Category: SARATOGA SPRINGS

FREESTYLING SINGLE

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

         THE GYPSY CHRONICLES – Day 10.

Scintillating in luxury and comfort is therapeutic if mastered with moderation. So, my second week here in the hotel, I opened the thruway to discerning tasks: a deep dive into publishing my book, rewriting the ending so art isn’t imitating life, but the other way around, searching for part-time employment, a seriously pragmatic approach to where to move, and writing my pop-up columns. 

It is tremendously easy to write from this hotel room, without those damn barking dogs next to my home, the constant vibration and noise of mowers, blowers,  and city works.

On my desk is Henry Miller’s book, On Writing, and every page moves the mental nerves in some way.  “The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path itself.”  From living in isolation in my home, my tenants are cordial but reserved; I am now swept like a surfboard into a wave of public swells.  It is their stories that come out of this experience.

I begin with the Casino, attached to the hotel lobby, and open at 11 am. Arrivals begin: gamblers shuffle inside, some in wheelchairs, younger men with speedy strides, couples, single women, a plethora of humanity in common, with one mission: to win. I take a seat at the bar, and eye wonder at the slot machines. I haven’t counted them, but the room for walking is limited.  There is one machine with the motif of a bull, and when someone sits, the bull grumbles loudly, so I pull out my earplugs.  I watched one man win, and after he left, other players who heard the winning clang took his seat. It is a popular machine.

The casino looks to be around eight thousand square feet, with seventeen hundred gambling options.  The path to get back to the hotel, I have to navigate around and around. The first time, of course, I went in circles as my sense of direction is like a butterfly’s. 

“ Excuse me, can you tell me the most direct way back to the hotel?”

“ Lost are you? Follow this carpet pattern, the one in the middle, and it will take you back.”

Off I trot, staring at the paisley pattern, through six different arenas to the hotel. I went outside and took a seat on the bench.  A woman passed by and stopped, “ How are you?’

“Adapting, I’ve not been here but a few days.”

“ Oh, we’re just checking out. I can’t wait to get home to my Pomeranians. I have two. I rescued them, and they are my babies,” she continued, talking about the dogs. As she spoke, I noticed how immensely liberated she was in conversation, and how her hair matched her outfit. She smiled while talking.

“ I’ve seen you before. I noticed your style; you were wearing such a pretty outfit”, she said earnestly.

“ Well, thank you, and so are you.”

“ Are you alone? I think you are, but don’t let that get you down.”

“ I wasn’t ready for a very long time. I’m crossing over that mountain, only I’m not like you. I can’t approach people the way you just did.”

“ I used to be like that! Now I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either. God loves you, we are all his children, and we need to love each other.”

I let her go on and thought any minute she might bring out a bible or a cross and start praying for me.

“ I bet my husband is looking for me; he’ll be mad, not really, he’s used to it. We’ve been together forty-five years.

“ Remarkable. What’s your secret?”  

“ Love, respect, and compromise, it’s really very simple. You’ll meet your honey, I feel it, you want that, don’t you?”

“Yes, when a man tells me everything is going to be okay, I settle down. I’m emotionally overweight.”

“You’re funny, see that is another quality that gets you through life.”

“ I see a man approaching, and she introduces her husband. He is tall, and emulates a calmness and contentment as he hedges into the conversation about going to Lake Placid.” 

“ Have you been there?” he asked.

“ Years ago. It’s beautiful.”

“  I turned towards his wife. I didn’t get your name.”

“ Donetica, Italian, my friends call me Dee.”

“I’m Loulou, and thank you for stopping by my bench.”

She giggled, blew a kiss, and said in parting, “ I love you.”

 As she left, a woman exited the hotel in a state of exhilaration.

“ It looks like you had a good day,” I said

“ Yes!  I won eight hundred dollars. She swung her purse and skipped off.  

