “
When I was growing up, there was more joking, laughter, and confessional conversation. I was thinking about my high school years; we talked a lot about emotions, our parents, our dreams, and our fears. I don’t recall restraining what was on my mind. Perhaps that is why the majority of the younger generation prefers social media friends, as they can be easily deleted or blocked. On my FB page and feed, not one follower or friend reveals their political views, including myself. Isn’t that so contrary to humanity? And political violence, I keep hearing we won’t tolerate that on the news, but we are tolerating it. Do we all need drones over our homes for security? An optimist would say, We can do better, and we will; a pessimist might say, I think it’s going to get worse, and a nihilist would say, Life isn’t worth fixing; it’s just worthless.
I canceled my utubetv cable account, because on most days anxiety is at full tank without the news. In this new state of freedom from home; maintenance, repairs, showings and tenants, time is on another clock.The one that ticks as a writer in progress who is dusting off the least truest of thoughts.
Junk Removal Day with the best people. First trip: 25 pieces taken. Second 25 pieces. Follies was a vacation rental, so multiply everything by 4. I am adding on, and Mr. Big says, “Okay, don’t worry. A few hundred.” SHELDRICK JUNK REMOVAL. From 10am to 3pm, Big and his wife, Fay, who is the Hulk, and one other helper removed like 50 worn, torn, outdated furnishings, and joked all the way: washing machine up ten stairs, heavy wooden furniture, three beds, I could not believe there strength and amusing jokes, going up and down 35 steps. Sometimes I choose right and this was one of them. Fay survived breast cancer, and Mr. Big several strokes and they worked like Olympians.
ADVENTURESS IN LIVINGNESS this week ends with new directions in living. Before that happens, you have to get lost, detached, and miserable. It messes up your social life, your routines, your comfort, and your partner. I don’t have one, so it’s all up to me.
Men wonder why women change so often, why we are spirited unicorns one day, and mules the next. It comes from the universal need to roam, to feel new sensations and passions, and to find more things to love. Even our closets are overflowing with love: “I love those shoes, I love that coat.” We replace our wardrobes because we need more garments to love.
At the crossroads of some moment in time, I stopped loving material things, my reflection, and went looking for a deeper direction of sensation.
It started last year, when my life was tangled up in two projects that were not progressing. As long as someone didn’t raise the curtain on my imaginary life, I stayed right there, like a gearshift left in neutral. When failure and rejection continued to knock me on the shoulder, I welcomed the familiar knock and remained stationary.
The exact moment I decided to shift gears was a painful one. I let go of both projects that were obstructing my motion. I have extracted the nature of the projects because it really is irrelevant. After I let go, and watched those long-term efforts just dangle from boxes, notebooks, and letters of correspondence, the straight of my back curved. Where is my direction? Where are any of us going anyway, except away from that moment we have no control?
If I asked why this happened, and that happened, I was then distracted by some woman in the car next to me who was having more fun in her convertible talking on her cell phone. Routines were becoming burdens, and my favorite places of comfort were boring. Encouragement came from writing columns, reading letters, and those long, solitary road trips in the night. I felt like I was sleeping, but even in that state of detachment people were finding me, and shaking me up.
I remembered one of the faintest memories of my childhood. I cannot even recall the place I was, or who was there; most certainly, it was not my father and mother. We were camping out and I was in a sleeping bag on the hard gravel ground. It was so unfamiliar to me, the simplicity of the natural surroundings, the heavy black balm of tranquility, and the brightness of each star. I lied awake most of the night talking to my fellow campers, and at some point they said to go to sleep. I could not close my eyes. The adventure had swept me into a state of alertness, the kind that makes you feel extraterrestrial. That night must have taught me to welcome new adventures. Sometimes they have ruined months of my life, but most definitely, at the end, I sprung up with a new line of faith.
Again, I am leaving out particulars because it is not the direction I took or what I’ve chosen. After all, it could be anything. We all want to roam, and love, and find some nugget of truth at the end of the road. I think women need to roam more now than men.
ADVENTURERS IN SINGLE LIVINGNESS 
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