The insomnia of separation from a manβs shoulder bowed to my head, tweaks like stale bread. A mind that directs me when I am driving directionless and maps my journey, walks beside me, a guardian of my fragility, acutely conscious of our path. The voice that encourages and applauds my success rather than let it drip from jealousy or preoccupation. How the laughter erupts in a moment of spontaneous passion. The gestures of him shaving and the modest vanity after I re-wardrobe him. Feeling his eyes in a crowd, undressing or admiring me, for some folly or expression.
The humor he finds in my misguided attempts to open bottles, and packages with a dull spoon, and figure out electronics.
How he will pardon and pamper my unwarranted fears of stalkers, sickness, rejection nightmares, and falling down the slippery wooden stairs.
He pushed her on a swing, so high she touched the sky, viewed the world through his eyes, lived for a time without lies, then as mystically as he appeared, he let go of the swing, and she fell on her wing, broken but with the will to begin again. A broken heart hasnβt stopped her from loving him.
For ten days, just thinking of her spoken words, how they made their way to his ears and returned the sounds she so wanted to hear. When he stopped contacting her, she wiped her tears as some people find love at the core of their fears.
Β Β Β Β MONTHS LATER ON THIS DAY, she closed the shutters to him and alchemized from a cocoon to a butterfly beneath a circle of friends in tune.Β 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, but she will not break like a little girl.” No more hours fanning the past; on this day, my view is spanning.βΒ She sat peacefully by the fire into the night and let her broken wing sing as she watched the wood turn to gold. Β
It is the Kentucky Derby and Cinco De Mayo weekend at La Posada. Kristen from the hotel said I should go; it would be fun. Sheβs a feisty young woman with clear, penetrating blue eyes and silky brown hair. Youth dances in her expressions; other times, it wilts from being locked down to an indoor job. Sheβs an adventurer who camps out in Belize and South America. Now, sheβs talking about Antigua.
I walked out to the courtyard to see what was going on. The tables werenβt set up yet, but the Donkey stood idly and annoyed at the other end of the yard. I donβt know why they bring him, maybe for the kids. In the bar, a few guests were watching the Derby. The elan of race anticipation is shining like a light. I ordered a Mint Julep, and the guys were all watching as Dude whipped it up with finesse.
β How is it?β Dude asked without needing any approval.
β Magical. Who are you betting on? Greta asked.
βI want a Titty Tut, something nasty.β
β Oh, stop that. You do it too much.β She replied.
β Not nearly enough! Okay, hereβs my horseβPromises Fulfilled. Oh yes, thatβs mine.β
β Everything you say is a metaphor for sex.β
β You bet it is.β Whoβs your pick?β
β My prick is Justify.β
βHah, see, now you get it.β
I sipped my drink and wandered around the lobby, stopping to greet Jackie, Monserrat, and Danielle. They donβt know what their smiles and caring comments do for me. I must tell them more often.
β I donβt know what Iβd do without all of you.βTo be continued.
It is my mother’s birthday, so I am thinking of her. If she had been here today, we would have had this conversation.
Mom, I can’t hold up, I’m so beat down.”
” You have to. I know your situation is degrading and frightening, but you don’t have a choice. You have to use all your strength.”
” I wish I was more like you.”
” You are like me, and I know you will overcome.
After our home burned down in the Bel Air fire, my parent’s divorce was in motion. Dad moved to Hollywood, and Mom moved me to Westwood to a studio until she found work. Mom returned to modeling to support us.
Part Two. Solana Beach Morrocan Bungalow 2003.Maurice was 84
Maurice married the love of his life on December 25, 1941. They married in December because Maurice had saved one thousand dollars and made one hundred dollars a month. Agnes, his girlfriend in Grant, Iowa, is the woman who led Maurice out to Rancho Santa Fe, California, from his home in Grant. She and her father worked for Ronald McDonald, a prestigious resident in the ranch. She was responsible for housekeeping and cooking, and her father was the chauffeur.
Agnes and Maurice went to the US Grant Hotel for dinner and stayed at the Paris Inn on Kettner Avenue in San Diego. The following day Agnes went off to work. Maurice stayed in the little guest house she occupied on the McDonald property. Two days later Maurice received his draft notice. On December 31, he left his new bride and reported for duty in Escondido. He had one short visit before he left for overseas. Then, the next time he would see her, he would be changed.
