Looks like an open dragon mouth, in a way it is. Follies House is begging for a brace. The horrors and hahas of owning a 137-year-old home. We’ve had twenty-two years of sustainable wood, but this year is the end of luck. A dear and wise friend once told me this, ” Don’t love what doesn’t love you back.” As a woman of insatiable imagination and impracticability, I do love her. So I spent a few weeks interviewing masonry contractors. The first four said this, ” I wouldn’t park your car under there.” “What? The carport is going to collapse?” “It could.” ” And that costs? ” Fifteen thousand at minimum.” ” What about a temporary fix.” ” Too much liability. Sorry, mam.”
Five interviews later talking to a man whose been in the business thirty years, ” I cannot restore the entire job, is there a temporary fix?” “Well, we could bring in a platform plank to hold it up.” ” How much would that cost?” “Twenty-five hundred tops. You should really let us remove the foundation above it, that’s rotted and sinking. Is there a room above it?” “Yes, a bedroom in my unit. How much would that cost?” ” Between ten thousand and fifteen. We have to get in there and see how much water damage.” ” No, I can’t do that, no impossible.” ” I understand. I’ll do the temporary fix, the house is so gorgeous, and I’ve seen them all.” ” Thank you, I have tenants and have to be responsible for their safety.” ” Would you like to see the bedroom?” ” I’m in a rush.” I smiled a lot and walked up the stairs and opened the front door so he could see. “Wow, this is incredible.” Once he was in the house he was in love and granted me a discount of five hundred dollars. Do you know why? He said he’d love to be a part of her history after he’s gone. Historic homes are leaving our country, replaced by what he called tinderboxes that only last thirty years.
I looked at the list.ย The list looks back at me; trivial, trite, redundant, so I turn on the news.ย The sky has taken the bail, the air is earnest spring, clouds and impending rain like a suspense novel you just started reading.
The list is still in front of me. Call the bank for the fourth time this week. Their new and highly improved website refuses to give me access. Find the copy of the passport application I just submitted.ย Next, pack up winter clothes and replace them with spring-summer. ย This obligation irritated me until late afternoon, and then in one swift harmonious leap, I packed up the winter clothes and removed them from my eyesight.ย Then, I heard a breeze, a solid applicable one that needed to blow through the winter staleness. I opened all the doors and windows that I can open, and let the house breathe. I’ve been quarantined since a week ago Saturday with Covid. ย It was not as agonizing as I’d imagined. Two days of annoying muscle and nerve pain, and flopping over four or five times a day to sleep. Today, I will use my energy to cross off the mindless tasks.
Next on the list, are estimates on the spring cleanup of five hundred or more dead stalks, leaves, bushes, etc to make Follies ready for spring.ย Internal conversation goes like this, I should do it myself, save the hundreds they will charge, but where do I empty all the leaves? The village has rules about placing leaves on the street. Too physical, back to the list.
Submissions for publication, are the most tedious and necessary acts if you are a writer. Nope, not in the mood for that. So I took a drive along a country road, with the top down, and listened to Joe Bataan, a waist-twisting Salsa boogaloo disco singer.ย I turned around after fifteen minutes, even Joe cannot spring my spirit to life.
My relationship with the world is not dependent on what happens to me. It is with Ukraine.ย My heartbeat is in slow motion as I watch the latest news feed from Zelensky. He is holding a press conference this Saturday. It lasted two hours or more. As the camera scanned the packed room of reporters; expressions rooted in awe, admiration, eagerness, and razor-sharp comprehension I thought, they resemble a child’s face the first time a book is read aloud.ย Within the hour’s conference, a news blip surfaced. Blinken and Austin will meet with Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday. My suspicion is they were watching.
As I sat down to dinner, I thought of the announcement earlier that day, “One loaf of bread fed forty people in a bomb shelter. How do we live within the torture, death, and starvation? How do we get up and laugh or enjoy an outing? For me, I have not found a way.
We can pay to go into space, text unlimitedly to avoid, a phone call, we can avoid meeting because we have too many social media replyโs waiting. We can upload, download, delete and save in a second. We can install security alarms, and electronic remotes to open and close our appliances, and electricity. We can drive a car without hands-on, we can buy a private plane, an armored car, bodyguards, and we can remain anonymous by creating a false identityโฆ What we are not doing is improving our behavior, our own personal evolution as humans. Our civility is most recently televised as the Chris Rock, Will Smith slap. Iโm sixty-eight and have watched the Oscars, so I remember what they gave the audience- humble sweet, amusing award-winner speeches, not a political coma, or reprisal for a joke. If Chris did not know the sensitivity of Jada for suffering from alopecia, ( and she is gorgeous with or without). After the slap Chris said something like, this will be the most-watched television show. WHAT? Is that all there is to our humanity; attention, vanity, and ratings?
