My emotional tail is wagging; curled up in my desk chair, I feel almost as if I were born in this chair. Itโs cushioned me through a cyclone of adventures in livingness. Solitude will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are perplexed by toomuch solitude or not enough.ย The editor I used before submitting to a publisher asked me, โWhy do you keep switching between past and present tense?โ I told her I donโt control that until Iโm in the final editing stage. My control over my writing is identical to how I liveโacting on impulse, expanding the mundane into a musical, feasting on all the emotions, and fabricating thorny Walter Mitty encounters. I donโt think of applying proven methods; I make up new ones.
Back to this plateau of solitude. Love what you have, and especially yourself, with all your flaws and regrets.ย Honor is more critical; be proud not just for yourself but because someone out there needs you. ย
Sometimes, solitude feels like a draft no matter how many sweaters Iย wear. There are not many soloists residing in the village, primarily second and third-generation families with dozens of members. ย Living unstructured is a discipline that threads some days easily; when it doesn’t, I must rein in my passion for daydreaming.ย Today, it is the island of Capri. A friend is there posting photographs, so maybe I need to stop watching other people live their dreams. Yes, thatโs it-take a reprieve from FB.
Bohemian living was always in my dreams, having been raised in a perfectly pressed pinafore and seated on velvet and satin furniture.ย I am not really very gypsy like when it comes to home. Once upon a time, I lived out of one suitcase, but I have since been corrupted by the joy of controlling what comes into the house and finding a place for it. ย Loss of control. Once faced with this alarming epiphany, I vowed to give up control and accept the disorder and disruption.ย
What Iโve rediscovered is that without a lot of stuff to organize, the mind is free to think, more time to create,and effect essential decisions. ย Narcissism is sacrificed for more visceral makeup.ย Losing control is a replenishment of youthful spirit. Itโs free and painless.
Iโm one of you. ย Adrift, without a direction, waiting on the shore for a wave to break and include us. It is not ho ho ho for us, it is whoa whoa whoa. Iโve learned my lesson; I will not repeat the dissonance, selfishness, and fear that prevent me from engagement with life. ย My cradle of friends is my family. They want everything to work out. For their patience and comfort, I will not let them down!
How much stronger must I be? Isnโt five years of punishment enough? My smile is feigned, my heart is sliced in two, and my spirit is spoiled. Today, the darkness outside and within shatters what could be a day different. I could be outdoors, and brave the cold, work out in the gym, window shop on a whim, and fill someoneโs frown with smiles.
I have the hours to transform; it is eleven am, but I havenโt slept a night through in a week or more. I live a melodramatic life in my dreams; they are symbolic messages of my vulnerability, fragility, mistakes, and unrealistic expectations. My former self lived with all I wanted and needed. I woke with enthusiasm, direction, confidence, and exhilaration. I loved and was loved in return. You ask what happened? Betrayal, and then gaslighting, using callous actions, of destruction, emotionally, psychologically, and financially. What I cherished in him vanished, and a ghostly evil power, within another woman, chained him and locked me out.
Now I wait for the final curtain to close so that he will be a memory instead of a menace. Almost there, but will that liberation convert my stagnation into stimulation?
Hope, prayer, discipline, and forgiveness are the weights that build my strength. And of course writing. If I didnโt have this way of expression, I couldnโt have made it this far. My writing is my wand of magic, for me and I hope for you out there. Iโm one of you, an outsider, an introverted extrovert, a dreamer, a risk taker, and at the starting gate of my triple crown.To be continued.
Photo by u041au0430u0440u0438u043du0430 u041au0430u0440u0436u0430u0432u0438u043du0430 on Pexels.com
When I listen to Antonio Carlos Jobim, I dream of Brazil and of riding on a float at Mardi Gras, just once, in a feather hat, dressed like Rita Hayworth. Music evokes a writing mood, like jazz or blues writing; they are similar. When I listen to Sarah Vaughn or Nancy Wilson, it feels like a close female friend confiding in me and knowing I understand heartbreak.
When I sit at my desk and look at my motherโs photograph, I dream of the first lunch we had at Bullockโs Garden Room, watching the fashion show and discovering style. When I shovel snow, I dream of the coastal beaches: Del Mar, La Jolla, Santa Barbara, and Carmel. Commercials about travel dominate and fuel my craving for a flight. As my responsibilities here are unfinished, I will wait and daydream about the next voyage.
