SUN, a goose-bumpy joy and celebration. Thatโs what I love about my education here: the first class you must take is weather management. Iโve destroyed dozens of artistic bric a brac by leaving them on the farm table on the porch, forgot to shop for groceries when a storm was approaching, and ran out of salt. I drove through town, taking photos at the red lights; the scenery is like Little Women, dressed differently but still rather swarthy in their determination to survive. Now some men, probably like the fourth or tenth generation, bear the strength by wearing a T-shirt or shorts. The other day, after a snowstorm, I noticed a man crossing the street in shorts, a long white beard, and working boots. Thatโs an EXACT badass around here.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Beguine the Beguine is on the record player, and Iโm swinging around the music room, elated with the energy that forced me to dance, turn off the mind entirely.ย Total bliss.ย Dance has been with me since as far back as I can remember, the answer to a mood change, without drugs or alcohol. ย
In a current of unexpected life moves, I floated towards the Pacific Ocean and landed along the fragile, factious Santa Monica Mountains to Malibu.
The salty seaweed smell of the ocean streams through my car, driving down the Pacific Coast highway on my way to buy groceries.Vintage Marketis new to Malibu, and clerks are giddy about their jobs. They may be aspiring actors or former actors.
I walk in and get a phone call that Iโd been waiting for so, I set my cart down on a shelf and took the call. During the half-hour conversation, my eyes were fluttering through the scene: tanned surfers, affluent college students, and diamond-rich men and women of age that donโt check their bank balances. Because of this, expressions are chilled as fine wines, and smiles are sublime or radiating. They are a mostly content population of 13,000. The median home price is $901,000, and the median income household is $127,000. Here in Malibu every thing looks different from Santa Fe: The staging of โwas in the business, am in the business, or want to be in the business,โ surfaces and dominates the scenery.
They are beautiful-the young teenagers who surf and paddle are true blondes, the blue eyes scintillating pools of water, young women are saddled onto 6โ platforms, and then there are the stand-out power people, who will not acknowledge anyone, and expect everyone to acknowledge them. Tucked in the mountains, are extraordinary artists who live off the grid the way most people prefer to live in Santa Fe. I am learning slowly and still hiding out at Chantalโs, where I am living, two miles up from PCH off Malibu Canyon Road, behind a gate. Bohemians, artists, home-office screenwriters, producers, and famous heirs of recognizable movie stars live there.
In the last hour, I walked down the road in the hands of sloping hillsides, horse ranches, and signature homes behind walls as high as the palm trees, built to withstand the typhoons of nature and mankind. In thedaylight a swirl of rain and clouds, it was as if I was in Ireland, walking along a road in Kilkenny. I roped in my imagination and returned to the mountains, which will teach me how far to go, how to duck a racing motorcycle car, or confront a coyote or a snake. A full transcendental moon dipped into the black-out mountain evening, and has cured me of interior turmoil for the time being. This is part of adventures in livingness in what locals call the bu. Chantal’s artistic compound of eight cottages and seventeen acres burned to chips in the Woolsey Fire. One night with Chantal and Neighbors.
Today, as the Bu, Palisades, and five other fires demolish humanity’s lives, I am grateful I was able to return to my childhood memories in Malibu for one summer in 2017.My family home burned in the Bel Air fire in 1961… No WATER.SAVE THEM THIS TIME, LA, AND DON’T LIE TO THEM.
I shot this today with impetuous acceptance of more snow. I swept the stairs, removed branches, listened to music, and smiled. It will be my last winter in this quixotic, charming, historic village that taught me not to complain, instead to make it understandable.
Sunday thinking: future, plan, prepare, implement. What if I go West, East, North, or South? One at a time. I use it a lot; itโs my mascot, mental disability. If I got over it, I would delete it from wherever it rose.
It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling’s If Poem. I am fearless one day and fearful the next, a collage of paradoxical thoughts. Emotions are my yellow brick road and also the vouchers of the victim. Iโve never been an A student of defensive tools; my acquiescence serves my need to be approved, which is so annoying.