Hmm, I wouldn’t mind winning at all, but I’m in enough ambiguity to play against those odds.  To be continued.

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    FROM ORDINARY TO EXTRAORDINARY

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    With every turn, right, left, or center, I observe novelty, unfamiliar faces, facades, and finery.  The conversations that linger over the opulent surround sound lobby release a fusion of shouting and laughter.  New Yorkers are not whisperers, and my annoying sensitivity to sound, forces me to go in and outside a dozen times a day. That is when I meet the guests, perched on benches and rocking chairs. In the six days I’ve been, here I’ve accumulated dozens of conversations, not just niceties but life stories expressed in thirty-minutes.

    The first day of arrival began with a dining hallabaloo organized by the best broker, Scott Varley, who sold my home.   At the table, Scott and his friends, who  knew the bartender’s, waitress, restaurant manager, and a few guests at the bar, so our table became a Musso Frank sort of mise en scene. I, as usual, was punctuated with awe, as this is a new kind of adventure in livingness after Ballston Spa. Drinks arrived with the speed of a remote, and as we all filed in for the liberated moment, when we exhumed our true selves.  Lynn, the woman next to me, was a beautiful, statuesque, stylish woman whose poised and confident aura emanated from her.

    “ I hear Scott sold your home. Is that a good thing for you? It’s not always.”

    “ Yes, a few days ago.  Well, a paradox, I loved the home, a Victorian, but it was also most of my income.

    “ What will you do now?”

    “ About what?” She laughed and tilted her head back.

    “ Where are you moving?”

    “ I don’t know yet.” Her eyes widened, and she responded flatly.

    “ You don’t know? You have to have some idea.”

    “ It depends on the proceeds, an ex is involved, it’s too complicated over a martini, and all this talk. I can barely hear you. “

    “ An ex is always involved. How long are you staying at the hotel?”

    “ You’ll love this..

    “ Don’t tell me, you don’t know. You’re adorable.”

    “ Thank you, and I sense you are very strong.”

    “ You bet I am.! She punctuated that with a fist to the table. “

    The night zigzagged, with Lynn and Scott scurrying into the casino, while I remained, as casinos mean, the genes of my father may flare up. The bar was baritone loud and after what seemed four hours, I returned to my room, quite comfort, marvelous pillows unlike I’ve ever felt,  “ I can’t fucking believe this.”   To be continued

    SARATOGA SPRINGS HISTORY-HEALTH AND HORSES IN COVID HISTORY

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    APRIL 4, 2021

    THIS ERA OF ADAPTATION is how I feel, think, and react. Tumbling through all the transitory advise forces me to examine more closely who to believe.  I’ve never been a leader, nor a follower, I walk in between, trying to pave a pathway to peace of mind. Perhaps that is unattainable, as we live in a culturally, politically, medically, and socially reimagined world. It reminds me of being a teenager when life was questionable, and confusion was like a stinging bee we couldn’t swap away.

    This week, my discipline raged and said, ‘Structure your day or go in disarray. As a long-time, rebel of structure, I listened and made a daily plan. Get out of bed by eight, answer correspondence, get dressed, work out on the treadmill, take a shower, eat something, then back to the home office and that’s when the improvisation kicks in. Do I write a column, work on my next book, or look for an attorney for an unsolved tribulation? Mother Nature punctuates my attention as she blooms into spring; the neighbors begin mowing and planting, The adorable little children next door play in their front yard, joggers, walkers, and horse-carrying vans pass in front of my window. The Season in Saratoga is about to open, masked and limited attendance will be at Saratoga Race Track, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Bistros, Bars, outdoor concerts, Theater and Chamber Music, Lakeside sailing and motor boating, fairs, and wine tasting.

    A quintet of small-town celebrations that will inaugurate us to each other once again.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    THE BEST WAY TO FIND YOUR PATH.. ROAMING

    ADVENTURESS IN LIVINGNESS this week ends with new directions in living. Before that happens, you have to get lost, detached, and miserable. It messes up your social life, your routines, your comfort, and your partner.  I don’t have one, so it’s all up to me.

