Luellen Smiley is a creative nonfiction writer, author, columnist, and historian whose writing is deeply rooted in a controversial personal history. She is the daughter of Allen Smiley, a close friend, associate, and business partner of notorious Las Vegas gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Her father was sitting only feet from Siegel when Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills on June 20, 1947.
That extraordinary childhood history became the foundation for Smiley’s first book, Cradle of Crime: A Daughter’s Tribute, published in 2017. The memoir explores what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a man connected to organized crime while trying to reconcile her love for her father with the secrecy, fear, and criminal world surrounding him.
Smiley’s work has appeared in publications including the New York Post, MORE Magazine, Southern California newspapers, and Authorlink. She wrote the newspaper column Smiley’s Dice—Adventures in Livingness, which earned a Blue-Ribbon Award from the California Newspapers Association for her Growing Up With Gangsters columns.
Her interest in her father’s history also led her to become a researcher and commentator on organized crime history. She has participated in television, radio, and documentary interviews.
Smiley’s next book, Gaslighting Greta, will be published this year. A personal story that reads like fiction. Her own website describes the project as exploring a woman whose life is destabilized by gaslighting and psychological manipulation.
Her writing career reflects a recurring theme: using personal experience and research to uncover the truth behind complicated relationships and extraordinary lives. From the secretive world surrounding her father and Bugsy Siegel to the deeply personal territory of Gaslighting Greta, Smiley’s work transforms difficult experiences into stories of survival, discovery, and ultimately reclaiming one’s voice.
Luellen Smiley is an author whose life has given her an unusual perspective on secrecy, manipulation, family loyalty, betrayal, and survival—and she uses that perspective as the raw material for her nonfiction storytelling.
The safety pin that allows us to walkabout is gone. Lawlessness has landed, an alien from the dominion of hatred, frustration, anger, revenge, mental illness, and loneliness. Depraved directionless menacing strangers leap upon INNOCENTS and are EDITING THEIR PURSUIT OF LIFE. A mounting civil war that no one really calls out, is like lava spreading throughout our cities, suburbs, monuments, schools, hospitals, daycare centers, stores, and restaurants. Everywhere, even on the freeway drivers shoot at drivers.
My gang has stopped watching the news, I have cut down to news flashes, then mute, then maybe the evening news. Not a conversation that I have or overhear is about the crime crisis. Why is that?
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’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 read in one of my books on writing that the middle of the novel is where most writers face the demon. The beginning is a gallop, the end is a relief, but the middle wiggles in and out of your grasp. The middle of our lives reflects this same obscurity.
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. I’ve finally accepted that my constant relocating, reinventing, and being restless is not going to 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 was standing out on the porch observing the peacefulness. The scenery of Ballston Spa 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.
All I can think of is where I should go next. This is wholly a village of ancestral families, with defensible adaptation to the severe climate, simplicity, and uncomplicated lives. My discomfort comes from trying to assimilate.
Many years ago, in the summer of 1987, I was seated in a café in Monaco, truly, and a man that I was traveling with told me, “You have to make a choice.” He embarked on a long discussion about choices we make in life and how everything depends on these choices: how you live and with whom, and what you do. He pointed out to me over my first really authentic Salad Niçoise that I was an oblivious example of a woman refusing to choose. I was more interested in the salad, the yachts, the casino around the corner, and the fact that I didn’t have an evening gown to wear to dinner. I listened without argument or insult, but I was disturbed by what he said. I didn’t understand completely, but he was older and had much experience and conviction. That conversation now fits into the mid-life crisis, the comedy of errors in my life, and maybe in yours, and just how much travesty we can ignore. For my fault, as it WAS, I did not want to sign, commit, or make final decisions. I wanted it all to be a temporary placement that allows me the freedom to change.
Ihave lost track of my European friend, but if he met me today, he would say, “You have not changed at all.” So that is why I was standing there in the darkness on the porch and laughing like a silly girl because it is true. I have not changed at all.
The choice facing us at mid-life is making a change now, risking losing all we have accomplished, compiled, and attached, or throwing the dice.
Beyond the obvious changes in activity, relationships, and scenery are the internal travels. They are not so easily engaged. You cannot wake up one day and say, “I ‘m off to become more compassionate, or more practical, or more generous.” These journeys are taken when other factors play into our lives, such as when we get sick, demoted, or experience a trauma.
