TRAVELING TRUTH & TREES

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A passage from Anais Nin’s diary says, “Be careful not to enter the world with any need to seduce, charm, conquer what you do not want, only for the sake of approval. This is what causes the frozen moment before people and cuts all naturalness and trust. The real wonders of life lie in the depths. Exploring the depths for truth is the real wonder which the child and the artist know: magic and power lie in truth.”

From my journal. Wecannot unlock our mysteries when surrounded by extroverted behavior. Over the years, the intensity of seeking solitude increased; shy in conversation, I turned to writing when I didn’t dare speak. I’m waiting for some release and joy so I can change course and find a studio (In an undisclosed location for personal reasons). It is not happening. Life feels like a package I cannot unwrap.

That was only two hours ago, and instead of ruminating on impatience, my pattern transformed. I took a walk in a wind that blew the orange leaves in a choreographed dance, and watched.

OUT OF CONTROL

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Bohemian living was always in my dreams, having been raised in a perfectly pressed pinafore and seated on velvet and satin furniture. I am not really very gypsy like when it comes to home. Once upon a time, I lived out of one suitcase, but I have since been corrupted by the joy of controlling what comes into the house and finding a place for it. Loss of control. Once faced with this alarming epiphany, I vowed to give up control and accept the disorder and disruption.

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 for more visceral makeup. Losing control is a replenishment of youthful spirit. It’s free and painless.

ADVENTURES IN LEAVING LIVINGNESS

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YES, I AM LEAVING. SIX YEARS LATER. I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE 1 YEAR, BUT WHAT WE PLAN GOES INTO THE CIRCUMSTANCE BLENDER, AND I, MAYBE YOU, COME OUT SHREDDED, UNTIL WE LEARN HOW TO REMIX OUR CONDIMENTS FOR THE FUTURE. The year the village adopted my slogan, Village of Friends

Six years ago, this week, I left my studio on Devon Ave, a shrink-wrapped space that forged me outdoors. I landed in Ballston Spa, NY, to save my home from foreclosure. I felt a contrast within and without. The without were the winters. I’d not lived here since 2003, youthful adaptation overwhelmed the bitterness of winter. The within, my mind, heart, and spirit went through a seasonal transformation. Winters, the snowplowing season when I am on duty to ensure tenants and nieghbors can walk on my sidewalk(owners are reponsible in the village) without breaking a leg and then suing me. Writing is the dominant activity, between, cooking, checking the sump pumps, talking on the phone with friends three thousand miles away, and managing tenants. Once I learned the house was two months behind on the mortgage, turmoil, the servicers bounced me around with false information, misconduct and refused the full balance when I offered. Covid postponed the payments for a year, and so did the New York financial agency. I filed the complaint against PHH, and they pressured PPH to abort the foreclosure for another year. Almost all my income went to restoring the house, replacing mechanical parts, painting, and repairs.

One day in February of 2020, a man knocked on my door and handed me the foreclosure documents. So began six years of legal research, interviewing attorneys, and defending myself against the predator, who sought to destroy my life, every angle of it. I can’t name this person; I’m in writing witness protection. Seriously.

It’s Christmas day, and the lobby of the hotel is empty. I think there are seven guests, and most of the cheerful staff are off. The sun broke through, so I’ll wander around the property. It’s 28 degrees, I adapted physically but not emotionally.

THE LEGEND LADY OF PALACE AVE

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The throw of the dice this week lands on adventures in livingness; one day at a time. People with terminal illness, suffering from a shattered romance, a death of a friend, a natural disaster, always say the same thing; One day at a time.

Walking up Palace Avenue on a day spread with sunlight, and a continuum of power walkers, bikers and runners, passing by in whiffs of urgency, I took my time. I didn’t feel like flexing, just evaporating into the shadows, and the moving clouds. I walked by a little adobe, that once was a dump site for empty bottles, cartons, worn out furniture, and piles of wood. A year later, the yard is almost condominium clean. Just as I was passing the driveway, the little woman whom I’d seen walking up Palace with her bag of groceries, appeared like a gust of history in the driveway of her adobe casita. She wore her heavy blanket like coat and a bandanna on her head. Regardless of weather, she’s bundled up in the same woven Indian coat and long wool skirt. I stood next to her, a foot or so taller, and she unraveled history, without my prompting. She told me about the Martinez family, the Montoyas, and the Abeytas, all families she knew, all with streets named after them. Estelle asked me my name, and then took my hand in her weathered unyielding grip, ‘Oh I had an Aunt named Lucero, and we called her LouLou.’ She didn’t let go of my hand, and then she told me that the families, some names I’ve forgotten, bought homes on Palace in 1988 for $50,000, She shook her finger to demonstrate her point. ‘You know how many houses the Garcias bought? Five! Then they fixed them up and sold them.’

