Today is the day to stop punishing myself and outlive what has aborted my adventures in livingness.
No longer incubate to avoid disappointment, irritations, chaos, uncertainty, and senseless fear. I’m not alone, and you’re not alone. Friends of marvelous careers and lifestyles admit the same. We remain at home, where comfort, familiarity, control, and sustainability are our foundation.
No longer! Debasing my flaws, failures, and finicky flashes, manage them like I’m preparing dinner. If the pasta isn’t fabulous, I don’t go into a fit of failure.
I no longer will have apprehension and anxiety when buyers arrive to tour my home. The great philosophers advised me on Facebook that anxiety never solves problems.
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.
Achievement knocked down the barrier of fear. It feels like lifting off from ground level; I am floating like I used to be in the swimming pool, and I am only at my desk reading the news from my attorney. From one beginning to an ending, five years later, after tedious research, unscrambling legal language, and searching for the meaning behind the case references, this journey is over. I won the lawsuit against the bank that attempted toforeclose on my home and Dodger, my ex-partner of thirty-five years, who, for still unknown reasons, pursued the foreclosure.
Agape, eyes widened, nerves settled like snowflakes; the joy of achievement cannot be understated. During this phantasmagoria, life beyond research, consulting with foreclosure agencies, banking laws, and regulations, I detached from my passion for adventure, creativity, parades, parties, and socializing; I sat alone, and resilience shadowed, then enflamed like a log of fire, encapsulated into a daily doctrine. Music by Ennio Morricone, blue note Jazz, the everchanging scenery of seasons, phone conversations with friends who released ambers of comfort, confidence, and advice, and TCM films nuzzled my fatigue.
Some days, I remained in bed, staring at my Icart Ladies of Leisure prints, or sat by my favorite window seat and studied clouds, birds, and leaves. The blossom of tenacity grew into a tree trunk and taught me the art of persistence and emotional strength, which were missing links in my character.
Achievement in fine-tuning relationships, setting down the needle gently instead of plummeting riffs and arguments. In the present, as you all know, if you read the news, our culture has replaced argument and debate with assault and violence. I digress; renewed confidence in my aptitude to fight battles, disputes, and disappointments without Dodger is as solid as concrete.
The next episodic internal journey is regaining my passion for opening the door to interaction with strangers and discovering newness in that engine of life.I hope this admission reaches others who are experiencing depriving themselves of love within and without.
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.”
VULNERABLE…. weakness and emotionally exposed, failure. Otherwise the moment of courage to rise and understand our fragility without self-degrading,. Excerpt from Rabbi at Temple Ebet Emeth.
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,ย Mozart, Chopin, Opera, Salsa, Beatles, Stieglitz,ย Nicholas Ray,ย 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.ย 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.
I am not afraid to write the truth, to stare and embrace the reflection. It appeared last night; a thought manifested in an abstract way; a torch of light, a rainbow, an open door that symbolized a guide to contentment, and peace of mind, it felt reachable if only I evaporated into the sensibility, allowing change, a complete transformation from this encampment of isolation and fear of making the wrong decision.
The embryo of thought. Sometimes it is negligible, as is life. I am the puzzle maker and every time I try to carve the right size square, I fall off the board and have more material to write about. The puzzle is so vast that it covers our lifetime and the pieces are the choices, and non-choices that fit into themes. My life, is like a melody, a Gershwin tune. As a dancer and prancer at heart, my feet are my hands, and my hands are my heart. Drizzling rain is relative to thoughts on a Saturday; a few thoughts for my book, assembling the bedroom fan, calling friends, a walk with my umbrella to live in rain, answering emails, and those hypnotic Film Noir Classics on Utube. When world news disables self-absorbency, it’s a relief, I hold hands with whatever keeps me alive.
Greta dressed in pink jeans, a pink striped polo shirt, and low-heeled pumps. As she opened the door she thought, and said out loud one step to go. She flipped down the top of her car to ride visible, a sort of rehearsal to adjust to the main street on a Saturday afternoon. Storm clouds churned and after checking the weather channel, rain coming in one hour, Greta closed the convertible and went back indoors. Not truly disappointed as sheโd stayed up till three am watching the Shooter series on Netflix and woke at eight.