It is a very subtle inconsistency. When I unplug all the voices and listen to the one that understands, that is when I write. The middle of the story and the middle of life is the same. We and our characters have to make a choice.
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.
Page 525. Terrified to post this but it is Sunday and I’m brave on Sunday. The book is fiction, first-person, and close third person so you’ll need a jogging suit to read. Based on true events.
Greta let the moment of the village rescue stay with her, like a new pet for as long as she could hold on to its beneficial ointment, away from what she calls her immersion into self. She gives me examples that illustrate her obsession with matching outfits in her closet.
It’s a bedroom she converted into a dressing room. There’s a single bed against one wall, a cabinet where she stores the winter boots, and an eight-drawerFrench nouveau dresser and mirror. She sits on a chair facing the windows so she can watch the trees live through sun, wind, rain, and snow. Across from the chair is the bed. She diligently arranged her summer pastel skinny jeans on the bed, and next to that row she arranged the T-shirts, camisoles, and shorts. It’s quite practical considering Greta as she has admitted to me half a dozen times, that she was born without common sense or practicality. At the base of the bed, she lined up her shoes, the slip-ons, the flats, the pumps stuffed with tissue paper to preserve their shape, and the wedges. After a breach of sanity, she goes into this room and visualizes outfits and color matching like someone might play chess. ‘ It does have a purpose, this way I visualize without wrangling with hangers and you know it just takes too much time when you’re in a closet.
‘”These days I look at them as if they belonged to someone else, I mean the red suede with gold heels that I wore on a New Year’s Eve of gaiety and not since, the black velvet pumps that always make me feel dainty and light. What care I give to all these garments when in the other part of the house, Dodger was descending into a financial coma.”
Greta did not acknowledge the few months before his departure that he was riddled with abject unfulfilling tasks, bills, and construction jobs that no longer fed him purpose and accomplishment. She did not notice that his slacking posture on the front porch, head lowered and staring out without any body movement was a sign, she in fact despised it and walked away. In the last few months, all of this seemed to rise up like a curtain before a play, in a theater and she witnessed his insolence and his silent howl for help.
The irony of her activity is that she doesn’t go to the events that she plans on going to wear the outfits.
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’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.
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 lookin’ 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.
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 wonder what you all are doing this July 4th. The last year had pressed us closer, and friends from years past have knocked on my FB door. Someone switched the light on our lives and I for one will find pages of material as a memoirist to unleash all that happened within and without. What took me all the way down was seeing the number of deaths. NY lost more than thirty-five thousand people, that would be like all of Saratoga County.
I vote for a Memorial somewhere in the US, maybe a wall, inscribed with the names of those lost to Covid-19. Grateful is the word of the times. I wish you all a big, loud, closely adjoined unmasked party.
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 CLASSMATE THAT wrote is named Andrew. I imagine he’s married; a man with his looks and gregarious personality living in Los Angeles all these years. Maybe he married one of our high school classmates. We exchanged a few emails in two thousand eight, he’d just returned from a trip to Poland and I was managing the gallery. Then the crash came and I think my correspondence dropped. Why was he thinking of me? I don’t have any photographs from high school, I suppose I could look him up in the yearbook. I’ll wait till he writes again.
The sky is crystal blue, and the temperature a mild fifty degrees. From my window, the leaves dropping makes me think the trauma and suffering the last four years has dropped from my life. What the trauma was about is irrelevant and too lengthy to write. We all get sent to the chopping block of heartache and this was mine. This is as liberating as taking off a tight bra after a long day!
Maxfield Parrish
September has traditionally been my month of transition. It’s a sort of pattern that began years ago and so making decisions is as if I’m on a time clock. What is most essential now is finding a new place to call home. I began looking at Santa Barbara. I loved visiting the city by the sea, those beautiful mountains, and quaint craftsman architecture. So what if I don’t know anyone, I’ll be alone regardless of where I move. Easily accomplished in my fifties, not so improvisational at sixty-seven.