I could have stood there in the gravel driveway listening to Estelle all afternoon. She owns the oral history I love to record; but it is difficult to understand her, she talks with the speed of a southwest wind. We parted and I thought about the times in my life when the smallest of interactions elevates my spirit. In older people, who are not addicted to gadgets and distant intimacy, I’m reminded of how speed socializing has diminished the opportunity for a sidewalk chat.

DAYDREAMING TRAVEL

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When I listen to Antonio Carlos Jobim, I dream of Brazil and of riding on a float at Mardi Gras, just once, in a feather hat, dressed like Rita Hayworth. Music evokes a writing mood, like jazz or blues writing; they are similar. When I listen to Sarah Vaughn or Nancy Wilson, it feels like a close female friend confiding in me and knowing I understand heartbreak.

When I sit at my desk and look at my mother’s photograph, I dream of the first lunch we had at Bullock’s Garden Room, watching the fashion show and discovering style. When I shovel snow, I dream of the coastal beaches: Del Mar, La Jolla, Santa Barbara, and Carmel. Commercials about travel dominate and fuel my craving for a flight. As my responsibilities here are unfinished, I will wait and daydream about the next voyage.

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 we take it seriously, how to get there. The medicine of daydreaming is unmatched by books, healthy food, vitamins, yoga, religion, or mind-altering experiences; it is the essence of who we are.

EXCERT FROM GASLIGHTING GRETA MANUSCRIPT

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Aside from her legal phantazmorphia, the house has critical repairs, so she is meeting with contractors, plumbers, electricians, and masonry companies to tend to one thing after another. As she reflects on all these repairs and sees her savings account drop by fifty percent, her demeanor is not as she expected; she feels a sense of reward for taking responsibility for the house and her tenants.

“ I decided to eliminate debt by consolidating outstanding balances into one low-interest payment; I didn’t use the air-conditioner, buy favorite foods, go to my favorite tavern, or purchase anything that didn’t get categorized as home repair. I even quibbled with my Physician about an in-person visit and asked for a Telemed visit.”‘

‘No, there would be no frivolous spending. This new style of surviving she called Anorexic Finance. When she relayed this to me, I high-fived her because I’ve never been in that position and thought it was commendable.

ADVENTURES IN SINGLENESS

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I’D LIKE TO RIDE A CLAIRVOYANT CIRCUIT INTO THE MINDS OF SINGLES OVER THE AGE OF SEVENTY.

I’ve often wondered why advertisements, the media, and politicians don’t address the single segment of society. We don’t hear the beginning of a statement, whether it is legislative, political, social, or cultural. Singles around the country are not traveling, purchasing more products, refusing to get vaccinated, and are unemployed…etc. We are a minority class; I found statistics on The UnmarriedAmerican.org website. More searching led me to the American Association for Single People website.

There are 106 million unmarried adults in the United States. Singles constitute more than 44% of the adult population in the nation.
About 44% of the nation’s workforce are unmarried employees
The Census Bureau estimates that about 10% of adults will never marry.

I’m not going to make a huge leap into this as my thoughts are more about adventures in singleness.

This conversation is from a close friend, married for twenty-some years.

“You are so lucky you have no idea. If I were single, I’d move somewhere where life is simple, maybe Greece.”

“You don’t know about the loneliness, the awkwardness of holidays, the fear when you get sick and have no one to care for you, so many things really.

“I can think better when I’m alone.”

I told her I understood. That is the crucifix of making my pen my mate rather than a three-dimensional man( Temporary singleness). Some of my interactions go like this; going out to dinner, “Are you alone?” She or he leads you to the most obscure table. Then she or he removes the second table setting and suddenly aloneness is visible. An hour later another customer asks if they can use the spare chair. That’s when I ask for the check and leave.

Taking a road trip and feeling vulnerable when I’m pumping the gasoline and a stranger is gawking at me and I’m in the middle of nowhere. It is usually truck drivers and I immediately think of Thelma and Louise.

Dressing for an event that I’ve never been to on my own. In my closet, I lay out three different outfits. Then I have a wary of decisions on which shoes, flats or heels. When I’m all dressed and ready to go self-consciousness billows up and I change the outfit. It’s a ridiculously amusing routine.