Buna
One summer evening, I was sitting on Mauriceβs front porch. Sometimes, we would sit out till after eight oβclock at night talking about different parts of Mauriceβs life. Maurice is really busy in the summer; he tends to his garden of fruits and vegetables, he delivers furniture for all the Cedros merchants, and he helps his friends. He never seems tired, he likes to sit on the porch, have a beer, and tell stories. I used to like it when my father told me stories, but they were unlike Maurice’s. There didn’t seem to be anything he
couldnβt talk about. Once he said, ” You can ask me anything you want.β
βMaurice, how old were you when you were drafted?β
βWell, I was thirty-one years old in 1941 when the war broke out. I had to leave my wife, which bothered me, but I wanted to go overseas and fight for my country. There were so many nice soldiers, the best people in the world. I recall two boys from Chicago that were only eighteen years old, they lied to get in the service, and they were the best soldiers you ever saw- they werenβt afraid of anything.β
βWhere did they send you after you left San Diego?β
βWell, first, I went to Camp Roberts for thirteen weeks of training, but I got out in nine weeks. Then they sent me to Fort Ord to get my gear, rifles, and clothes. We left San Francisco on April 21, 1942. We got into Adelaide, Australia, after twenty-one days at sea.” Maurice paused like he had to catch his breath. I watched his face, thinking he may want to stop.
βYou remember so much… Do you mind talking about it?β I asked.
βNo, I don’t mind; it changed my life, everything about it.β
βWhere did they send you after that?β
βWe trained for a while in Adelaide; the people in Australia were so happy to see us. I remember they met us at the beach with tea and cookies. The enemy soldiers were getting close. We went up the coast to New Guinea and into Port Moresby; we got there on Thanksgiving Day 1942. As soon as we got off the ship, the bombs hit us; it was the hundredth raid that night. The next morning we were supposed to get to the Stanley
Mountain range, we were in such a hurry. The Japanese soldiers built cement pillboxes and the army wanted us there. So we got in this plane, and they flew us there. Twenty-one at a time. When I got to the island of Buna, there were dead soldiers scattered all over the beach. We lost men so fast. Then, on Christmas Day of 1942, General McArthur ordered us to advance, regardless of the cost of lives. My division was one of the first to stop the Japanese army, the 32nd Division. After we were immobilized and a lot of our men killed, they sent in the 41st Division to take over.β
Maurice’s memory was like listening to a documentary, and this was the first time a Veteran confided in me. They didn’t get supplies at first; they had to wait till everything was shipped to Europe. They got what was left over, which wasn’t much. He ate cocoanut bark for two weeks and had no water.
βI can remember so well the first Japanese soldier I saw. He was sneaking through the jungle, only thirty feet off. I donβt know if I shot him, but he dropped. I donβt like to think I killed anyone, and it bothers me to this day that I had to kill. The Japanese were good soldiers; they had better ammunition than us. We fought all day, and we always ran out of ammunition before they did. Iβll never forget Christmas Day of 1942. We went into a trench to get ahead; the fellow ahead of me was cut wide open, and the guy behind was shot. I just lay there on the ground. If you moved you’d be shot. It was so bad; I lay there all day and night. β
βDid you think you were going to die?β
βI didnβt let myself think that. I promised God that if I ever got out alive I’d never complain about anything in my life again. Nothingβ¦ nothing could be worse than that day.”
βYou kept the promise, didnβt you?β I asked.
βYes, I have.β
βAnd thatβs why the war changed your life?β I said.
βThatβs right. Every day is a beautiful day after you’ve lived through war, at least for me,” he said.
Excerpt from manuscript. All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced without the author’s prior written permission.
Sometimes, a blank piece of paper is the only way to begin, as it is today. I look out the window at blooming trees and a cupful of flowers rising from the ground. The sky is pale grey, and it is just fifty degrees.Β May, mybirthday month, reminds me of Casey, who threw the dice all her life. She gambled on her dreams.
Casey never told me much about herself.Β She lived in the present moment and considered her past a private matter. Β Once I learned of her struggles as a young woman and her chosen life, she became more real than when Iβd known her. Β During the years we were friends, she handed out selected stories, abruptly, with final endings. Being the inquisitive character, the shallowness of her stories bated me. Β I had to pry the truth out from other people who had known her, and from government documents.
Caseyβs first gamble was at sixteen years old. She sent in a photograph of herself for the Redbook Magazine modeling contest. If sheβd won, the Powers Modeling Agency in New York City would grant her an audition as a model.Β Casey lived with her mother and sister in East Orange, New Jersey. Her father had died suddenly, leaving the family without a financier.Β Her mother was lost without her husband and unsuited to join the workplace.Β Casey didnβt tell her mother about the contest until she received the letter of congratulations.
John Robert Powers met Casey in his office on East 56th Street and signed her as a Powers Girl. She was stunning to look at, she was photographed like a movie star, and she was modest.Β John Powers did not look for aggressive, pouty-lipped fearlessness.Β Β The Powers Girls were captioned Long Stemmed American Beauties because they were wholesome, beautiful, tasteful, courteous, and virtuous. They were so far from today’s runway models that it is almost a reversal of style.Β The models of the thirties were ordained to set the highest example of classic good breeding and education. John not only schooled them in fashion, and individual taste, he instructed them in moral integrity, independence, and patriotism for their country. Β So Casey went to school at John Robert Powers and became one of the top ten models in the country.