I am not going back to childhood experiences; that cathartic tunnel has been examined, and approval and cherishing is the pillow of my contentment.
The leaves, I noticed when I drove out of the driveway a wispy wind and a few leaves blew past my windshield. I don’t think they want to die or hibernate; I don’t want to hibernate; that’s what you do if you are in upstate New York. Even this summer, the porches are empty, and the owners only come out to garden or empty trash. I’m the only one who sits on the wrap-around porch, head perched up to the sky to see what drama she’ll bring.
Where did we go this summer? Where did you go or do? One friend went to Croatia, another to Finland, and another to Sonoma. I prefer to travel in September, with my crowd cowardice and fear of flying; I’m waiting. Of course, I cannot leave because I am showing the house to prospective buyers. They are all very similar, rave and applause for the house, and their offer is two lines above insulting. Or maybe I am still in my delusional dream that Follies House is worth what I priced her. It is a voyage into the Twilight Zone; I see one house, and they see another.
Back to the leaves, the fall’s language, movements, and tasks will turn inside out. Soon, the blowers and street cleaners move all those beautifully colored leaves. I leave mine out until my gardener orders me, sweetly, LouLou, it’s time for fall clean up, or you won’t have grass next summer.” I won’t be here next summer, but I don’t say that because we’ve become pals, and he likes to manicure my lawns; I always greet him and George, his helper, and listen to their grievances.
Beyond the seasonal altercation, like a dress that needs hemming, emotions stop boiling over and seem to simmer. I am still determining where that originates, but I experience it every year as September approaches. Autumn is about awe. I read that somewhere. We slip into the interior chambers of thoughtful reflection, crunching the leaves of our souls for answers to questions.
I called my pal Jerry because it had been a few weeks since I had spoken to him. We have been friends for many years, but we have absolutely nothing in common. He’s famous for his photographs and films, that’s all I can say. I didn’t ask for his approval as I write this.
” Hello,” He sounded drowsy.
” Jerry! Did I wake you?”
” Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll call tomorrow.”
What for I’m awake now. I take naps because I can’t sleep through the night; I close my eyes, think for maybe an hour, fall asleep, and wake again five times in the night. What’s happening with you?”
” You are cerebral, so turning off your head would take a bulldozer or something.
“That’s a little drastic.”What’s happening with the house?”
” Showings, repairs, and a few offers that were insulting. I have a question.”
“Oh no.”
“What do you do when you don’t know what to do>”
“I call my attorney.”
” For life questions?”
” I don’t have any more questions at ninety-six.”
” That sounds peaceful.”
, We sidetracked an upcoming appointment with his doctor about sleep medication.” It’s tomorrow, I don’t feel like going,
” So don’t go. I had an appointment this week for a mammogram. That morning, I woke up trembling, panicked, wobbly, and so I called and canceled. When I told the representative I was having a severe panic attack, she laughed and said, I hear that all the time.“
“What’s the mammogram, is that for breast cancer?“
” Yes.”
” What do they do?
Oh, it’s weird. The nurse takes hold of your breasts, places them between two clamps, and then tells you not to breathe or move while they take an X-ray.
“What if your breasts are too small?”
“Ah hah, mine used to be, so they’d tug at them, and it was more painful than the clamps. When I turned seventy-one this year, suddenly they inflated, and I can fill my B cup to the rim.” He was laughing, imagining he had some visual, and that was good. We have better dreams when we sleep with pillow joy.
“I’m going to go to sleep now>”
” I hope you do. I’ll think of more breast stories tomorrow.
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Saturday, a heavy clog of humidity tries to zap my energy. I slept six hours, so I fight, do laundry, do a bit of weight lifting, go up and down the twenty stairs twelve times, and wander in my mind. I answer the first phone call of the day.
” Hi, how are you? ?”I pause to answerwith some amusing honesty.
” I’m cleaning my brain?
” How do you do that? You’re funny.”
” “I sweep away all the repetitive scary thoughts.”
” What about you? My friend sighed and then zigzagged into her struggles, taking care of her ninety-six-year-old mother, who does not speak English; my friend is Armenian. She works full-time as a court translator, has two children, a husband, and about fifty friends she continually connects to.