Taking myself out for a cocktail just to get out of the hotel has numerous consequences. I end up sitting next to couples who are having a roaring twenties time of it, and the only single man or woman at the bar is fixated on their phone. Instead, the woman next to me strikes up a conversation about her boyfriend.

The other side of these dismal forecasts is; I have no arguments at home (just interior dialogue), I can eat whenever I choose, watch what I elect on television, keep the bedroom light on, adjust the thermostat to my body temperature, and make all the decisions myself, the most infuriating and worthwhile to building courage and self-reliance.

One of the lines in The Godfather struck me as an authentic gangster testimonial: “Women and children can afford to be careless, men cannot.” As a teenager one of the repetitive reminders my father said angrily was, “Watch what you’re doing!” This was the most relevant and truthful observation he made of me. Admittedly, I am easily distracted, careless, and ignore risk.

Without someone to look after my carelessness (I’ve been on my own now for six years), one three-month friendship ended strangely. When he asked me if I had been boosted, I said I hadn’t. He punished me, citing his father, who lives hours away, and he rarely visits. I had Covid, vaccinated twice, that wasn’t enough, so he vaccinated me out. Now, living in hotels I find men talking to me, but the substance is absent, trivia or weather. I have inducted my interests, literature, art, philosophy, culture, travel, and those subjects return, a glazed stare most times, or they are married. I am not in a rush, I’ve learned that scaredness comes when I’m ready… guess I’m not ready yet!

GIVING THANKS TO FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS WHO READ ADVENTURES IN SINGLENESS!

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

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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.

ON THE HOTEL ROAD OF TRAVEL THOUGHTS

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The course we choose to study doesn’t begin in school; it begins the moment we recognize that life is our teacher. I chose the course of love between a man and a woman. Yet all I’ve learned from Anais Nin, Joan Didion, and Lawrence Durrell about love isn’t guiding me. I have to start over and develop wisdom from my own experiences.

I checked into the third hotel, the previous one was tedious and murky. This morning in a larger room, on a crisp as iceberg lettuce, a day of clarity and stillness surrounds me. Outside my hotel room, the light is intermittent, a peak a boo stage window, the light illuminates portions of the crispy autumn leaves just before they drop. On my side of the glass, there are shadows and dissonance. What events take place this week will be instrumental in my future and as piercing as the southwest sun when it shone in my eyes.

This hotel’s staff is exceptionally friendly, conversant, and engaged in their jobs. Every time I pass by the guest check-in, Rose stops what she’s doing.

“ How’s it going?”

“Too early to tell.” I’ve been here a week, and I unzipped my lawsuit story, so she is in the know. She is knowledgeable about the law, and living through times that are more threatening than usual.

“ Okay. What are you doing today?’

“ Researching moving companies. Critical thinking and planning. When I moved from Santa Fe to Los Angeles, I hired a broker, thinking it was the actual company. When the van arrived, half of my things were broken, boxes were opened, and some were stolen. So this time, no mistakes.

“ Mistakes are all about learning.”

“ Yes, and I learned!”

“ What did you do last night?” She said with a curious smile.

“ I was at the bar, Lizzie was there rousing all of us up with puzzles, a brouhaha like the old days, you know, not one of us looked at our phones.”

“ Please, don’t even start. So annoying when you’re talking to someone and they are staring down at their phones.”

“ When I was living in LA, at huge four-way intersections in the middle of traffic, pedestrians crossed without even looking up. It was the same everywhere, restaurants, shops, it struck me as a way of looking very significant.”

“ You’re so right!”

“ That reminds me, I need to go write a column.”

“ Write about your lawsuit.”

“ No! I’m in witness protection writing.”

“ They may read it right?”

“ You New Yorkers are always on the right key.”

“ Gotta be, it’s New York.”

” I’m California”.

” That’s okay, I still love you, and your day is coming, and so is a new man.”

”

ON THE HOTEL ROAD OF TRAVEL

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THE GYPSY CHRONICLES – Thursday, October 23, 2025

“ You have to be out today by 11 am. ” I gasped and looked at the time, 10 am.

“ Scooter told me he extended it until Sunday the 26th.”

“ He didn’t call us. He has to call us. We need the room for the monster ball. Get a hold of him.

