NANA IN THE GARDEN

Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

A year ago, I bought a crate of flowers to plant in Follies House flower bed. After setting the plant to rest, I had a vivid recollection of Nana; my mother’s mother.
Nana was a petite woman, with long graying hair she pinned into a perfect French twist, a cute Irish nose, and a giggling smile. When I was growing up she lived with her second husband, we called Poppop, in a spacious California ranch house in Sherman Oaks, also known as San Fernando Valley. We visited her weekly, staying over one or two nights. Nana was always waiting for us to arrive. She greeted us at the door, she had something cooking, fresh candy in crystal dishes, and in the morning, she fried bacon and the aroma woke me and got me running downstairs. She scrambled eggs with lots of butter and served it with Irish soda bread. It never occurred to me that these weekly trips were the cultural mix-up of my Russian Irish heritage. This was Nana’s only opportunity to spoon-feed us our Irish roots. At home with father, bacon and butter were prohibited, and bread came in the form of a bagel. The food was only one part of the adventure. Nana’s home was filled with antiques, family treasures, and her garden was a masterful collection of east and west coast varieties.
After Nana had all her errands and household chores finished, she changed into slacks, flat shoes, and a straw hat and went outside to the garden. I would follow Nana while my Mother remained indoors; most likely talking on the phone with some degree of privacy. In the garden, Nana would trim, cut, and arrange her flowers. I kneeled down beside her and watched, while she talked. Nana had the gift of gab, and her thoughts poured out without my interruption. Between sentences, she would insert a self-effacing joke, regarding her silly hat, or her short legs. Her hands were swollen from arthritis, and she rubbed them from time to time, but she did not complain. As I planted my garden, these visions of Nana remained and grew more studied and complete. I had a memory of being assigned a school project to plant something in the garden. By this time, my Mother had moved us to an apartment and we didn’t have our own garden. I went to Nana’s and she helped me plant some variety of flowers I cannot recall. Each week I’d return to see how my plant was doing. Sometime after the assignment ended and we were walking in the yard, I looked to see how my plant was surviving. It had been replaced. I asked Nana what happened.
“Oh honey I hope you won’t be mad at me, but the little flower died, so I planted a new one. It’s my fault; I didn’t look after it properly.”
Nana taught me the things my mother didn’t have the time to teach; like cooking, cutting flowers and arranging them, making coffee, and setting the table. She made all these chores enjoyable, and I loved to follow her around the house and watch her change the beds, and prop up pillows, and fold the guest towels. It never occurred to me until now, that I adopted her domesticity; the sublime gratification of adorning a home for the comfort of family and friends.
The plants did not blossom, the jasmine, roses, and other varieties all wilted and turned brown. I buy silk flowers.

HOTEL WRITING- FROM THE WEST TO THE EAST IS LIKE …

November 23, 2025November 25, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

I used to sit on the stoop in front of my Los Angeles studio. The dog walkers, gardeners, and residents formed the stage, with a backdrop of high-rise, two-million-dollar condominiums and vacant concrete terraces. From that, thoughts randomly tapped: I wish I owned that, wish I had that car, wish I had that garden. It is amusing how one’s view can determine one’s thoughts.

In Ballston Spa, where I lived the last six years, homes are two-hundred years old, or newly built to emulate the Victorian era. The automobile is sturdy, practical, and unwaxed. The way of this wonderment brings simplicity into my life. There’s no need to dress up and fit in; it’s the opposite here, dress down to fit in, or, like me, a combination. I am omitted, observed, and questioned, because, well, I never learned the answer to that, until this moment. Locals love locals, and I have never been one.

EGO WORK OUT AT EQUINOX. 2018

April 29, 2025April 29, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

I walked into Century City Club Equinox, almost inserting myself into the spotless transparent glass door. Three young women at the counter, beaming youth in front of black walls that seem to suck me in.

“I’m here for the tour.” A suited man in a large, rather luxurious office greets me with so much reserve and robotic gestures that I feel like running out. I was led through a scintillating voluminous space, enveloped in floor-to-ceiling glass, streamed with sunlight and views of Westwood. The members, women attired in matching voluptuous outfits and personal trainers, lean as lions tossing funny equipment to the client, fastidious housekeepers, sterilizing and vacuuming in trendy uniforms. It was as if I were watching a film production.

The treadmill cycle area was a bit crowded, and not one person didn’t have a headset on, staring at the screen of choice. The bathrooms were hotel accessorized, and even pumps were filled with Kiehl products. There was a steam room, make-up area, showers, all the necessities, and a few women were blowing their hair, all beautiful.

More rooms, a snack bar, shopping, pulsating music, and a closer look at the guests.

“ This is as upscale as you can get; you’ll love it, and you’ll meet important people, I’m sure.”

I listened to his closing argument and watched the bodies bend like pretzels as personal trainers raised and stretched their heads, arms, and legs. Bodies bounced, climbed ropes, did flips, and hung upside down, like a circus act. After the close, a condescending smirk, that I read as, join, or go hang out with the losers at 24-hour fitness.

He handed me the contract, and I read it over. The cost was more than I’ve ever spent. The way I looked at it was a place to work out and meet new people, although my instinct was that these were not my people. I signed and walked out feeling dizzy again. I stopped in a shoe store to look at what women were wearing. The salesgirl kept complimenting me, and showing me shoes that she loved, and before I knew it, she sold me what I didn’t come in to buy, high-top lace-up pink workout sneakers. Leaving the Century City Satellite, beyond the construction and traffic, I raced home to recuperate. What’s happened to me after living in a village in New Mexico, is that too much stimulation is now exasperating.

I walked to Equinox for my first workout, hopped on the treadmill with weights, and tried to look perfectly comfortable, but I wasn’t. The vibe and everything about this ballroom of a gym seemed rehearsed. Maybe I’m too observant, trying too hard to fit in. I noticed so much in that hour. The workout is also a sort of performance, just a shade of competition between men and their weights, women straddling rubber balls, yoga mats, bench presses, and only a handful look like they need it. Men and women occupy the treadmill room; without expressions, they seem to live inside themselves.
There is no conversation; it feels more like a convent. There is no hi, hey, or smile. I asked a trainer, “It’s not very social here. Why is that?”
“ These are the highest paid executives, lawyers, agents, actors, and they don’t come in to socialize–they are only here to do the work-out.”
Great move, Greta. I’m paying three hundred a month to be invisible.

MALIBU PARADISE BLUES

January 11, 2025January 11, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

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 Market is 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 I’d 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 don’t 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 ‘was in the business, am in the business, or want to be in the business,’ 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 6” 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 Chantal’s, 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 the daylight 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.