“You are four people in one. I don’t know how you do it?” Is your Mom still living with you?”
“ Yes, she can’t walk. She sleeps in the living room because the bedrooms are upstairs. It’s difficult. I have to feed her as she’s now refusing to eat.”
” Please try and get a nurse’s aide to come in and help you.”
“She won’t let anyone touch her but me.”
“I find that selfish, not to be critical, but you will wear yourself down.”
” She’s always been like that; in my culture, you never abandon a parent, no matter what. Her mind is sharp, so that is good.“
” Heaven isn’t good enough for you,” she chuckled. I often improvise to be amusing because her laughter is boisterous, and we all need more injections of humor.
” Have you decided where to move when it sells?”She asked again.
” Yes, I was looking at my book on Italy, all the different regions, and I think Anacapri is a good choice.”
” Oh, Greta… that is so expensive; what are you thinking?”
“I’m not thinking I’m daydreaming.”
” I have an idea for you. There is a new trend, something like Boomermates, a group of people who share a house, and you don’t have to sign a lease. Go look in San Diego and find something.
“Roommates, strangers, you mean?”
“Yes, why not?”
” Would you do that?”
” Probably not. A studio anywhere in San Diego is two thousand at least, and don’t use the proceeds from the house.
“Now you’re daydreaming. I’ll have to use some without the rental income until I find employment. Are you home now?”
“No, I’m driving to San Diego for a court appointment
“It’s what, six in the morning?“
“Yes, I wake up at five.”
” Every time I come here, I think of you. You were a great leasing agent. You leased about fifty of my units. You can get a job leasing in a nice project. Oh, you should have bought that unit. I remember G4 when we converted to condominiums.“
“Yes, you’ve told me that a hundred times.”
” I made the same mistake. What can you do?”
” Complain and then accept what you can’t accept. Like selling my home.”I went through my steamer trunk and found my marketing portfolio when I opened Follies as an artist retreat. It was nonstop theatrics. One time, I hosted a theater group of six young actors; they were so much fun. Ah, memories.
” You will make it; look what you accomplished, winning a foreclosure, Greta; that is something big.”
” So is my glass of wine.”
“I’d be doing the same in your situation.”
” Another showing, a really nice family. They’ll make an offer. They commented that the exterior paint is their issue, so did I tell you already? I found a marvelous painter from Albania, and he’s given me a very reasonable price to paint the entrance, balisters, and overhang. You know that curb appeal is critical.”
” You shouldn’t spend your money, Greta, how much?”
” Three thousand, and it’s a lot of scraping and ladder work. It’s the right decision if I may disagree with my real estate guru.”
” That is reasonable. Keep me posted. I’m in San Diego now, so I will speak to you soon.”
” Heaven isn’t good enough for you.”And I’m leaving Follies in the best I can because she was so good to me.
My Favorite home must be sold. After twenty-four years, Letting go is going slow, packing, and viewing my possessions and antiques. Today, I found a matchbook in perfect condition from the Stork Club, playbills, and musical sheets. I wish I hadn’t opened my steamer trunk; it’s like looking at another woman.
Achievement knocked down the barrier of fear. It feels like lifting off from ground level; I am floating like I used to be in the swimming pool, and I am only at my desk reading the news from my attorney. From one beginning to an ending, five years later, after tedious research, unscrambling legal language, and searching for the meaning behind the case references, this journey is over. I won the lawsuit against the bank that attempted toforeclose on my home and Dodger, my ex-partner of thirty-five years, who, for still unknown reasons, pursued the foreclosure.
Agape, eyes widened, nerves settled like snowflakes; the joy of achievement cannot be understated. During this phantasmagoria, life beyond research, consulting with foreclosure agencies, banking laws, and regulations, I detached from my passion for adventure, creativity, parades, parties, and socializing; I sat alone, and resilience shadowed, then enflamed like a log of fire, encapsulated into a daily doctrine. Music by Ennio Morricone, blue note Jazz, the everchanging scenery of seasons, phone conversations with friends who released ambers of comfort, confidence, and advice, and TCM films nuzzled my fatigue.