Rapturous Autumn day; this year the transformation of nature, outdoor activities, cider doughnuts, smoking fireplaces, and a crispness that reminds me of breaking open a head of lettuce. What really happens to us in the East is fall descends like a new stage and the props from summer are removed. The mums come out on the porches, and the bright yellow and gold plants dot every porch. The conventional lifestyle and customary activities placate our sense of belonging. Christmas, wow, it’s only a short time till winter. In the dressing room unpacking more sweaters, socks, warm-ups, I get an alert, another email. Andrew added another compliment so my response was crush-worthy. Why not? Maybe fantasy is what is needed. Remerging silhouettes, all of us on the front lawn at lunch time, and boys are pairing up with girls and Andrew is laughing, making clownish faces and gestures, yes he was crush-worthy. He walked in long strides, visible energy and every step seemed to have a purpose. The boy I was in love with graduated, and I did not have a boyfriend. My shyness and restrained conversational skills excluded me from invitations to date. Maybe that’s why he didn’t take notice of me observing him, a lot of classmates had crushes on him.
The reality of COVID-19 is now the centerfold story because it is affecting everyone; the excruciating financial loss, death, sickness, and loneliness. It’s more like acceptance that this is our job now to tolerate COVID-19. Restrictions, circumstances of failed businesses we all loved, fear, and more fear call for an imaginary friend who I haven’t seen in fifty years. He replied with a formal note of response that he was on Facebook and could we be friends. I wrote back, yes. I am listening to the soundtrack from the film A Man and A Woman while chopping vegetables for soup. This music has formed a flame of optimism for the day I’m in love and let go of singleness.
On Facebook Andrew’s feature photos reveal the teenager I remember. He is a photographer, a Neuro Technician, and in his twenties an actor and model … hum, sounds like my resume, professional career changer. His photos sent a quiver through my veins, a call to read everything on his page, and view videos of his European travels: beautifully crafted images of architecture, monuments, art, culture, and locals. It deepened my understanding of his life just by his photos and posts. The other side, his appearance; the facial features, keen brown eyes, uncensored or rehearsed self-photos, group photos with our high school mates at the reunions, his long wavy hair, and his defined lips and cheekbones tingled curiosity.
The photos of Andrew at the class reunions next to my best friend and other classmates I remembered brought a snowstorm of memories. How I loved my friends back then. About six of us went everywhere together; bought our first bras, learned to drive, went to Westwood Village to look for cute boys, sat in the booths at Mario’s Pizza, Hamburger Hamlet, and The Apple Pan and all of it on ten or twenty dollars a week allowance. I have not been to a reunion since the tenth. Andrew posted photos from several. He stayed connected. Fifty years have passed, and he’s on my mind. To be continued.
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.
What I think of at three in the morning is never the same at ten o’clock in the morning. The labyrinth of safety and comfort, colliding with the unknown darkness, seems to be the most revealing of emotions. It is also a time that spirals into visual realizations, recognitions, and a time when our mirrors move toward us. Tonight, is about friends.
Friends are bookends that bind our stories; some novellas, some poems, some cinematic, each friend s serves as a bookend to our personal history. When I’ve lost my way and need direction my friends motorize me like a little engine, and when I fly without wings, they ring the bell to come down to earth. At times, arguments arise and my friendships stray, but true-life friends never leave you behind. Sometimes years may pass, and then one day you get a call or an email or send one yourself, and the flushing of that particular squabble in history vanishes. You can start anew; at the same time, it is not.
The essence of friendship never burns out, it is our galaxy, a kind of celestial agility.
Are you experiencing a startling outpouring from friends who’ve left your life only to suddenly show up on your social media or a personal email? Are your friends calling and writing more often than pre-Covid? I’m always examining some unfamiliar events in life, a new trend, a cultural change. We have that now, and conversation, as it has leaped from let’s just talk to all the, don’t go there subjects of 2020. Seems like every topic can be mixed with politics, sometimes the mixture is explosive. I’ve halted the political discussions and so have my friends as they are more important to my livingness than politics.
These new threads of friendship began with a young man I dated when we were in our mid-twenties. He was developing into a businessman, the world was not far from his scope, I on the other hand was cradled by my father’s demands, my freedom limited. Our short story ended; the bookends shelved until one day he sent a message on Facebook with his phone number. The last time I’d seen him was around nineteen-seventy-three. I paddled through the well of memories; his image materialized, he was smiling, joking, driving me around, going places. I could be passive with him; he was a trailblazer. I was content to be in the company of a man who was fearless, exploratory, and a gentleman. Our first phone call lasted a long while because youthful history is crystallized and reigns over the years missed. I find it problematic especially during this pandemic to form new friendships, so the friendship of the past rises like warm muffins in the oven.