Daydreaming, unlike night dreaming, where we are flying, conquering, or battling some inner masked trauma, illuminates where we want to be, who we want to be, and if we take it seriously, how to get there. The medicine of daydreaming is unmatched by books, healthy food, vitamins, yoga, religion, or mind-altering experiences; it is the essence of who we are.
ย ย She closed the shutters to his wanting eyes and alchemized from a cocoon to a butterfly beneath a circle of friends in tune.ย She removed the photos, gifts, and letters and put them in a box to reminisce later. Talking out loud, “She takes just like a woman,โ but she will not break like a little girl. โNo more hours fanning the past; on this day, my view spans.โย She sat peacefully by the fire into the night and let her broken wing sing as she watched the wood turn to gold. ย
Aside from her legal phantazmorphia, the house has critical repairs, so she is meeting with contractors, plumbers, electricians, and masonry companies to tend to one thing after another.ย As she reflects on all these repairs and sees her savings account drop by fifty percent, her demeanor is not as she expected; she feels a sense of reward for taking responsibility for the house and hertenants.
โ I decided to eliminate debt by consolidating outstanding balances into one low-interest payment; I didnโt use the air-conditioner, buy favorite foods, go to my favorite tavern, or purchase anything that didnโt get categorized as home repair. I even quibbled with my Physician about an in-person visit and asked for a Telemed visit.”‘
‘No, there would be no frivolous spending. This new style of surviving she called Anorexic Finance. When she relayed this to me, I high-fived her because Iโve never been in that position and thought it was commendable.
IโD LIKE TO RIDE A CLAIRVOYANT CIRCUIT INTO THE MINDS OF SINGLES OVER THE AGE OF SEVENTY.
I’ve often wondered why advertisements, the media, and politicians don’t address the single segment of society. We don’t hear the beginning of a statement, whether it is legislative, political, social, or cultural. Singles around the country are not traveling, purchasing more products, refusing to get vaccinated, and are unemployedโฆetc. We are a minority class; I found statistics on The UnmarriedAmerican.org website. More searching led me to the American Association for Single People website.
There are 106 million unmarried adults in the United States. Singles constitute more than 44% of the adult population in the nation.
About 44% of the nation’s workforce are unmarried employees
The Census Bureau estimates that about 10% of adults will never marry.
Iโm not going to make a huge leap into this as my thoughts are more about adventures in singleness.
This conversation is from a close friend, married for twenty-some years.
โYou are so lucky you have no idea. If I were single, I’d move somewhere where life is simple, maybe Greece.โ
โYou donโt know about the loneliness, the awkwardness of holidays, the fear when you get sick and have no one to care for you, so many things really.
โI can think better when Iโm alone.โ
I told her I understood. That is the crucifix of making my pen my mate rather than a three-dimensional man( Temporary singleness). Some of my interactions go like this; going out to dinner,โAre you alone?โ She or he leads you to the most obscure table. Then she or he removes the second table setting and suddenly aloneness is visible. An hour later another customer asks if they can use the spare chair. Thatโs when I ask for the check and leave.
Taking a road trip and feeling vulnerable when Iโm pumping the gasoline and a stranger is gawking at me and Iโm in the middle of nowhere. It is usually truck drivers and I immediately think of Thelma and Louise.
Dressing for an event that I’ve never been to on my own. In my closet, I lay out three different outfits. Then I have a wary of decisions on which shoes, flats or heels. When Iโm all dressed and ready to go self-consciousness billows up and I change the outfit. Itโs a ridiculously amusing routine.
Taking myself out for a cocktail just to get out of the hotel has numerous consequences. I end up sitting next to couples who are having a roaring twenties time of it, and the only single man or woman at the bar is fixated on their phone. Instead, the woman next to me strikes up a conversation about her boyfriend.
The other side of these dismal forecasts is; I have no arguments at home(just interior dialogue), I can eat whenever I choose, watch what I elect on television, keep the bedroom light on, adjust the thermostat to my body temperature, and make all the decisions myself, the most infuriating and worthwhile to building courage and self-reliance.
One of the lines in The Godfather struck me as an authentic gangster testimonial: โWomen and children can afford to be careless, men cannot.”ย ย As a teenager one of the repetitive reminders my father said angrily was, โWatch what youโre doing!โย This was the most relevant and truthful observation he made of me. Admittedly, I am easily distracted, careless, and ignore risk.