    Men wonder why women change so often, why we are spirited unicorns one day, and mules the next. It comes from the universal need to roam, to feel new sensations and passions, and to find more things to love. Even our closets are overflowing with love: “I love those shoes, I love that coat.” We replace our wardrobes because we need more garments to love.

    At the crossroads of some moment in time, I stopped loving material things, my reflection, and went looking for a deeper direction of sensation.

    It started last year, when my life was tangled up in two projects that were not progressing. As long as someone didn’t raise the curtain on my imaginary life, I stayed right there, like a gearshift left in neutral. When failure and rejection continued to knock me on the shoulder, I welcomed the familiar knock and remained stationary.

    The exact moment I decided to shift gears was a painful one. I let go of both projects that were obstructing my motion. I have extracted the nature of the projects because it really is irrelevant. After I let go, and watched those long-term efforts just dangle from boxes, notebooks, and letters of correspondence, the straight of my back curved. Where is my direction? Where are any of us going anyway, except away from that moment we have no control?

     If I asked why this happened, and that happened, I was then distracted by some woman in the car next to me who was having more fun in her convertible talking on her cell phone. Routines were becoming burdens, and my favorite places of comfort were boring. Encouragement came from writing columns, reading letters, and those long, solitary road trips in the night.  I felt like I was sleeping, but even in that state of detachment people were finding me, and shaking me up.

     I remembered one of the faintest memories of my childhood. I cannot even recall the place I was, or who was there; most certainly, it was not my father and mother. We were camping out and I was in a sleeping bag on the hard gravel ground. It was so unfamiliar to me, the simplicity of the natural surroundings, the heavy black balm of tranquility, and the brightness of each star. I lied awake most of the night talking to my fellow campers, and at some point they said to go to sleep. I could not close my eyes. The adventure had swept me into a state of alertness, the kind that makes you feel extraterrestrial. That night must have taught me to welcome new adventures. Sometimes they have ruined months of my life, but most definitely, at the end, I sprung up with a new line of faith.

     Again, I am leaving out particulars because it is not the direction I took or what I’ve chosen. After all, it could be anything. We all want to roam, and love, and find some nugget of truth at the end of the road. I think women need to roam more now than men.

    WRITING FROM YAHOO TO BOO HOO

    ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

    ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS FALLS ON. An unusual time to be writing at four in the afternoon. The clouds drew me up to my writing desk, where layers of clouds forms teased me into believing it wasn’t hot and humid outside.  I decided to write the column.

    I knew I shouldn’t write on my laptop because it is deconstructing. I can’t part with this laptop until I outline my next book. The sky drew me to the desk, and so I worked around internet outages.

    I only had a few paragraphs from the afternoon, and when I returned to the column after dinner, the whole piece took another course, and I was writing not what I intended, but it was like sailing on a perfect course.   It was writing without the editor, meaning the inner editor that sometimes swoops down and cuts your nails off. I was writing about many things that happened. When I finished, I went to save the document and the laptop responded negatively. It vanished.  I thought about trying to recapture the column, trying to reinvent the stream of consciousness that seemed to be marathoning through my soul.

    There were so many voices speaking all at once. I had to figure out how to connect the moment the leaves reminded me of Saratoga Springs,  and how we must place our print on the tablet, on the screen, and dismiss the reader who judges where writing takes us. Sometimes,  a reader knows me from the halcyon days, when my light was neon and my spirit a flame. They don’t want to see me now, draped in muted gray and hardship hardened. “Nobody loves you when you’re down and out.” Jimmy Cox 

     

    FILM NOIR MESSENGER

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    Photo by u041au0430u0440u0438u043du0430 u041au0430u0440u0436u0430u0432u0438u043du0430 on Pexels.com

    I watch film noir with an admitted addiction. The grainy black and white stillness, the music scores, the cinematography satisfies more than current cinema . The message comes through, live gracious, selfless, forgiving, brave, and passionate? As I feel these thoughts streaming along, the one that stabs like a knife is passion. That visceral sensibility has driven me throughout my life: about men, mystery, adventure, accomplishment, art, music, dancing, unfamiliar places and faces, and café society rendezvous. A temporary grasp of glee. And when it ends, it goes like this.  