Some days, I remained in bed, staring at my Icart Ladies of Leisure prints, or sat by my favorite window seat and studied clouds, birds, and leaves. The blossom of tenacity grew into a tree trunk and taught me the art of persistence and emotional strength, which were missing links in my character.
Achievement in fine-tuning relationships, setting down the needle gently instead of plummeting riffs and arguments. In the present, as you all know, if you read the news, our culture has replaced argument and debate with assault and violence. I digress; renewed confidence in my aptitude to fight battles, disputes, and disappointments without Dodger is as solid as concrete.
The next episodic internal journey is regaining my passion for opening the door to interaction with strangers and discovering newness in that engine of life.I hope this admission reaches others who are experiencing depriving themselves of love within and without.
“I respond to intensity, but I also like reflection to follow action, for then understanding is born, and understanding prepares me for the next act.”
JANUARY
SNOW, ARTIC BLAST, ICE, FREEZING. Maelstrom of inconveniences toppling down in every nook and cranny of body, home, and outdoors. I wore a long-sleeved liner, wool sweater dress, rabbit poncho, and over that, a wool wrap, laptop mittens, sherpa leggings, wool socks, and boots. Mornings, eight degrees, afternoons eighteen, and the absence of sunlight grids my spirit. Repetitive lessons in endurance, tolerance, and acceptance. The outer world stenches corruption, propaganda, cruelty, violence, and haranguing reporters. The election year dominates the bunkum reporting.
It’s been almost a month since I texted or called Dodger. Somedays, I enter the memories, a reel of episodes on our cross-country road trips, hiking barren, narrow, unclaimed paths in Baja, mountains and canyons in New Mexico, and lakes and forests in upstate New York. They appear to be aberrations of myself; I am unrecognizable as he is, too.ย
FEBRUARY
MATURITY has caught up with me, and I am viscerally aware of this pendulum as replacing the nonacceptance of my lifestyle and future to hardened acceptance, which is a relief. I used to be full of follies, gaiety, and impulse; inner choreography is now critical thinking, studied decisions, and a spoonful of distrust. Instead of unleashing all that I think and feel with strangers, the narrative is split between inching closer to listening rather than personal tete e tet. Once a week, I go outing to the social club, where I find conversant strangers,couples, singles, divorces,and a variety of ages, and yet they all have a commonality that I don’t, they seem genuinely satisfied with their lives, one comment this, after asking the bartender how are you, he smiled, slapped the polished wooden bar with both hands and replied, I couldn’t be happier. Then he opened his phone and showed me a photo of a baby boy. His expression soared through my senses, and I adulated with compliments. Another evening, I opened a conversation with a couple next to me, and for the next hour, I learned of their life; children, travel, cruises, especially, ” Oh, you’ve never been on one? You must go, you’re so perfect for a cruise.
” I’m uncomfortable with more than twenty people.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute.” Wendy was really fit to her name; she wiggled in her seat, her hands never at rest, and her thoughts poured like raindrops. Her husband, Christian, nodded a lot, and when he tried to speak, she ran right over him. A few times, he rolled his eyes at me. They’d been married thirty-five years, looked to be in their early fifties, and semi-retired. I left feeling love, had tipped our kinship, a surprising need to leap from trivialities to more substance.
FEBRUARY 3RD 2024EXCERPTโFROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS
ย .