As time grabs our life without us evening knowing it, one day we may wake up and say, I donโt have that much time left, what should I do? If you are single without children then the options are galactic, unless you live in Ukraine. The war bleeds in my veins, sometimes I feel nausea from the videos, and other times enraged that this was not prevented. The best news of the day is that Russia is expelled from the Human Rights Council. Pause, just today? I am half-Ukrainian. My father, grandfather etc, were Ukrainians. I’ve always thought and said I am half Russian, as noted on Dad’s papers. But I am not Russian, excuse my blind spot.
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. Ayn Rand.
The latest poll on our opinion about NUCLEAR WAR revealed that seventy-five percent of us are worried about NUCLEAR WAR.
April 1, 2022 Day 34
Listening to the news on and off today to collate my life with Ukraine. My tasks and routines are dismissed or performed fecklessly. Just now at four-thirty pm, a splash of the sun touched down to give me a moment to sit on the porch and let the warmth saturate through my gloves and coat.
Iโm looking at the magnificent great great grandfather spruce tree across the street. A ballet wind fan is blowing the branches as if they are in toe shoes. Nature granulates humanity. We donโt live for thousands of years like rocks, rivers, oceans, mountains, waterfalls, and trees. Then I think of the Ukrainians, they will survive. I watched three hours of news today. The longevity and persistence of nature emulates the Ukrainian heart and spirit. My dice, cards, everything is on their winning this war.
“I’ve asked myself again and again whether it wouldn’t have been better if we hadn’t gone into hiding; if we were dead now and didn’t have to go through this misery, especially so that the others could be spared the burden. But we all shrink from this thought. We still love life, we haven’t yet forgotten the voice of nature, and we keep hoping, hoping for…everything.”
July 6, 1944, From the Diary of Ann Frank
“It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
I am not comparing the Holocaust to Putinโs genocide, what I am comparing is humanity,. Itโs evil and itโs virtue.
A non-profit Humanitarian Relief Aid Van bringing medicine, food, water, and clothing was pulled over by The Russian Army. Fifteen volunteers were removed and brought into custody. The news reported the destination, punishment, and length of stay are unknown. Imagineโฆ. I cannot because I’m fearful when I get on a plane. This is one that was reported. People from all over the world, literally, have abandoned their own lives, families, and work to fill the emptiness, starvation, pain, and fear in Ukraine. One of these valiants is a Doctor, and he left his practice in the Midwest to save patients in Ukraine. A fairly new organization, SAVEOURALLIES. ORG, was contacted about a journalist who suffered extensive injuries was rescued by this organization and returned to the USA for treatment. He is recovering. We will hear his story when he is ready to speak.
One-quarter of the forty million that escaped Ukrain are now homeless. Today the government announced we will accept one hundred thousand refugees. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? We accept over two hundred thousand refugee immigrants a month from all over the world at the southern border, how does that figure on the side of fair?
Another puzzling decision by the government was in taking Iran off the terrorist list. I havenโt heard any reporter asking that question at a Press House briefing, Iโm waiting for an explanation.
The Mayor of Kyiv, an ex-pro boxer is on the street of his city, surveying the damage. His face is wide, with dominant features that remind me of a face made in clay, hardened, seriously angry without the visible expression, said โ Act now.” And to paraphrase, as the camera shifts to the burning buildings behind him, and the grounds of rubble, he says this, “You can see on your television whatโs happening. We need help.”
In Russia, over ten thousand peaceful, young protestors were forcibly taken into custody after the soldiers shot rifles within several feet of the crowd as they scattered running in all directions. They know the consequences; jail time, fines, interrogation, but they donโt know the details and I imagine each prisoner is penalized in different ways.
The spokesperson for Putin said this on camera, โ If there is a threat to our country we will use nuclear war.โ Stalin starved four million people, Hitler tortured till death six million Jews and thousands of sympathetic accomplices.
Today the official statement from the White House declared Putin had committed war crimes, but ” IT’S UNDER INVESTIGATION, IT’S AN ONGOING PROCESS AND, WE ARE COLLECTING THE EVIDENCE.” Okay,ย shoot me if I’m wrong. We need more than a thousand innocent people:ย children, mothers’ fathers’, grandparents, buried in dirt pits because the funeral homes are completely full,ย that doesn’t count as evidence?ย
The latest poll on the USA population opinion revealed that seventy-five percent of us are worried about NUCLEAR WAR.