    Unprepared, who knows where
    The leaves will fall
    They don’t plan
    Where to land

    Undisclosed strangers will walk in our paths.
    Cross our hearts and
    Tread on our minds  

    Uncertainly
    We traverse our heart’s discourse
    Shooting for dreams of undiscovered lands
    More weightless plans
    I don’t know if I can see ahead
    My steps, like pebbles, follow the rush in the river
    On the edge of the quiver

    Skipping towards freedom
    In summer, rays of light
    Like a leaf, I break free from the branch,

    To land a launch.

    MOODY BLUES TUESDAY

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

               MATISSE

    Writing somberly is parallel to writer’s block. It’s not a block, really, more like a resistance to engaging feelings.  If I place all the options on a puzzle board, this leads to the center. A fractured life impacts emotional posture and is not unlike physical posture. We slump or stand tall. We love instead of neutralizing, we are inspired instead of stagnant, we romance our passions, and we live to love. My heart is at the starting gate to love again, but the racetrack is missing. I’m undercover! I watch Blacklist or some foreign film in the evening. Most weekdays, I’m circulating between finance, selling furnishings online, shoveling snow, and researching acronyms because the news uses them so often.

    The vortex of discontent is a punctured life. The windows of my home reflect the splendor of nature that plays all day long in the winter.  I’m spending more time watching sky stage plays: clouds still, clouds moving, colliding, changing colors, sculpted into aberrations of animals and faces, than cognitive thinking. My collection of records and CDs accompanies the scenery. When I’m sorrowful, I listen to Ennio Morricone; when I need a lift, Vivaldi, Sundays it is Turandot or some other Opera. When I’m a go-go girl, Swing, Salsa, or The Stones, when I feel alone, Sarah Vaughn, Nancy Wilson, and Etta James, for writing inspiration Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Annie Lenox. 

          I don’t see any remedy commercials for a fractured heart. By tomorrow, the despair could vanish, like the rain that puddled us for the last two weeks. Everything I’ve experienced is good in the beginning. So, to begin, I will listen to Begin the Beguine. 

    “Begin the Beguine” is a popular song written by Cole Porter. Porter composed the song between Kalabahi, Indonesia, and Fiji during a 1935 Pacific cruise aboard Cunard’s ocean liner Franconia. In October 1935, it was introduced by June Knight in the Broadway musical Jubilee, produced at the Imperial Theater.  

        Henry miller writes in his book, “ Henry Miller on Writing” “Whoever greatly suffers must be, I suppose a sublime combination of a sadist and masochist.’  I suppose that a few of my friends have aligned me as such, and now that I write this, as in all writing, answers blink at you, and then the soul receives them like a wafer of wonder. Perhaps I am, but where that evolved and manifested, I have no time to think about it because the sun is out. I must sit in my newly designed sunroom, a small book library alcove that receives the sun at noon.  When I returned with my phone to snap a photograph, the sun disappeared like a footprint in the sky. Every moment needs attention. It’s twenty degrees outdoors. I am modestly adjusted and receive a thousand weekly warnings to get a flu shot. My doctor has tried persuading me to get a flu shot for three years.  I responded that I’d never had the flu and that my last cold was in 2012. He chuckled and asked the next question. 

    WRITING WITH NATURE

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    In one of my books on writing, I read that most writers face the demon in the middle of the novel. The beginning is a gallop, and 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 relocation, reinventing, and restlessness will not 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 stood out on the porch observing the peacefulness. The scenery of this street 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.  