She was a blue-black-haired Irish beauty with emerald green eyes and perfect teeth. She stood only 5β 7β, but that was fairly standard in those days. When I knew her, she was still thin and beautiful, but she did not fuss about herself or spend much time at her vanity.Β As a Powers model, Casey had a long line of gentlemen callers. Powers Girls were invited to all the nightclub and dinner show openings, sporting events, community galas, and fund-raisers.Β Social engagements were part of her job. Casey was not a woman of idle chat, in fact a lot of people thought of her as restrained and unfriendly, maybe even snobbish. I think it was more secrecy. Β People were always prying into her life because it looked glamorous. Β But there was another side to that glamour she didnβt want to put a mirror to.
One evening, Casey had a dancing engagement at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. She was on stage with other dancers when a gentleman noticed her.Β The next chapter of Caseyβs life began that night. Β At twenty-two years old, she fell in love with a man thirteen years older, of the Jewish faith, and who lived in Hollywood.Β Β Casey never told me that she fell in love with a gangster.Β Β Β I do know once she felt love for this man, it could not be reversed. The consequences of her love forced her to change and adapt to a new kind of life and different people.
She did not bury or give back her love after she learned what he did for a living.Β She asked him to reform his criminal activities, and he agreed if only she would marry him.Β We all know at twenty-two, a woman believes she can change a man, and a man lets her think she can. Β Without that dream, many lovers would not have found their mates.
Casey married her love and spent her life trying to keep her husband on track with honesty.Β I met her husband just after he tried to reform and was beaten down by his past mistakes.Β Β I called him Daddy.
“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.Β
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.
Portrait of Martha Graham and Bertram Ross (1961 June 27) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
THIS WEEK LANDS ON poets, writers, musicians, photographers, directors, visual artists, composers, choreographers, actors and the untitled and unrecognized that squeeze in between. Kipling, Salinger ( my all-time favorite) The Rolling Stones,Β Mozart, Chopin, Opera, Salsa, Beatles, Stieglitz,Β Nicholas Ray,Β Kandinsky, Johnny Mercer, Martha Graham Balanchine, and James Dean. I left out about seventy-five of my favorites.
Composition VI (1913) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)They were all lovers before they were artists.
OUR ARTISTS IN HEART travel mentally and physically through life with all the windows open; awaiting a sight, sound, or feeling that draws them to their art. The feelings are what count on our life ledger.Β I have to thank Billy, my first love at fifteen. He was an artist of music, Gothic charcoal sketches, comic humor, and life. He opened my window to the arts.
That life ledger is always in the red because an appetite of feelings, and emotions eventually depreciates the spirit. Some of us rise above, and the flow of printed green paper comforts that spirit, but emotions continue to dominate all the success.
I have to write this in short sequence, as I am moving between a rigid reckoning of a forever ending TO ONE MY LOVES.
The Beatles and the MaharishiΒ Β 1967 –Philip Townsend
“The Beatles and Maharishi at the Meditation Centre, Abbotsbury Road, Kensington. After this meeting, they went to the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, where Maharishi gave a lecture.Β These shots for Beatle purists were taken before they went to Wales or India.Β The shot of all the fabs, partners and road crew is interesting as it is one of the few with the whole lot in one snap.
The photographs are exclusive as I was the only photographer there. I had been asked by the holy manβs Public Relations agent to take them but they failed to pay, me therefore I own the copyrights.”
What I love is every Beatle has a distinctive expressionat the meeting. Note John contrasted with Paul.
Gallery Loulou 2008
Philip arrived from London late in the evening. We met him at La Posada Resort Hotel. He did not stop smiling and chuckling in spite of his lost luggage, and a twelve-hour flight. His photographs had arrived and were already placed when we invited him into the gallery. Again, a resonating joyous outburst, ” Oh, it’s lovely, marvelous, just marvelous.” He was tall, lanky, and at seventy-something majestically youthful. We spent hours together over the next week. He loved when I made him a cup of Tea, the bumpy New Mexico road trips we planned, and the dinners. The slightest bit of congeniality towards him was returned with a pat or a hug and kiss. Opening night was a sensational tribute to a prince of a man.
THE MEMORIES are fading, like images floating through a mist, not just of Dodger but the life pre-break-up, a carousal of my favorite places; swimming, hiking, running, new restaurants, gallery openings, shopping, concerts, clubs, dancing in the street and our porch parties, but I cannot remember the state of grateful, emerging in the vortex of sensations, stimulation, surprise.
Do we ever return to that kind of forever spectrum, as if it will never end, and then it does, and we cannot go back. Itβs not too late to feel grateful, fortunate, and lucky to have lived so many acts of my choice.
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ADVENTURERS IN SINGLE LIVINGNESS 
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