I WANT TO BLAME SOMEONE, to take my anger, rage, and sorrow and give it direction.ย Of course, it is Putin, but why wasnโt Ukraine prepared. I read that seventy thousand troops landed on the border in April. If applied to myself, when that red dot on my nose appeared, instead of going then to the Dermatologist, I waited and waited. A year later, they had to dig out cancer and left me with a noticeable scarred nose. Preemptive, proactive measures could have been, should have been installed, and why not? If itโs true that Zelenskyy asked for NATO SUPPORT in April, why didnโt they listen?
I watch the sky tonight on my porch, clustered clouds, and anticipatory rain; no smoke, fires, explosions, or sirens. GOD BLESS OUR PEACE AND PLEASE SAVE UKRAINE.
Some domestic and global tragedies diminish in our consciousness as weeks go by. Just as the news passes on stories from our southern border crisis, covid strains, inflation, and other unsolved problems.
Ukraine defending their country against the vicious unprovoked genocidal attack by Putin is not going in this direction. It is more explosive and brutal each day and the response by NATO and the USA seems to be in pandemonium. You hear, โ Everything is on the table.โ Nothing is off the table.โ While I understand strategic covert operations are unnamed this leaves me asking, shouldnโt they be beyond discussion by now? If I continue to vacillate on a decision, it only exacerbates the consequences.
Today, as the sky is like a London fog Iโm watching more interviews. So far Iโve seen about forty. Not one of the Ukrainians on camera shed tears, a blaring recognition of their bravery, courage, and ancestry.
Today is day eleven of the war in Ukraine. A friend invited me to join her and her mother for brunch. I declined. The Tavern where they are going is always crowded, the acoustics embellish the conversations, and they will order cocktails. I have no appetite for either. By declining, it allows me to concentrate on developments in Ukraine. Today eight cruise missiles bombed a civilian airport in Vinnytsia. Evacuees promised safe passage out of a small village near Kyiv ran as bombs dropped outside while they gathered in a church waiting to escape. Maripol has no heat or water.
Iโm cooking fresh vegetables, cheese, sausage, and it looks back at me and I feel spoiled. I donโt mean this self-punishment is for everyone. It is for me because four years ago I was an expectant, selfish, high-maintenance gal. I threw her out the window. I stopped her because circumstances, maybe God, said, Stop.
My father was born in Kyiv in 1907. His family escaped the pogroms against the Jewish people when he was six years old. Maybe that is why my compassion for these people is limitless.
THE HISTORY CHANNEL
โ Pogroms (create havoc and massacre) came into frequent use as a term around 1881 after anti-Semitic violence erupted following the assassination of Czar Alexander II.
Anti-Jewish groups claimed the government had approved reprisals against Jews. The first violence broke out in Yelizavetgrad, Ukraine, and then spread to 30 other towns, including Kyiv.โ
The world we knew twelve days ago is a memory, a global chapter in every history book. Again, it is a time to embrace our freedom, our loved ones, our pride. Have you noticed the smash and grab crimes are in a ceasefire, senseless crimes in the streets are either unreported or in recess?
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย AS I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW, the stark undressed trees and branches droop with the weight of snow. Footprints form a hopscotch pattern on the snowy driveway and sidewalks. January is the month that reminds me most of Casey. That’s when she wore a mink coat, hat, and gloves. Her appearance was consistently Vogue print material.ย ย ย ย
Casey was a woman that 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. Casey lived in the present moment and considered her past a private matter. Once I learned of her struggles as a young woman and the life sheโd chosen, she became more real than when Iโd 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.
Caseyโs first gamble was at sixteen years old. She sent in a photograph of herself for the Redbook Magazine modeling contest. If sheโd 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 on as a Powers Girl. She was stunning to look at, she photographed like a movie star, and she was modest. John Powers did not look for aggressive, pouty-lipped, fearlessness. The Powers Girls 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, 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 5โ 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 Caseyโs 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 his business. She asked him to reform his criminal activities. He agreed if only 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 husband and children from pointlessness, and harm. I met her husband just after he tried to reform, and was beaten down by the FBI. I called him Daddy.
Iโve often wondered what people think about when they are alone; taking a run or walk, dining alone, in the shower or tub, or just being on their own. Artists in all genres spend more time alone in the process of creating art.
Waking alone, I step out to open the drape to see if it has snowed. If it has then Iโm on landlord duty to wait for the snowblower to arrive, so my tenants can get to their cars. If it hasnโt snowed then I am thankful, not that the snow-white lawns and rooftops arenโt magically transforming, itโs that time of year when the power goes out or some other nuisance like scraping snow off my car and porch.