In May as the spring yearned to rise from the winter, I received an email that flowered my childhood. Bonny, my playmate, throughout elementary school, as Brownies and Girl Scouts, as synagogue attending students and mischievous little girls who wanted to be dancers, me in Jazz and Bonny in Ballet. She lived just across the street from Bellagio Road school and our escapades often took place in her home. I remember the black and white tile floor, streams of sunlight over the grand piano where her father played and Bonny practiced ballet technique. Even at the age, her discipline and dedication were remarkably striking.
Bonny Bourne Singer
After exchanging emails we had a phone call. The last time I’d seen Bonny was in the 7th grade, bookends that yielded to fifty-four years. Our conversation began in yelps of laughter, astonishment, excitement and the pages of our story flipped from her career with the New York City Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet, to her marriage and children, and then to her Mother.
“Luellen, hold on my mother is nudging me to give her the phone.”
As soon as I heard her say, “Sweetheart,” her name came back to me.
“Rose! oh my, this is unbelievable. I am so happy Bonny contacted me after reading my book.
“I just finished it. I loved it.”
“Thank you, Rose, I have a question–do you remember much about my Mother?” You’re the only one still alive that knew her.
“Darling, a day didn’t go by that we didn’t talk on the phone. She was such a beautiful person.”
Tears blurred my sight as we walked through some memories. The fifty-four-year absence seemed like five. Since that first conversation, we now speak every few weeks, send emails, photos and our friendship is as sustainable as if we were ten years old.
Sometimes friends get into disputes, not verbal arguments, just an interruption caused by events or circumstances that override the friendship. My closest friend in Santa Fe, I’ve coined Pandora and I relinquished our friendship because of our raucousness when we were serenading downtown Santa Fe. Pandora and I recently liberated from dower circumstances clicked our heels, held hands and skipped through town endowed with our personal feminist characteristics. Then, at some point, we divided as our playtime interred with our work time and five years passed. As it happens during Covid- we recall the best times of our lives. Pandora heard the calling and left me a voice message. Oh, how I rehearsed what I would say, and how much I missed her, in between visual images of us, at the La Fonda Hotel, La Posada, and Santa Café. For one of my birthdays, she arrived with balloons, flowers, champagne, and a bag of presents, that reminded me of my childhood indulgences. I called her back within the hour. Our bookends opened to our shared memories and we both admitted we regretted we let responsibilities divide us. Now, Pandora is within my life and mine in hers. I told her, “I don’t care what happens between us, I’m not going anywhere. “
Photo Pandora with her therapy poodle, Pumpkin visiting patients a at a Santa Fe Hospital. Her blazing compassion for anyone suffering.
When September arrived, the leaves dropped like tears from the trees. I watched from my window, this shedding of a season, and began packing up the summer clothes. As I pulled out the sweater’s boots, hats, gloves, and warm-ups with regret and stubbornness, I am not prepared for a third winter alone. Maybe it will be like this for the rest of my life. These invective fears permeate throughout my days and nights. What I asked for as a writer was time alone, now I have it.
Hours passed like waiting in line in my own mind, how to shift from this sentiment to something promising. I switched from news to emails to social media and then I noticed a comment from a student on Classmates. Com. I am a member as a graduate of University High School in Los Angeles.
We were the graduating class of 1971, one thousand students from the Westside. Some classmates lived so close I walked there after school, some from wealthy influential parents, some in the film business, and some from blue-collar families, We did not judge by color, income, or politics, we just accepted one another. I don’t recall any arguments, attacks, insults, or violence, high school was our second home. I remember the beautiful botanical gardens, the dance studio, the football field, and the front lawn where my gang hung out during lunch or after school.
The comments were touching and so I responded back. I remembered this secret admirer from Junior High and High School. He had a distinctive style, part trendy part individual, he wore hats and paisley shirts, his stride was fast-paced, his hair brown, long and thick that framed a beautiful masculine jawline. He laughed with gusto, his voice was theatrical in tone as it was at one moment pensive and the next comical. He was not part of one particular gang of friends but moved like a party host between many of the circles. To be continued.
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.
What I think of at three in the morning is never the same at ten o’clock in the morning. The labyrinth of safety and comfort, colliding with the unknown darkness, seems to be the most revealing of emotions. It is also a time that spirals into visual realizations, recognitions, and a time when our mirrors move toward us. Tonight, is about friends.