    I chose Sunday to shut down all communication with the mainland, take the longest bath I can stand, and write. I need a rest, like a chaise lounge on a spacious veranda with honeysuckle, wisteria, and lavender.  If you are an artist, the limit is not the sky; it’s everywhere. Nature’s artistry is a full-time exhibition in the Northeast. The view now is of tumbling clouds rolling over; they move slowly, like dough, across the road, while squirrels dart about.  Outdoors is where we see the best of life.

    UNCERTAINTY

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    Unprepared, who knows where
    The leaves will fall
    They don’t plan
    Where to land

    Undisclosed strangers will walk in our paths.
    Cross our hearts and
    Tread our minds  

    Evil intercepts, betrayal, intimidation, abandonment, financial sabotage.

    Uncertainty
    We traverse our heart’s discourse
    Shooting for dreams of undiscovered lands
    More weightless plans
    I don’t know if I can see ahead
    My steps, like pebbles,     follow the rush in the river
    On the edge of a     quiver

    Skipping towards freedom
    In summer, rays of light
    Like a leaf, I break free from the branch

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    To land a launch.

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    ICE, SNOW, AND RAIN… MIX THOROUGHLY AND SERVE CHILLED

    WINTER 2025 … BYE BYE

    Winter in the Northeast is a door to the interior, not just physically living indoors; it’s a mental withdrawal from outdoor activity. Yes, some have adapted. I’ve seen men in shorts on a snowy day and women runners passing by my window on icy sidewalks. For many of us, I believe the winter is the time to ski in your head. Take a word puzzle section of all your experiences and ski down your mistakes, misjudgments, and behavior in all its rights and wrongs. A sort of sabbatical for the soul.

    My car was stuck in the snow, and my eggplant pasta was stuck in cheese.

    WINTER’S SERMON ON SOLITUDE

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    SOLITUDE will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are mystified by either too much or not enough solitude.

     I contest what seems endless solitude with my Irish Russian temper, condemning irritants like: street noise, absence of friends, short-tempered customer service reps, world news, and mindless tasks. The fever dulled after the first ice, rain, and snow, and mindfulness triumphed. I imagined my basement of survival would sink. It did not. There is an inner exploration happening, unfolding like spreading new sheets on my bed, that solitude has befriended me all my life. In the best of times and the tedious. I have to find the frolic and follies in the world that I created. I have to laugh alone so I watch screwball comedies, seek humor of my irregularities; wearing a sweater inside out, pouring coffee into a wine glass for a cocktail, and chuckling up and down the staircase, because I keep forgetting where I left my phone. My head is elsewhere daydreaming.
    I’ve learned how to repair house calamities; unscrew windows, seal up cracks, fix clogged drains, replace air vents, read the meters, and rejuvenate every wood board, handle, chair, and table with Old English Oil. As one pal commented on a visit to the house, ‘ It’s a perfect day for Old English! The winter forecast is blizzardy and full of warnings I haven’t experienced here; and how can I complain when half of Upstate New York is buried in ten feet of snow. The end of the day pleasure comes in the kitchen; my heart and spirit melt while stirring my weekly gumbo, stew, or casserole while listening to Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, and swing music.
    Winter is a funnel that strips the trees and branches and lets us see through the forest and ourselves.

    DANCE and, MUSIC AGAINST THE NORDIC BLAST OF WINTER

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    FROM THE JOURNAL 2025

    SUN, a goose-bumpy joy and celebration. That’s what I love about my education here: the first class you must take is weather management. I’ve 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.  That’s an EXACT badass around here.

              Beguine the Beguine is on the record player, and I’m swinging around the music room, elated with the energy that forced me to dance, turn off the mind entirely.  Total bliss.  Dance has been with me since as far back as I can remember, the answer to a mood change, without drugs or alcohol.