Then thoughts leap like little squirrels, from musing on my friends, who I need to call, do I feel like writing today, can I stomach thirty minutes of news and a bit of punishment for past mistakes. The one thread that rises in nightmares, and the first moment I wake up is unconquerable, fear is a thread I cannot snip and toss away. Fear is really about the unknown, we cannot supersede circumstances that are in the waiting room of our lives. Either they have already occurred or you know they are on their way to your front door.
THE FOLLIES HOUSE
Now with the coldness, at six or seven in the morning, I crawl back in bed with coffee and think of the past, then the present, then the future, and then my thoughts drift like snowflakes. You know the saying when you are despondent or troubled you will be told to keep busy. I have not understood that advice until now. My life prior to the last two years was dizzy bizzy. And yes, it eliminated fear and malaise, so now without all the lists, commitments, and responsibilities absent, I am on time with my thoughts.
I ROSE AT 3:00 AM to turn the heat on, pick up my writing journal, and discern the weekโs theme. I wonder for a moment if I should boil water for tea or coffee, and settle on decaf. The street is hollowed like a tunnel, the light of day is shining in some distant country, and the sky appears tinted with primer. Somewhere someone is dressing for work, breathing by the tick of the clock until he or she ( canโt figure out the right pronouns) must report for work.
The draft of sleep lingers in my eyes, and my feet shuffle on the wood floors while I grind the beans and think through the remains of the week. There are themes to our lives. Sometimes a year, sometimes one single day launches the theme, or it may just tumble into our path unexpectedly and replace whatever we were holding on to dearly, and deliver something unpleasant, like sickness, or separation. The sensations leading up to my theme jilted my creativity, and the pages I wrote were jammed with contradictions, maybe they still are.
Thoughts begin to form and ruminate, what is important? The theme of my week began when I finally was in the Dentists office. Itโs been a year, and at sixty that was enough. Now Dr. FX’s office calls me every six months because I am over sixty-five. Still canโt really grasp my age. When I was thirty-something sixty-eight seemed very old. Do you remember that?
Dr. FX is the Music Man dressed in a white tunic. When he comes into my cubicle, he sort of prances on his toes and gives me an elbow safe bump.
โ Hello, oh I see,โ as he looks into my mouth that has been open too long and my cheeks start to stiffen. The hygienist takes that white suck-up tube out of my mouth.
โ She has some tarter that I canโt remove so I suggest she come back because her gums are so sensitive and nonvaccine her for the water treatment .โ
Dr. FX nods and bounces out of the room. Now she begins to sort of authoritatively advise me again that I have serious tarter. I think this is the third time.
โ I think I got a little lazy flossing during covid.โ
โEveryone did.โ
โAnd I also started snacking on those crunchy health bars at night.โ
โThat wouldnโt cause that.โ
Now I am ready to leave and Iโm elated to get out. The receptionist starts talking and advising me about Dental Insurance and she leaves her desk and meets me in the waiting room, and starts stretching.
โ I have to do this as much as I can, sitting in that chair all day long.โ
โOh, of course,โ I raise my arms and swing my hips beside hers. I walked out into a day of clouds and a peek a boo sun feeling a mood change, a spark of energy from a few moments of improvisational dancing. We all crave an irreplaceable swarming of joy, that comes unexpectedly. I was awakened to my detachment from feeling truly alive.
Writing with a pen is so different from the keyboard, journaling is always with a pen, but columns are on the keyboard. I understand what tranquilizes all the peripheral complaints, mental pains, and wounds that lie dormant or at least manageable. Without thinking of the tormented hours, I think of the comforts of exhibiting my life on paper. My desk is sealed into a corner of the bedroom, next to a double pane window (original 1885) forty feet in length. It is not the act of writing with pen and paper moving along at a steady rhythm; itโs the activation of the heart and mind, collaborating to unravel the relevant from the irrelevant. To reach this state of matrimony a writer needs not a Tuscan Villa, or a Moorish Castle, but experiences that flake off the skin, or recall of the experience that gives it relevance.
I return to the porch for one more gulp of landscape that I share with the stars. The street is unfamiliar, a temporary scene like a bus stop, and I am merely waiting to move on. Some of the neighbors are friendly, some have no interest, one kind of spies on me when he thinks Iโm not looking. Thereโs a reason for that but itโs too much of a separate story right now.
