ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS IS ON A HIKE. Not the physical kind that was once a weekly episode in New Mexico, these days I hike in my head, it’s as wobbly, uneven, rocky, and dangerous as a hike down the Gorge in Taos, NM.
The path I’m hiking is set off by relocation, once the house sells, which is on the fingernail of being sold. Each morning as I wake to my dreamy bedroom, I am deranged by the thought of leaving twenty-five hundred square feet of Victorian victorious comfort.I will be downsizing to a six-hundred-square-foot studio. I used to love studios, but this house has drained that love, and now reality is staring me in the face, a word I despise as an admitted non-realist and dreamer. The path that follows this is where I am relocating to? Relocation is a trend, according to some minor research. Boomers move closer to their children. If you donโt have children or a partner to bring out the compass and use a methodical ruler to figure this equation out, it comes down to finance. Thatโs the ticker that keeps bringing me back to reality. I should not have left Del Mar, CA. Have you ever said that? Itโs the inkblot on decisions when I thought everything I did would work out until it didnโt. And Iโd turn the steering wheel back to where I belong.ย I do not belong here, and thatโs not because of aversion or harsh judgment. Itโs a marvel if you like three courses of simple conversation, activity, and entertainment. ย ย The weather and I do not get along, the summer is sticky, humid, and last week we were in double digits, one hundred. I spent a few days next to a non-effective window air conditioner with an ice washcloth on my head. In the winter, Iโm in battle gear with four sweaters and shawls and all of that, not to mention the ice and snow that kept me frosty for months. You can take a girl out of Southern California, but sheโll come back.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Borrowing from a post on FB, you spend the first thirty years of your life gathering possessions, and the next thirty years eliminating. Iโm eliminating, sort of, I cruise by my ten boxes of books, and every day itโs on the list to tape them closed. Then there are all the antique figurines, gambling paraphernalia, dรฉcor from the vacation rental days, and I think at last count, fifty hanging prints. I donโt need to measure anything, this will not fit in a studio. Plus, I still have a storage unit in Santa Fe, filled with items I cannot remember. Is there such a thing as relocation therapy?
Writing somberly is parallel to writer’s block. It’s not a block, really, more like a resistance to engaging feelings. ย 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. ย 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 isย 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.ย
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 Iโve 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, โ Henry Miller on Writingโ โWhoever greatly suffers must be, I suppose a sublime combination of a sadist and masochist.โ 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 sundisappeared 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.
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.
โIโm here for the tour.โ 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 didnโt 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.
โ This is as upscale as you can get; youโll love it, and you’ll meet important people, Iโm sure.โ
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 Iโve 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 didnโt 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. Whatโs 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 wasnโt.ย The vibe and everything about this ballroom of a gym seemed rehearsed. Maybe Iโm 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, โItโs not very social here. Why is that?โ โ These are the highest paid executives, lawyers, agents, actors, and they donโt come in to socialize–they are only here to do the work-out.โ Great move, Greta. Iโm paying three hundred a month to be invisible.
Uncertainty We traverse our heart’s discourse Shooting for dreams of undiscovered lands More weightless plans I donโt know if I can see ahead My steps, like pebbles,follow the rush in the river On the edge of aquiver
Skipping towards freedom In summer, rays of light Like a leaf, I break free from the branch
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 you take it seriously, how to get there.ย The medicine of daydreaming is unmatched by books, health food, vitamins, yoga, religion, and, mind-altering experiences,
It is the essence of who we are; it really defines us.
SOLITUDE will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are mystified by either too much or not enough solitude.
ย 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. Iโve 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 havenโt 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.
My emotional tail is wagging. Curled up in my desk chair, I feel almost as if I was born in this chair. Itโs cushioned me through a cyclone of adventures in livingness. This piece of writing was handwritten on a tablet back in late January. Iโve made some minor additions and deletions. Before submitting to a publisher, the editor I used asked me, โWhy do you keep switching between past and present tense?โ I told her I donโt control that until Iโm in final editing. My control over my writing is identical to how I live. Acting on impulse, expanding the mundane into a musical, feasting on all the emotions, and fabricating thorny Walter Mitty encounters. I donโt even 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. Integrity is more critical; be proud not just for yourself, but because someone out there needs you.
PART TWO: After reading this and while emptying the trash, I was struck by this: the big payback to living as I described is an adaptation to proven methods. I’m learning pragmatic over poetic.
“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.
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.”
Living in Del Mar from 1982 – 1996 enriched my spirit, health, and distance running. Even though I’ve heard, you can’t go back, I’m striving to break that fact.
As children, our waiting depends on how long it takes Mom and Dad to finish what theyโre doing and pay attention to our needs. It takes hold of us, like a fever, and we resort to nudging them, whining, even sobbing, If we are made to wait longer than we expected. During the school year, I waited all semester for the summer. In Los Angeles that meant it was hot enough to go swimming in the ocean.
When I lived in Hollywood, I rode two buses, to get to Santa Monica. The second bus dropped me off on Ocean Avenue, above Santa Monica Beach. I ran down the ramp that connects to Pacific Coast Highway and headed north to Sorrento Beach. I jumped into the sand running to find the place where my schoolmates clustered: in a caravan of towels, beach chairs, radios, and brown bag lunches. I couldnโt just run to the ocean, I had to sit and talk and have something cold to drink, and then I made myself wait until I couldnโt stand it any longer. Then I ran down to the shore, and embraced the waves, tumbling inside their grasp until I lost my breath, and floated into abandonment.