ย After weeks of metallic gray, the sun broke through, decorating Greta’s room. She is recovering on her bed, floating in Jazz instrumental music, remote in hand and undecided about what to watch. Last night, she socialized at her two taverns’, chatting with Weeds, a man with pockets full, which he offered Greta. For the next thirty minutes, he unplugged a breathless dialogue without inviting Greta, and she knew he was so lit up that he was unflustered when Greta said, ‘ Maybe take a break and eat your food.’ He continued to disentangle his weekly activities, what he thought about the waitress, some local gossip about the bartender who had been fired, where he grew up, and his wife’s battle with lung cancer. โ I am so sorry for you both.’ He thanked her and then sealed his tรชte-ร -tรชte as he ate. Greta took this moment to bid farewell and crossed to the other tavern for crab fritters. The bar was uncluttered, and she sank into the stillness. Her mood flicked into an irritableness, a discourse with the state of her life. The resurgence of the weekโs disputes, mishaps, and the approaching day she would be moving, and still directionless. It wasn’t until she was home, swathed in five blankets that she overcame the anxiety until she couldn’t find her phone. She searched all the prominent places, the car, kitchen, entry, and bedroom. โ โOh, for the love of God, I left it at the tavern. How humiliating. Maybe Iโll find it in the morning.โ Over the last few days, she has practiced positivity, rearranging her thoughts like a chess board; instead of choosing fear and remorse, she repeated every morning, I’ve come this far; what could be worse than the last five years.
My memoir, published in 2017, Cradle of Crime-A Daughter’s Tribute is old news to me. Not to Charlie. I met him as he was renovating a house across the street. I didn’t introduce myself as Luellen Smiley, just Luellen. I asked if he would take a look at myhouse for an estimate on painting. He was sweet, a mountain man with a long white beard and hunting boots. Last week, he texted me,” I read your book, my friend and I exchanged Goodreads suggestions, and I told him to read your book.” How did he connect me to my book? I didn’t ask, and now it piques my interest. I’d walk across the street and ask him, his truck is there, so is the ice, and I don’t feel like skating and falling on my butt.
Winter in upstate New York to a gal from Los Angeles is likened to living in the North Pole. Going on five years, my last, I’m not resentful and scouring, but I am not acclimated. Indoors I dress in sherpa from head to toe and wear those finger mittens. Today it is full-throttle rain showers. The street is vacated of traffic and the public, it’s a good day to work on my next book. On my desk area few writing books, the favorites: Henry Miller on Writing, The Diaries of Anais Nin, and Albert Camus’s The Stranger. I haven’t bought a current book in years, the last one was Sam Shepard, The One Inside. I like Miller’s passage: ” The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds.: he takes the path in order eventually to become that path himself.”
Aging in my seventies delivered opening windows to restoring, rearranging, and repairing my persona, personally and in public. If you’ve read any of my essays, then you know explicit is the vortex that moves my thread. Restoring the brick-and-mortar of truth is at the forefront; the next layer is a confession of what I cannot speak in person to anyone, even my closest pals. The third is abstaining from too swift a pen; I’m always in a hurry: I prepare food quickly, walk as if I’m late for an engagement, and wash dishes with perfunctory interest. Everything when I think about it. I know why that is, my father.โHis shadow was always behind me as I went about myteenage activities at home, so I rushed to get out.
Last week, I stopped taking the powerful Lorzapam medication for neurotic anxiety. My heart raced when I opened an email from my attorney, when a stranger knocked at the door, or when I entered a public place alone. A new sideways rain shower just filled the window pane above my desk. Here is the fourth restorative: get outdoors! I don’t walk in snow or ice, but good old water rain, which I call God’s tears, is one of my favorite nature adventures.
Admittedly, my writing has granulated since moving here. It is tiny in thought and not always tied up neatly. My persona in public needs to be side by side with wine in a dining setting. What I contribute must be joyous and humorous because one of my favorite human activities is to evoke laughter and smiles. I broke away from my taverns and abstained from alcohol for a week. In the second week, visceral and bodily alarms have gone off. Iโm lucid, motivated, andeven decisive.
From Anais Nin Diaries 1939-1944.
“I respond to intensity, but I also like reflection to follow action, for then understanding is born, and understanding prepares me for the next act.”
Greta got into bed early and started watching Feud, a new series about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, played by Jessica Lang and Susan Sarandon. The film etches overcoming a middle-aged woman’s obstacles in life: men, finances, rejection, and loneliness.
A knocking at the door, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to see anyone.’
โPolice, open up.โ You couldn’t cut her tension with a semi-truck head-on. She opened the door to five male Policeman and a Medic.