Without someone to look after my carelessness (Iโve been on my own now for six years), one three-month friendship ended strangely. When he asked me if I had been boosted, I said I hadn’t. He punished me, citing his father, who lives hours away, and he rarely visits. I had Covid, vaccinated twice, that wasn’t enough, so he vaccinated me out. Now, living in hotels I find men talking to me, but the substance is absent, trivia or weather. I have inducted my interests, literature, art, philosophy, culture, travel, and those subjects return, a glazed stare most times, or they are married. I am not in a rush, I’ve learned that scaredness comes when I’m ready… guess I’m not ready yet!
The course we choose to study doesnโt begin in school; it begins the moment we recognize that life is our teacher. I chose the course of love between a man and a woman. Yet all Iโve learned from Anais Nin, Joan Didion, and Lawrence Durrell about love isnโt guiding me. I have to start over and develop wisdom from my own experiences.
I checked into the third hotel, the previous one was tedious and murky. This morning in a larger room, on a crisp as iceberg lettuce, a day of clarity and stillness surrounds me. Outside my hotel room, the light is intermittent, a peak a boo stage window, the light illuminates portions of the crispy autumn leaves just before they drop. On my side of the glass, there are shadows and dissonance.ย ย What events take place this week will be instrumental in my future and as piercing as the southwest sun when it shone in my eyes. ย ย
This hotel’s staff is exceptionally friendly, conversant, and engaged in their jobs. Every time I pass by the guest check-in, Rose stops what sheโs doing.
โ Howโs it going?โ
โToo early to tell.โ Iโve been here a week, and I unzipped my lawsuit story, so she is in the know. She is knowledgeable about the law, and living through times that are more threatening than usual.
โ Okay. What are you doing today?โ
โ Researching moving companies. Critical thinking and planning. When I moved from Santa Fe to Los Angeles, I hired a broker, thinking it was the actual company. When the van arrived, half of my things were broken, boxes were opened, and some were stolen. So this time, no mistakes.
โ Mistakes are all about learning.โ
โ Yes, and I learned!โ
โ What did you do last night?โ She said with a curious smile.
โ I was at the bar, Lizzie was there rousing all of us up with puzzles, abrouhahalike the old days, you know, not one of us looked at our phones.โ
โ Please, donโt even start. So annoying when youโre talking to someone and they are staring down at their phones.โ
โ When I was living in LA, at huge four-way intersections in the middle of traffic, pedestrians crossed without even looking up. It was the same everywhere, restaurants, shops, it struck me as a way of looking very significant.โ
โ Youโre so right!โ
โ That reminds me, I need to go write a column.โ
โ Write about your lawsuit.โ
โ No! Iโm in witness protection writing.โ
โ They may read it right?โ
โ You New Yorkers are always on the right key.โ
โ Gotta be, itโs New York.โ
” I’m California”.
” That’s okay, I still love you, and your day is coming, and so is a new man.”
Writing feels rusty today. I plow deliberately through the blank mental soil to find a blade of substance in a week of tragedy and cultural chaos. In conversations with men and women about our fractured culture.
” It was never like this when I was growing up,” that is from a fifty-year-old,
” I won’t get on a plane, no way?” from a forty-year-old.
” I don’t talk about my views with anyone at work or out of work, except my family and friends.”
I replied, “Yes, we have to talk niceties, bland boring conversation. “
When I was growing up, there was more joking, laughter, and confessional conversation. I was thinking about my high school years; we talked a lot about emotions, our parents, our dreams, and our fears. I don’t recall restraining what was on my mind. Perhaps that is why the majority of the younger generation prefers social media friends, as they can be easily deleted or blocked. On my FB page and feed, not one follower or friend reveals their political views, including myself. Isn’t that so contrary to humanity? And political violence, I keep hearing we won’t tolerate that on the news, but we are tolerating it. Do we all need drones over our homes for security? An optimist would say, We can do better, and we will; a pessimist might say, I think it’s going to get worse, and a nihilist would say, Life isn’t worth fixing; it’s just worthless.
I canceled my utubetv cable account, because on most days anxiety is at full tank without the news. ย In this new state of freedom from home; maintenance, repairs, showings and tenants, time is on another clock.The one that ticks as a writer in progress who is dusting off the least truest of thoughts. ย ย ย ย
With every turn, right, left, or center, I observe novelty, unfamiliar faces, facades, and finery.ย The conversations that linger over the opulent surround sound lobby release a fusion of shouting and laughter.ย 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 Iโve been, here Iโve 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. ย ย At the table, Scott and his friends, who ย 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.ย Lynn, the woman next to me, was a beautiful, statuesque, stylish woman whose poised and confident aura emanated from her.