Friends are bookends that bind our stories; some novellas, some poems, some cinematic, each friend s serves as a bookend to our personal history. When I’ve lost my way and need direction my friends motorize me like a little engine, and when I fly without wings, they ring the bell to come down to earth. At times, arguments arise and my friendships stray, but true-life friends never leave you behind. Sometimes years may pass, and then one day you get a call or an email or send one yourself, and the flushing of that particular squabble in history vanishes. You can start anew; at the same time, it is not.
The essence of friendship never burns out, it is our galaxy, a kind of celestial agility.
Are you experiencing a startling outpouring from friends who’ve left your life only to suddenly show up on your social media or a personal email? Are your friends calling and writing more often than pre-Covid? I’m always examining some unfamiliar events in life, a new trend, a cultural change. We have that now, and conversation, as it has leaped from let’s just talk to all the, don’t go there subjects of 2020. Seems like every topic can be mixed with politics, sometimes the mixture is explosive. I’ve halted the political discussions and so have my friends as they are more important to my livingness than politics.
These new threads of friendship began with a young man I dated when we were in our mid-twenties. He was developing into a businessman, the world was not far from his scope, I on the other hand was cradled by my father’s demands, my freedom limited. Our short story ended; the bookends shelved until one day he sent a message on Facebook with his phone number. The last time I’d seen him was around nineteen-seventy-three. I paddled through the well of memories; his image materialized, he was smiling, joking, driving me around, going places. I could be passive with him; he was a trailblazer. I was content to be in the company of a man who was fearless, exploratory, and a gentleman. Our first phone call lasted a long while because youthful history is crystallized and reigns over the years missed. I find it problematic especially during this pandemic to form new friendships, so the friendship of the past rises like warm muffins in the oven.
In May as the spring yearned to rise from the winter, I received an email that flowered my childhood. Bonny, my playmate, throughout elementary school, as Brownies and Girl Scouts, as synagogue attending students and mischievous little girls who wanted to be dancers, me in Jazz and Bonny in Ballet. She lived just across the street from Bellagio Road school and our escapades often took place in her home. I remember the black and white tile floor, streams of sunlight over the grand piano where her father played and Bonny practiced ballet technique. Even at the age, her discipline and dedication were remarkably striking.
Bonny Bourne Singer
After exchanging emails we had a phone call. The last time I’d seen Bonny was in the 7th grade, bookends that yielded to fifty-four years. Our conversation began in yelps of laughter, astonishment, excitement and the pages of our story flipped from her career with the New York City Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet, to her marriage and children, and then to her Mother.
“Luellen, hold on my mother is nudging me to give her the phone.”
As soon as I heard her say, “Sweetheart,” her name came back to me.
“Rose! oh my, this is unbelievable. I am so happy Bonny contacted me after reading my book.
“I just finished it. I loved it.”
“Thank you, Rose, I have a question–do you remember much about my Mother?” You’re the only one still alive that knew her.
“Darling, a day didn’t go by that we didn’t talk on the phone. She was such a beautiful person.”
Tears blurred my sight as we walked through some memories. The fifty-four-year absence seemed like five. Since that first conversation, we now speak every few weeks, send emails, photos and our friendship is as sustainable as if we were ten years old.
Sometimes friends get into disputes, not verbal arguments, just an interruption caused by events or circumstances that override the friendship. My closest friend in Santa Fe, I’ve coined Pandora and I relinquished our friendship because of our raucousness when we were serenading downtown Santa Fe. Pandora and I recently liberated from dower circumstances clicked our heels, held hands and skipped through town endowed with our personal feminist characteristics. Then, at some point, we divided as our playtime interred with our work time and five years passed. As it happens during Covid- we recall the best times of our lives. Pandora heard the calling and left me a voice message. Oh, how I rehearsed what I would say, and how much I missed her, in between visual images of us, at the La Fonda Hotel, La Posada, and Santa Café. For one of my birthdays, she arrived with balloons, flowers, champagne, and a bag of presents, that reminded me of my childhood indulgences. I called her back within the hour. Our bookends opened to our shared memories and we both admitted we regretted we let responsibilities divide us. Now, Pandora is within my life and mine in hers. I told her, “I don’t care what happens between us, I’m not going anywhere. “
Photo Pandora with her therapy poodle, Pumpkin visiting patients a at a Santa Fe Hospital. Her blazing compassion for anyone suffering.