โ Greta we are here because someone is very concerned about your welfare. I understand you made a reference to taking your own life.โ
โ Who called you? It was Aaron right?โ
โYes. He said you made a remark that disturbed him and he wanted us to check on you. Did you say you wanted to take your own life?โ
“Not in the way he interpreted. I’m not going to commit suicide I just need a break from tortuous gaslighting.”
” Who is gaslighting you?”
” My ex-partner of thirty-five years and his demonic girlfriend.
“How can you resolve this?”
โI donโt know, Iโm trapped.โ Then I noticed they were not convinced.
โI think you should come with us for an evaluation.โ
โNo, thatโs not necessary, Really, look at me. Iโm enjoying a movie. ” Greta got back on the bed in a gesture of defiance.
โWe think it is.โ We have an ambulance out front.
โWhat? Oh God. No, Iโm not going.โ
โYou donโt have a choice. It wonโt take long, if the Physiatrist thinks you are not in danger theyโll release you.โ
โIโm not going in the ambulance.โ
โOkay, you can ride with me in the patrol car.โ
“Well, let me put on some lipstick. A girl can’t go to the Psychiatric Ward without lipstick.”’ They smiled, and in her pajamas and robe, she slid down into the back seat of the Patrol car avoiding neighbors’ observance.
The ward was a take-off of One Flew Over the Cuckooโs Nest. One woman was shaking and mumbling herself out of a drug withdrawal, the nurses were telling jokes, one man was in a hospital gown striding up and down the corridor, talking to himself and Greta seated on a chair watched. In the distance, she recognized Lally, a potential renter of her home.
” Lally, can you come over a minute?”
โ How are you? Whatโs going on?โ
โ Oh God, I said the wrong thing to a friend, and he called 911.”
โ Iโm sorry to hear that. Are you here for evaluation?โ
โYeah, can you do it?โ
โ No, I’m assisting in another department. Don’t worry… I’ll talk to the Physiatrist so you get through quickly. Itโll be fine. Just wait here.โ
I thanked him and ten minutes later I was led into a private room with bars on the bed. A nurse took my vitals, then a Doctor asked a few questions like,’ What day is it?’ and then she left without adding anything very comforting. Another knock on the open door and a petite female tiptoed in. She infused sincerity and concern into that bleak sanitary room, and I opened up the story from start to finish. She used expression, voice, and patience to keep me talking. She didn’t inflame the rage against Dodger, she suggested I find counseling and asserted that I was indeed in a very traumatic situation. ‘ I will call the the department supervisor and suggest you be released.’
The six hours Greta was in the hospital centered on the absence of a phone call or email from Dodger. Aaron must have told him to get the address. Itโs about two am and Greta is thinking about her birthday; another sort of mรฉnage of meaning, she feels like ten years have passed rather than one. Another doctor came in and released Greta, with a promise to call for counseling. She slipped into a cab in her pajamas and went home. Never had been so terrified of losing control.
The next afternoon brightened when Audrey showed up with roses, champagne, a gift basket, and a happy birthday balloon. She sang the entire birthday song and danced around Greta as she opened the gifts.
โIt is a big deal! I always was taught to celebrate friends’ birthdays with everything,โ her smile remained and Greta’s surfaced. She told her the story of the previous night and Audrey just sat there, eyes widened like two camera lenses, and told her. “I know you would never commit suicide.‘โShe cradled Greta as they walked downtown for dinner. One of her gifts was five hundred dollars. Greta was so stunned she tried to return it, but Audrey blatantly resisted. At our dining table, she waved at guests and waiters with her long arms, โItโs her birthday.โ She reminded Greta of her childhood when her father hired magicians and clowns to entertain at her parties. Greta felt sensationally spoiled, and thatโs not always an indulgence, sometimes it is the only path to joy. The end of the evening placed her in front of Facebook where friends posted birthday wishes. It was a blessed day and a reminder that she is loved. Aaron was trying to help, and Greta felthis concern with appreciation. There is no replacement to cure your mental doubts than a visit to the Physiatriscat Ward.
Six years later, upright, achieved, and grateful for that day.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 
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