If I continue to roam around the task of writing this story, the intensity of irritation will escalate, my neck and shoulders will not loosen, my walk will be feigned, my smile forced, my heart longing for padding, my ego striving for recognition in the wrong places, and my soul roaming the hallways at 3:00 in the morning. I read a quote the other day on some website, to paraphrase: When I’m writing I know I can’t do anything else. The theme of the week is to bring back LouLou, a clownish, spirited, curious, joy seeker.
Let this not be a scorched with boredom bla bla piece of writing as all the elements are with me this Sunday. No one is mowing their lawn, the sky is a metal grey shield against sunlight, a light freckly kind of rain falls outside, and Bill Evans and Jim Hall’s sublime mix plays into my pulse.
In upstate New York, an overwhelming enthusiasm erupts for pumpkins, apples, and cider doughnuts. Advertisements appear in my Saratoga news feed of festivals at the local farms, homemade apple cider, witches and hayrides, pick your own pumpkins, and doughnut-eating contests.
Instead of smirking at this unfamiliar custom, I took a ride out to Lakeside Farms Cider Mill to riddle my sensibilities and get into the autumn groove. It’s a short distance away but, after you make the third turn off the main road, the gladiator trees blushing with yellow and gold formed a canopy over my convertible. It reminded me of an amusement park ride. My mood melted with the colors and as I pulled into the driveway of Lakeside, packed as if the Rolling Stones were going to perform my internal stick shift went into submission. I’m guessing the farm sits on several acres, and on one side is a field of grass, with pathways to walk, and then as I moved closer to a small brown barn, I noticed a witch outfitted for the children standing with her pitchfork.
Shoppers with carts passed filled with pumpkins and apples, and as I looked for a shopping cart, a woman noticed my puzzled expression. “You lookinโ for a cart?”
“Yes, where do I find one?”
“There’s an empty one behind you.” I felt dumb as gum and thanked her. Then I had the choice of going into the open farmhouse where a display of a dozen diverse kinds of apples stacked in crates, farm-fresh vegetables, pumpkins of all sizes, and an assortment of Apple Brown Betty mixes neatly placed on shelves next to jars of honey, preserves, syrup, and pancake mixes.
It is now a full-blown bumper car amusement ride as carts are pushed by shoppers unaware of colliding with other carts. Children are jumping up and down, and screeching with sugar craving desire. I cannot decide which aisle to choose. First, an eggplant that wasn’t the size of a dinner platter, then a few green chilis, and sexy plump tomatoes. I could have chosen a dozen more items. Since I am single, my lesson has been learned not to overbuy only to throw it away.
Apples were tied in bags, a dozen the smallest amount, so I chose one bag of Cortland amongst the other twenty-five kinds of apples! Macintosh, Macoun, Gala, Empire, Jonagold, Honey Crisp, Red Delicious, etc.
I knew I was in the jive when I bought a two-pound sack of Buttermilk pancake mix, a jar of Vermont Syrup, and a jug of Apple Cider. At the counter, in line with half a dozen others, the clerk whom I’m sure was part of the family greeted me.
“How are you today?” He said this as if he was on stage speaking loud enough for an auditorium of guests.
“I’m doing very well, and you?” I don’t usually project an openly loving tone but he sort of earned my delight. With all that I bought, the bill was twenty-eight dollars. I used to spend that at Sprouts in Los Angeles for half the items.
Next, the bakery for those tantalizing apple cider doughnuts. Now I go indoors to a converted barn where they serve food and more grocery items. Another reason for this jaunt was to pick up a dozen doughnuts for the seven firemen who answered my call this week when my basement began to flood. We had so much rain my sump pumps gave up, and the water was just about to fill the hot water heaters in the pit. After they hosed out all the water, we chatted outdoors. Someone mentioned breakfast time. I chimed in,
“Let me guess, cider doughnut!” A round of laughter and oh yes, they all love them. They would not take any money and so I thought I’d buy them what they love.
The sandwich line was twenty groups long. I squeezed in next to the bakery and was called on right away.
“What can we get for you today?” Another gleeful greeting from a woman who looked like she grew up next to the oven. I looked at the selection of pastries oozing with sugar, cream, icing the works.
“A dozen cider doughnut in a box please-it’s a gift.”
“Sugar glazed pleased. And six cinnamons in a bag.”
With a cart loaded up, I suddenly realized I would have to wheel it all the way to my car over puddles, chipped brick, and steps. Instead, I used my less-than sturdy arms. As I walked along leaning slightly to the right (my left arm hasn’t behaved since I fell on the stairs) my LA persona surrendered to old-fashioned, no dieting, family-friendly shopping at Lakeside.
As soon as I entered my kitchen, I dug into the bag of doughnuts, poured a cup of coffee, and dunked.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 