After I moved to Santa Fe I stopped thinking about the ocean, I had to remove the memories from my thoughts, so I could continue to experience this spark of New Mexico. The dry sage ocean of pink soil, and radiant blue sky that pinches your eyes when youโre driving, the sunlight, the warmth of a desert night, and the white snow on pink adobe rooftops. It had postcard perfection, even with fallen leaves spread like trash everywhere, the trees almost naked, and the dead plants in the garden. I tried not to think of the ocean, the look of the sea from watery suntanned eyelids, or from the bluff at Del Mar, or the splashing of waves around my shoulders as I tumbled beneath the surface.
I waited, as I did as a teenager, for that time to come in the fall of 2010, so I could return to the sea. I stood at the waterโs edge in Del Mar, it was like summer without all the kids screaming, barking dogs, volleyball and paddle board games, lifeguards thrashing the beach in their jeeps shouting, ‘no dogs off the leashes, no glassware, and no surfing today’. They were missing, and so were the parade of beach runners, and surfers. In fact, I was the only one swimming, on that first day at the beach. Before I went into the water, I reclined on a big black boulder and faced the sea, letting my eyes wander amongst the scenes of the beach on a Tuesday afternoon. In front of me was an older man with graying hair, in a beach chair reading. He must be retired, he looked perfected adapted to his spot about five feet from the shoreline. I thought about retirement, and how I still cannot come to grips with spending my days on park benches or in cafes watching younger men and women live. There was one swimmer, on a bogeyboard, he was far out, and floating along, and I wished Iโd brought mine with me, but it was in Rudy’s van. The last time I used it was when I lived in Solana Beach in 1997. I also wished I had a new bathing suit, because the one I was wearing was too loose, and the neck straps were tied together in a knot so I could swim without losing my top. The sun baked my body, and I let it without abatement, without shading my limbs or wearing a hat, just enough sunscreen to keep the rays from trotting over my lily-white skin. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, the waiting suddenly felt so imperial, so much so that I began to think about waiting as an aphrodisiac or something like a good cocktail that you have to make last for hours, while you wait for that moment that makes you feel immortal, childlike, and emancipated.
I felt the beach flies, and the tang of salt water on my lips, and when the seagulls swarmed above the waterโs surface, like so many beads of a necklace, I thought, that this is about the most beautiful day I could have, and itโs all because I WAITED. I didnโt give up on the ocean, or my place in it, or believing that I would have my day in the sand, under a faded denim blue sky, with cotton ball clouds floating above me. I baked until the sweat drenched my pours, and then I raised myself up and walked slowly to the edge of the water. The surf made tiny breaks not enough to shatter my body warmth and I felt the first sting of the water on my feet, and then my knees., I submerged and found that the best way to celebrate this day was to keep flopping backward on top of each wave as it crashed, and I did this for a dozen rounds, until I felt giddy, submissive, and dented with the surf. That waiting thing again, meant something that I should write about because all of us are waiting for the election, the economy to recover, wars to end, streets to be safe and our real estate to be worth something again. We are all waiting for this big change so we can feel secure and optimistic about the future. There is something useful about waiting, something predisposed, that gives us the support and substance we need, so when the waiting is over, and we are all flush with optimism again, it will feel like the first time. It will overwhelm us with power and joy, like the ocean.
The list of projects stares at me; donating boxes of what I can do without, vacuuming, calling friends, grocery shopping because my frig looks too vacant, finishing the manicure I started yesterday, estimates on the cracked steps, and painting the front porch, well, itโs a short list because I live a short life. Not working on a specific project, other than managing my home, tenants, and repairs. It leaves me with more time than I have ever had, to think, process and write. This week’s Tik-Tok hearing enraptured my attention. I stopped my life to watch game changers change the game. The result will most likely ignite protests, appeals, and millions of Tiks! I write because my head is full of thoughts. I exert neutrality to ignore the number of readers that read it, share it, or like it. It’s not any easier than being the only one without a date on Valentine’s. Day. Why do we all crave an audience? Hmm, has social media collapsed our self-esteem, importance, and relevance? It is comical; hits, clicks, and shares mean we matter.
My direction is following Lawrence Durrell, โSpirit of the Place,โ and living where I would never expect to live.ย I wish I could control my impractical, impulsive, and annoying spirit of adventure. I think about architecture, Jewish deli’s, Italian restaurants, at one movie theater built in the 1930s, and neighborhoods of unfamiliar lighting, expressions, and conversations. Gambling on yourself is how much you can adapt, change, influence, and accept the days of your life.
In my syndicate, there must be a dozen pals with the same unsolved equation. Is it age that blocks me and maybe you from relocation, or is it the trauma and stress? What liberation to just pack a suitcase and board a plane like in the movies. Separation from the familiar. The spirit of adventure has arrived. My home sold and so relocation isn’t a muse any longer, it’s reality. Today, coincidently is Independence day and so am I. It is a day of nostalgia. The Rudster painting Follies. It took two summers to remove the aluminum siding, scrape, caulk, prime, and paint my chosen seven colors to resemble a wedding cake. Mr. Doolittle built the home in 1883 as a wedding present for his daughter.
The Rudster painting Follies. It took two summers to remove the aluminum siding, scrape, caulk, prime, and paint my chosen seven colors to resemble a wedding cake. Mr Doolittle built the home in 1883 for his daughter as a wedding present.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 
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