โ I hear Scott sold your home. Is that a good thing for you? Itโs not always.โ
โ Yes, a few days ago. ย Well, a paradox, I loved the home, a Victorian, but it was also most of my income.
โ What will you do now?โ
โ About what?โย She laughed and tilted her head back.
โ Where are you moving?โ
โ I donโt know yet.โ Her eyes widened, and she responded flatly.
โ You donโt know? You have to have some idea.โ
โ It depends on the proceeds, an ex is involved, itโs too complicated over a martini, and all this talk. I can barely hear you. โ
โ An ex is always involved. How long are you staying at the hotel?โ
โ Youโll love this..
โ Donโt tell me, you donโt know. Youโre adorable.โ
โ Thank you, and I sense you are very strong.โ
โ You bet I am.! She punctuated that with a fist to the table. โ
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 Iโve ever felt, ย โ I canโt fucking believe this.โ ย ย To be continued
ย The order of this week is disorder. Not the trivial disorder of a closet, or a work in progress; this week is the unraveling of the self, which comes with separating from someone or something you love dearly. ย It is the subject of: poetry, theater, film, literature, dance, visual arts, and music โ all forms of music from opera to rap. For all of you who have mothers and fathers close to death, and you don’t want them to leave.
Adults protect you from the brutality of death when youโre very young. They keep it behind locked phrases like โshe had to go away to a better place; youโll understand when you grow up.โThe camouflage of death may go on indefinitely until one day, you are hit over the head with a block of ice, and it splits you right down the middle. You can see your guts spilling out, and everything is all out of order. Walking is an effort. Thinking clogs with the big question: Why? Why canโt we all stay here together and live forever?
Flashback to 1966 โ I was very young, not so much in years, but when I was 13, my mental and emotional age was more like that of an 8-year-old. I donโt know if I was ADD or DDT because those acronyms were not in vogue yet.
My development was arrested because I was raised on a fantasia of false identities, fiction, and privilege. I thought we were prosperous, happy, and would live together forever. The fantasia of falseness was abruptly taken away on June 19, 1966. On that day, I saw for the first time my father weep uncontrollably. I was told my mother was in heaven.ย My father was seated on my mother’s avocado green sofa in our tidy mid-century apartment in Westwood. Nana โ motherโs mother โ was sitting on the sofa next to my father.ย Nana and Dad had reconciled for the period my mother was sick with cancer. They both were sobbing. I was not, I was in shock. There was nothing inside of me but resistance, a blockage of emotion that remained there for so many years.
I was left in my fatherโs care. He was busy avoiding government subpoenas and running the Fontainebleau Hotel in Florida.ย ย He kept a command post on my emotions. He would not tolerate my grief, because he could not tolerate his own. So, I had to chin-up, chest out, walk up and down Doheny Drive in Hollywood where he lived and pretend I was going to be fine.
When I turned eighteen and left my fatherโs apartment, I was free to unravel my feelings for the first time. The emptiness was filled with confusion, anger, and drugs. If college was supposed to be my best years, then I missed that chapter. Looking back, the real leap to personal growth came at that time when I was left unattended to wander through life with my own eyes as guardian, and my heart as my compass. That is when I missed my mother the most. It was my fortune to have my father back in Los Angeles, throwing his weight around from a distance. He kept me under radar by having a friendโs son working in the admittance office of Sonoma State College.
I remember days when my mental attitude needed electric shock therapy. Miraculously, I did find my way home, and to the matter of my mother, and growing up with gangsters. From a wafer of stability, very slowly, Iโve built a nice lifeboat to keep me afloat. My screaming, cantankerous, and intimidating father who loved me beyond measure is in this imaginary boat, and my mother who loved with a silent gentle hand she gave to me whenever I needed assurance.
All I have to do is look at her photograph placed in every corner of my house, and I regain momentum in my lifeboat. When I am particularly insolvent with lifeโs measures, I recall the years she spent fighting cancer so she could continue to hold my hand. How can I disappoint such a woman? I cannot, and I know that with more certainty than I know anything.We all have a basement strength that rises up and balances us when we need it. Each time we cross that unpleasant road and say goodbye to our friends, our pets, our parents, or our siblings, we have to find our basement strength.
You can read poetry and essays, listen to opera or rap and find five-thousand waysย of expressing the same painful stab of separation. If the comfort comes in just knowing โ we all have that in common โ then all you have to do is tap the shoulder of the person in front of you, and ask, โHow did you handle it?โ
Or as Henry Miller said, โAll growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.โ
ADVENTURERS IN SINGLE LIVINGNESS 
Leave a Comment