When September arrived, the leaves dropped like tears from the trees. I watched from my window, this shedding of a season, and began packing up the summer clothes. As I pulled out the sweater’s boots, hats, gloves, and warm-ups with regret and stubbornness, I am not prepared for a third winter alone. Maybe it will be like this for the rest of my life. These invective fears permeate throughout my days and nights. What I asked for as a writer was time alone, now I have it.
Hours passed like waiting in line in my own mind, how to shift from this sentiment to something promising. I switched from news to emails to social media and then I noticed a comment from a student on Classmates. Com. I am a member as a graduate of University High School in Los Angeles.
We were the graduating class of 1971, one thousand students from the Westside. Some classmates lived so close I walked there after school, some from wealthy influential parents, some in the film business, and some from blue-collar families, We did not judge by color, income, or politics, we just accepted one another. I don’t recall any arguments, attacks, insults, or violence, high school was our second home. I remember the beautiful botanical gardens, the dance studio, the football field, and the front lawn where my gang hung out during lunch or after school.
The comments were touching and so I responded back. I remembered this secret admirer from Junior High and High School. He had a distinctive style, part trendy part individual, he wore hats and paisley shirts, his stride was fast-paced, his hair brown, long and thick that framed a beautiful masculine jawline. He laughed with gusto, his voice was theatrical in tone as it was at one moment pensive and the next comical. He was not part of one particular gang of friends but moved like a party host between many of the circles. To be continued.
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.
What I think of at three in the morning is never the same at ten o’clock in the morning. The labyrinth of safety and comfort, colliding with the unknown darkness, seems to be the most revealing of emotions. It is also a time that spirals into visual realizations, recognitions, and a time when our mirrors move toward us. Tonight, is about friends.
Friends are bookends that bind our stories; some novellas, some poems, some cinematic, each friend s serves as a bookend to our personal history. When I’ve lost my way and need direction my friends motorize me like a little engine, and when I fly without wings, they ring the bell to come down to earth. At times, arguments arise and my friendships stray, but true-life friends never leave you behind. Sometimes years may pass, and then one day you get a call or an email or send one yourself, and the flushing of that particular squabble in history vanishes. You can start anew; at the same time, it is not.
The essence of friendship never burns out, it is our galaxy, a kind of celestial agility.
Are you experiencing a startling outpouring from friends who’ve left your life only to suddenly show up on your social media or a personal email? Are your friends calling and writing more often than pre-Covid? I’m always examining some unfamiliar events in life, a new trend, a cultural change. We have that now, and conversation, as it has leaped from let’s just talk to all the, don’t go there subjects of 2020. Seems like every topic can be mixed with politics, sometimes the mixture is explosive. I’ve halted the political discussions and so have my friends as they are more important to my livingness than politics.
These new threads of friendship began with a young man I dated when we were in our mid-twenties. He was developing into a businessman, the world was not far from his scope, I on the other hand was cradled by my father’s demands, my freedom limited. Our short story ended; the bookends shelved until one day he sent a message on Facebook with his phone number. The last time I’d seen him was around nineteen-seventy-three. I paddled through the well of memories; his image materialized, he was smiling, joking, driving me around, going places. I could be passive with him; he was a trailblazer. I was content to be in the company of a man who was fearless, exploratory, and a gentleman. Our first phone call lasted a long while because youthful history is crystallized and reigns over the years missed. I find it problematic especially during this pandemic to form new friendships, so the friendship of the past rises like warm muffins in the oven.
In May as the spring yearned to rise from the winter, I received an email that flowered my childhood. Bonny, my playmate, throughout elementary school, as Brownies and Girl Scouts, as synagogue attending students and mischievous little girls who wanted to be dancers, me in Jazz and Bonny in Ballet. She lived just across the street from Bellagio Road school and our escapades often took place in her home. I remember the black and white tile floor, streams of sunlight over the grand piano where her father played and Bonny practiced ballet technique. Even at the age, her discipline and dedication were remarkably striking.
Bonny Bourne Singer
After exchanging emails we had a phone call. The last time I’d seen Bonny was in the 7th grade, bookends that yielded to fifty-four years. Our conversation began in yelps of laughter, astonishment, excitement and the pages of our story flipped from her career with the New York City Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet, to her marriage and children, and then to her Mother.
