THE MYSTERY OF HOME

Every morning I rise at dawn to sit in the parlor. Here I watch the sunlight illuminate the, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” movie board in the hearth, and drink a cup of coffee in silence. I feel at home. These are the most precious moments of the day, the moment of peace before throwing the dice.

I can see out the window to the street, and this morning a handful of eggplant leaves on the tree next door have been autumnized to a transparent sheen of bronzed gold. The silence following summer has descended down over the rooftops of the people that live on East High Avenue. The sky is seared with streaks of white, and bubblegum pink clouds drift just above the rising of the sun. The moment is a peaceful stroke to a summer that has been indeterminate, chancy and without design. We came here with the intention to sell the house, and we leave without any such idea.

In the moments SC awakes, I hear his footsteps on the creaking wood floor. I close the journal and go in the kitchen to make buttermilk pancakes. When we are in Solana Beach, we eat bran muffins, usually in short order, between telephone calls, and conversations about things that it is too early to discuss. These mornings he lingers on the porch and reads the paper, because he has the time. If my body is willing, I will run down to the stream by Kelly Park, and look for the blue heron. Along the way, I pass by the quiet man with the three beagles, and a mother walking with her children to the bus stop. I will pass the funeral parlor and look the other way, and when I see the Federal Express Truck, he will wave because he knows I am the woman that receives mail addressed to Soaring Crow.

The front porches I pass are the opening pages to the home stories of people inside. If there are children, the remains of their toys will be scattered about. If they are elderly, they will leave their gardening shoes by the back door, and if they are a young couple, they will be in the midst of home repairs, a roof that needs fixing or a new coat of paint. I have observed just one campaign poster board in the neighborhood. It seems to have gone out of style to post your politics on your car or in front of your house. In the front yard of one home, a banner is pitched in the ground that reads, “Remember our Troops.” I have not asked, but it is probable they have a son serving in Iraq. The hanging flower planters have been replaced with mums and corn stalks. Some scatter straw on the lawn. I used to giggle at this September tradition, now I am almost giddy about arranging my seasonal display in the yard.

The run back through town takes me by the high school, a brawny brick building that looks like the setting for a chapter from “Catcher in the Rye.” A teacher passes by, dressed in a conservative suit and pumps, and smiles. She looks wholesome as apple pie, and I wonder if I ever looked like that. On chilly mornings, the fireplaces may be smoking, a scent as perfect as my favorite perfume. Our own fireplace is inoperable until we reline the chimney, which explains why the movie poster is in the fireplace.

By 8:00 a.m. the yellow school buses are chugging up the street and the children, gathered at our corner; bob up and down in innocent bursts of energy celebrating the beginning of a new day. I arrive home about this time, and stop to watch the quaintness of the moment. The habitat of these surroundings strips me bare of my Hollywood entertainment, Southern California roots. I am nourished by quaint tradition and scenery, and that is one answer to this mystery I call home.

I eat cider donuts when I want and instead of working out three or four times a week, I take long walks, past the Sunny Side farms to see the young foals and mothers in the corral. I dress in style-less shoes and pants, whenever I feel like it, without fashion consciousness. I do not watch the television and prefer to go to bed early and read Carson McCullers novels. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can sit on the porch and look at the hands of a storm forming in the sky.

People come to my house without notice, and sometimes just walk in and yell my name. My favorite Broadway hangout knows who I am, what kind of wine I like and that we like to sit on the patio. Sometimes I meet strangers who have heard of the Follies House, and I feel a twinge of acknowledgment.

It does not matter what everyone else calls home, it is simply the feeling of peace, security, and acceptance. That is how you know you are home.

WRITTEN JULY 2010.

LIVING AS A LONER.MINIMAL MAYHEM LIFESTYLE-OCEAN, SKY, SUNLIGHT WONDER.

Featured ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

FEEL, THINK, AND REACT. Tumbling through all the transitory advice forces me to examine more closely whom to believe. I’ve never been a leader, nor a follower, I walk in between, trying to pave a pathway to peace of mind. Maybe that is unattainable as I am in a cultural, political, medical, financial, and socially reimagined world. It reminds me of being a teenager when life was questionable, and confusion was like a stinging bee we couldn’t swap away. So, in my senior year in high school I started writing in a notepad. Gradually, almost supernaturally I withdrew from my gang, and spent the weekends in a Cafe with adults, or in the library. The loner label pleated my pants.

Loners were portrayed in film, books, and art as mysterious, untouchable icons. They even became romanticized as people of superior cerebral awareness. I’ve met and gained friendships with several over the last few decades. It may be that loners have thin skin, they absorb the ethereal and reality, so in many situations the absorption is too weighty and the loner cuts loose before the party is over, cancels at the last minute, and doesn’t answer the phone. Talking, engaging, evaporating into another person feels herculean for me sometimes.