(I use the name Greta in my manuscript because of this, my father repeatedly scolded me when I said, I want to be alone, he replied, ‘Who do you think you are Greta Garbo?’)
Journal June 10th.
The street was quiet except for the barking dogs so I sat down to write, and let the paper stare back blankly. I switched over to Facebook and viewed my feed, the Rolling Stones, Italy Travel, Artnews, Creative Non-Fiction, Emily Luxton Travels, and Jazz photography. Voyeurism, the normalcy of our culture, to watch life from a screen, I’m guilty because I’m at heart a loner, a drifter that moves on the outskirts of socialization. When discourse and confrontation knock at my door, I go dormant to the world outside. My mask is not convincing, So, I bear up, like today, and take nature as my friend; a patch of blue, gray skies, the sun tea cup surprise, the birds and chipmunks on my lawn, and the occasional passersby who are living in their world. At seventy only two lines matter: I’m proud of you, and you could have done better. HONESTY.
Direction is a choice; move back home, move near your children, move for a job, but in my case, I move because my act in Saratoga will come to a close. I’m like a blank space between two paragraphs; it sounds like freedom, no commitments other than being the best I can be. Starting over in a new location is about redesigning within.
Iโm still a nomad, searching for adventuresinlivingness. As I lay my head down on my pillow, the interim is asking me to be peaceful, faithful, and confident. Itโs about time!
Reminds me of when I went off to college, a liberating extension of those early days when belonging to things didn’t matter, life mattered. If you are single and without children, this is the knife that we must slice into a piece we accept, or no peace will lull us to sleep.
ON THE ROAD FROM SOMEWHERE TO SOMEWHERE, I CAN’T REMEMBER. MAYBE SANTA FE TO SAN DIEGO.
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.
Curiosity doesnโt always kill the cat, sometimes it brings confidence. I asked my British friend, โis it common for people to lose their curiosity, passion, and desires as they age?โ He responded, LOL, yes. Thatโs where we are different, he has certainty, whereas I don’t. Being single and living alone affords you freedom of thought, and so it was this weekend, while enveloped indoors to avoid the chilling grip of winter, my thoughts were in a heated argument.
Go to Saratoga and visit the Casino Museum, have a croissant or lobster roll, roam the gallery district, window shop, and get out of this house now.
Itโs too cold to walk, Iโve been to the museum, I donโt feel like dining alone again, and the galleries Iโve been to are arts and crafts.
Thatโs not the reason, is it?
No, Iโm not curious.
Just four years ago, Iโd pop out of my Santa Fe home and walk up to Canyon Road Friday Night. All the galleries are open and serve appetizers, some live music, some street vendors, and some costumed characters and it was a party. I didnโt mind eating alone because I knew the restaurant owners, bartenders,and regular guests. Sedation of spirit came in the last six months. The first year coming back to my home after a six-year absence was invigorating and new, and unexpectedly in need of serious maintenance and lease management.
In front of El Farol, Canyon Road on a stranger’s beauty mobile. Twice a week for live rockin music and dancing. One of my favorite dance floors because the stage is three feet away.
The second year was getting about town and exploring and then Covid so it was an incomplete year. The third year was a wicked winter and when spring came, the ebullient appreciation of the sun and flowers renewed, and my curiosity temperature was down but not dormant. Circumstances too complicated and gruesome to write, force me to stay here. Iโm one of the millions, that live where they donโt choose to live anymore. When the day comes, the freedom to relocate is my curiosity. My next nest is undetermined. My friends, ask me, โwhere are you going to move to?โ This comes up in every third or fourth conversation. And the answer is the same, ‘when I know Iโll tell you.โ
Upstate on a clear day.
Poetic justice for a life-long wanderer. Curiosity I call on you to visit my spirit and paddle me out to waters and roads unknown. Give me the confidence to keep my oars afloat; confident, curious, and passionate.
On the road from New Mexico to somewhere… I can’t remember.
ADVENTURERS IN SINGLE LIVINGNESS 
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