“Luellen, hold on my mother is nudging me to give her the phone.”
As soon as I heard her say, “Sweetheart,” her name came back to me.
“Rose! oh my, this is unbelievable. I am so happy Bonny contacted me after reading my book.
“I just finished it. I loved it.”
“Thank you, Rose, I have a question–do you remember much about my Mother?” You’re the only one still alive that knew her.
“Darling, a day didn’t go by that we didn’t talk on the phone. She was such a beautiful person.”
Tears blurred my sight as we walked through some memories. The fifty-four-year absence seemed like five. Since that first conversation, we now speak every few weeks, send emails, photos and our friendship is as sustainable as if we were ten years old.
Sometimes friends get into disputes, not verbal arguments, just an interruption caused by events or circumstances that override the friendship. My closest friend in Santa Fe, I’ve coined Pandora and I relinquished our friendship because of our raucousness when we were serenading downtown Santa Fe. Pandora and I recently liberated from dower circumstances clicked our heels, held hands and skipped through town endowed with our personal feminist characteristics. Then, at some point, we divided as our playtime interred with our work time and five years passed. As it happens during Covid- we recall the best times of our lives. Pandora heard the calling and left me a voice message. Oh, how I rehearsed what I would say, and how much I missed her, in between visual images of us, at the La Fonda Hotel, La Posada, and Santa Café. For one of my birthdays, she arrived with balloons, flowers, champagne, and a bag of presents, that reminded me of my childhood indulgences. I called her back within the hour. Our bookends opened to our shared memories and we both admitted we regretted we let responsibilities divide us. Now, Pandora is within my life and mine in hers. I told her, “I don’t care what happens between us, I’m not going anywhere. “
Photo Pandora with her therapy poodle, Pumpkin visiting patients a at a Santa Fe Hospital. Her blazing compassion for anyone suffering.
When September arrived, the leaves dropped like tears from the trees. I watched from my window, this shedding of a season, and began packing up the summer clothes. As I pulled out the sweater’s boots, hats, gloves, and warm-ups with regret and stubbornness, I am not prepared for a third winter alone. Maybe it will be like this for the rest of my life. These invective fears permeate throughout my days and nights. What I asked for as a writer was time alone, now I have it.
Hours passed like waiting in line in my own mind, how to shift from this sentiment to something promising. I switched from news to emails to social media and then I noticed a comment from a student on Classmates. Com. I am a member as a graduate of University High School in Los Angeles.
We were the graduating class of 1971, one thousand students from the Westside. Some classmates lived so close I walked there after school, some from wealthy influential parents, some in the film business, and some from blue-collar families, We did not judge by color, income, or politics, we just accepted one another. I don’t recall any arguments, attacks, insults, or violence, high school was our second home. I remember the beautiful botanical gardens, the dance studio, the football field, and the front lawn where my gang hung out during lunch or after school.
The comments were touching and so I responded back. I remembered this secret admirer from Junior High and High School. He had a distinctive style, part trendy part individual, he wore hats and paisley shirts, his stride was fast-paced, his hair brown, long and thick that framed a beautiful masculine jawline. He laughed with gusto, his voice was theatrical in tone as it was at one moment pensive and the next comical. He was not part of one particular gang of friends but moved like a party host between many of the circles. To be continued.
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.
IN THESE TIMES OF DISTANCE, DEATH, DISCOURSE, AND ISOLATION what can I write of value? All month this puzzle chased my thoughts; nudged me like a pesky fly. At different intervals during the solemnness, my journal returned parched sketchy paragraphs, and books did not deliver the inspiration I craved. Listening to Beethoven as I gaze out the window at the blowing branches on a spring gray and white day, I feel a singleness I’ve never known. Maybe you feel the same, and it is you I am writing to because I know you are there. Singleness in quarantine is more incarcerating than it is for married, partnered, family people. Though they have to acclimatize to spacial hardship as everyone at home is at the same intersection without privacy, and that slogan I remember from college, ‘I need my space man,” resonates. One friend said to me on the phone, “I yelled at my kids today, I’ve never done that before. We’re bumping into each other. I think I’m losing my mind.”