Does isolation relate to the intensification of rancorous physical assaults in streets and shops, which is my pestering pursuit today. Are all these perpetrators unloving, and live amongst the unloved? People are shot because their hamburger wasn’t properly served on time, or they have a different opinion. I was living in Los Angeles in 2018, and one day driving down Pico Blvd I noticed a sign, “Walk in Anger Management.” Maybe we need to convert a few drive-thru food diners to Anger Management centers. It sounds amusing. If I was financially able, I’d open one in every major city.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS CULTURE is unimaginable for a woman who grew up in the Love and Peace generation, or even into the eighties and nineties. We didn’t shoot one another, maybe a fist fight, or a shouting match, but not murder in cold blood. Could this macabre movement be abated by friends who love you more when you are gentle and kind? It cannot be that simple, or could it? When I used to rage about some occurrence that tattered me personally, Dodger would come to me and say,

‘Greta put your guns down,’ that always made me laugh, and then we’d talk out what triggered my fury.

THE COMFORT OF EXHIBITING life on paper. It is not the act of writing with pen and paper moving along at a steady rhythm; it’s the activation of the heart and mind, collaborating to unravel the relevant from the irrelevant. To reach this state of matrimony, a writer doesn’t need a Tuscan Villa or an English Castle, but experiences that flake off the skin and shake out relevance. What I’ve rediscovered is that without a lot of stuff to organize, the mind is free to think, more time to create and effect essential decisions. Narcissism is sacrificed and replaced with more visceral makeup. Minimalist living has erased my past, and that is as transforming as day to night.

PUZZLE OF SOLITUDE will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are puzzled by too much solitude, or not enough. 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 in my irregularities; wearing a sweater inside out, pouring coffee into a wine glass for a cocktail, and chuckling when I keep forgetting where I left my phone. Laughing at myself is a funnel that leads to writing.

TRUTH & TALK

September 18, 2025September 28, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

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. 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.

NOT A NATION OF FREE SPEECH ANYMORE. A NATION OF HATRED, INTOLERANCE AND REVENGE. THAT’S WHAT KEEPS ME UP ALL DAY LONG.

July 14, 2025July 15, 2025 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

I’M JEWISH AND NOT

October 22, 2023 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Under Jewish law, a child is not recognized if the mother is not Jewish. That’s my case, my mother was Catholic and my father was Jewish. When they married in 1949, my father insisted that he raise their children Jewish, he was raised in an Orthodox family, binding him to that history and culture. My mother agreed, she had been excommunicated from her Church becasue she married a Jewish man. Interpersonal punisment exist because of religious differences.

My youngest memory of Jewish education was our Friday night Shabbot diners, with my Mother’s participation, Saturday morning I was dressed up and my father took us to Sinai Temple in Westwood. Twice a week I attened Hebrew school, and learned as best I could to speak and read Hebrew. On Jewish Holidays, my father orchestrated elaborate dedication to Hanukah, Rosh Hashana, Yum Kippur and Passover. These rituals were not nuances, or obligatory gestures, my father was passionate about his faith, and the teachings of the Torah.

After his passing, I did not join a temple, or practice the everday prayers, except on the High Holidays. I did this on my own as my partner was not Jewish. This year on Yum Kippur I joined the New York Synagogue virtual service.

On October 7th, all of what my father had passed on to me about Israel and Jewish morality, exploded. I’ have never felt so Jewish in my life. I was reminded of a day in Junior High when a classmate scornfully said to me,” You are not Jewish because your mother was not! “

When I told my father, he said, ‘ I don’t care if you are a quarter, a half or a whole, you’re Jewish, and don’t forget that.’

Several days after watching the videos of the beheadings, rapes, stabbing and shots, I was sitting in my sunroom, and heard the children next door; screeching, shouting, and crying. As a woman who did not have children, the raucous always bothered me, not today. I loved to hear the children, safe, outdoors, and being as they should, our pleasuure.

POP-UP FRIDAY FOLLIES

May 19, 2023May 23, 2023 ~ LouLou

POLITICS, HALLOWEEN, AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION

October 28, 2022 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

I made friends with sadness a long time ago. When my senses are faced with tragedy, war, a friend’s hardship, a crying child, or a lost cat, it resonates with emotions I cannot control. I feel that today. The street where I live is lifeless. The residents are not behaving as they have the last three years. Once those leaves turn they all come out in gardening gloves and jackets and place mums on the porch steps. They bring out blowers and try to keep time with a tremendous showering of leaves and begin decorating their homes in flamboyant fashion for Halloween.

Last year, activity flourished as renters and owners placed their hay stacks, witches, pumpkins, and lights in prominence. I think it’s an unofficial traditional contest between neighbors.

Maybe this is our Great Depression and it is more than the economy, inflation, and uncertainty. I think we are all flustered and frustrated with the fall of politics, it feels more like who has the best strategic offense.