US SINGLES are accustomed to solitude, especially if you are an artist. How we howl for isolation to create, and now we have it. The time is here, to skip down the most bizarre roads and create COVID-Art. A few weeks ago, Governor Cuomo delivered his press conference and said, “I have something to show you.” A sliding door opened and a collage that appeared twelve feet in height displayed a tapestry of masks. He told us they came from all over the world. He was so touched by the gesture. Imagine a new solo dance performing an abstraction of the virus, or a poem, a song, and for sure a dozen or more writers and screenwriters are tapping at the speed of light to capture the pandemic in art form.
I’M GOING DOWNTOWN now to pick up a cobb salad from Sunset Grill, my stable for drinks and great food. The sky is in turmoil, as the clouds interchange across the sun, and she appears to be breaking through at one moment and the next she has revealed her radiance. I dress for the weather with a hat and coat and begin my three-block walk to downtown. When it begins to rain, I am smiling as I’ve always loved walking in the rain. As masked villagers pass, I’m struck by the absence of smiles, or good afternoon which you get a lot in a village of five-thousand. Some younger couples cross the street when they see me, and heads are mostly lowered to the ground. A new silence emerges as cell phones are tucked into pockets and passing voices are inaudible.
I HAVEN’T HAD FACE TO FACE conversation for several days and I feel a sprinting joy in anticipation of a conversation with Eric or Brian who own the café. They’ve installed a take out window, and as I approach I see Brian, and he ducks down to greet me.
Hey Loulou, how are you?
“ At this moment I am so happy to see you!
He swings down a bit lower to pop his head through the window
“ So am I. We miss you.”
“ I feel the same. How are you doing with all this.” He is smiling, and he’s always a bit jumpy like he needs to go for a jog or a bike ride.
“We had to let the staff go,” now his smile turns to a gripping inner pain. My kid is washing dishes and we’re still here, but you’re the first customer today.”
“Will you reopen when we’re off the pause button?
“ With twenty-five percent capacity, I don’t know. The numbers don’t work out so well. I mean we’ll still do curbside.”
Suddenly he turns about-face and joins me on the sidewalk touting my cobb salad. Brian must need a conversation as much I do. We chatted about the virus, our change of behavior, and this pent-up craving for closeness.
“ I can’t even go on a date anymore with someone! How can you meet anyone today?” He gestures with his arms to emphasize his frustration.
“Yeah, you’ll have to take their temperature before you sit six feet away.” We laughed, maybe for the first time in days.
AS I WALK BACK HOME my thoughts are traveling along the pathway of restaurants, I frequented in San Diego, Los Angeles, Taos, Santa Fe, and now here. I see the owners and waiters’ faces, remember the food and a visual kaleidoscope of the festive times we shared. You know that saying, the good ol’ days, now I am on the other side of that at least for the foreseeable future.
For me the adaptation is more than frustration. Last year I did not take advantage of the racetrack, or the concerts at SPAC, or the exhilarating nightlife along Broadway on a Saturday night in Saratoga Springs. I trembled in silence abashed by the consequences of my mistakes. If we un-pause this summer I promise you I will not be clasping the remote waiting for the next film.
AS I APPROACH my house, I notice the neighbor in her driveway. We clashed in the most vicious ways the summer Rudy and I moved into the house. One time I think the police were brought in to settle the argument. It was because she placed a close circuit camera on her roof to track our renovation. She was retired and her husband was always fiddling in the shed. We gave her a purpose. She looked my way timidly. I smiled at her. This is the first time we’ve been this close since I moved here two years ago. She smiled back.
“Are you happy to be back?” she said in a quiet sort of empathetic tone.
“It’s taking time to adjust. I haven’t lived here in so long.”
“I know. Well, not much has changed except for a few new restaurants. Do you plan on staying?”
“I don’t know the answer yet. We had the house up for sale…”
“ I noticed the sign.” She said expectant of more information
“ I can’t maintain a hundred and twenty-seven-year-old house on my own. You know, Rudy’s gone.” She nodded her head.
“Well, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here either. I’m eighty years old now.” She dropped her head to the ground.
“Lorraine you don’t look like it at all.”
We continued on about my new tenants, her dog, and how much work it takes to maintain a painted lady historic home. I couldn’t believe how sweet her voice was, I’d actually never heard her speak except one time shouting at me. Give up grievances and trivia because the person you once disliked may be very different now.
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.