I was shaken. I had one hour to reach Scooter. I called in a panic from the lobby and left a message. Then upstairs, I desperately looked for a hotel to take me in, in case Scooter didn’t call. They were booked tonight, but could take me tomorrow. The hotel was a two-star, no Mortons, no restaurant, no gardens, but it looked clean and was only a mile away.

At 11:00, Scooter texted, “I called, you have until Saturday. Is that okay?”

“ Yes, fantastic, thank you!” Scooter has an arrangement with the hotel that earns him points, and he has gifted me many of them!

I returned to the other conundrum of the day —my lawsuit —with very unexpected news. Tammy, the Top Drawer Housekeeping Manager, stopped me in the hallway.

“ What’s wrong, Loulou. She leaned against the cart and listened attentively.

I updated her on the event, and she tilted her head to one side.

“ Bastard! Take a break today, let the process begin, and tomorrow you’ll regain your strength.”

“ It’ll take a few tomorrows, I’m emotionally fragile.”

“ I know you are, I’m the same!”

She patted me on the shoulder, and just that little gesture, of care, was a band-aid to the wound.

Walking into the next hotel was a pinch of pathos I was not prepared for until the front-desk gent helped me with my five suitcases.

“ You’re from Santa Fe? He said, eyeing my license plate.

“ Was, for eleven years.”

“ I moved recently from Ranchos de Taos.”

“You’re kidding! That’s where I lived for several years. I had a gallery there!”

“ That’s crazy. I’ve never met anyone here who knows Ranchos or even New Mexico.” I laughed, cause a lot of people think it’s in Mexico.

He opened my door, and I feigned disappointment and thanked him.

Okay, here it is, a bland room without the flair or fancy, but the price is right. I opened the suitcases and did not unpack. The sun was out like a neon sign, beckoning me to go outdoors.

No elevator, on the first floor, I passed the laundry room—a lot of conversation and a sort of cheerful vibe. I walked outside, sat in a chair facing the sun, let my arms droop, and closed my eyes. I heard someone walking and then sitting next to me.

“ Hello, did you just check in?”

“ Yes, the sun is marvelous, isn’t it?”

“You bet it is. I’m Loulou.”

“ What! My name is Loulou, a nickname.”

She moved around, crossed her legs, lit a cigarette, and her long white hair was halfway clipped, and the rest fell on her shoulders. I could see she was once beautiful.

“ Isn’t that something else. How long are you here for?”

“ Not sure yet.”

“ I’ve been there. Not knowing.

“ People don’t understand, they feel I’m unstable or something. I can feel it, and see it in their eyes.”

“ Screw that, just ignore those people. I do.”

“ You’re right, too much to handle without that.”

“ Everything is upside down, and no accountability. “

“ So true”, and then she dropped her head, and I could see her emotions rise as if she had been led somewhere else.

“ My grandson was killed in a motorcycle accident, hit, and then died right there. I didn’t get to say goodbye. It was by an illegal immigrant.” Then she cried uncontrollably, and I just about got up and hugged her.

“ Oh, sweetie, I am so very sorry for you.” This was all genuine, and she was sober and all of that, so I listened.

“ I wrote to all of them, Bondi, Patel, Trump, Noem, nothing.” Something like this doesn’t happen in a five-star hotel, only in a two-star. We sat there awhile, and I tried to console her or offer some options, like a news alert to the stations and local media.

She was on the cliff of catastrophe, and my minutiae of disappointment disappeared.

TO BE CONTINUED.

ADVENTURES IN TRAVEL

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I’ve been staying in a hotel during a short interim while I decide where to move.

While I am in the hotel observing guests, their mannerisms, conversations, and facial expressions, I have come to the conclusion that we are not only on a fiscal cliff, we are on a sinking shore of wet sand. I see guests who’ve come for gambling, visiting relatives, exploring Upstate NY, and lapping up a vacation as if it were their first. They are thirsty for living the essence of comfort, congeniality, and the aspirations of autumn. Shed the withered and welcome the wild. I see giddy faces and sluggish bodies weighted down by heavy tote bags. Some seem to shuffle like the very old or weak, from the pathway to the lobby. I was not excluded; by the time I checked into the hotel, my body was withered from having to move out of my home of twenty-five years. All I wanted to do was sink into a bed and hang the Do Not Disturb notice on the door. Several guests are annoyed by too much information, too many alerts, too many scandals, and too much uncertainty. The adventure of livingness has a trajectory marked by misadventures.

In reading the WordPress posts, I’ve discovered the Travel blogs are the ones that revive my interest in the world I haven’t seen. These are the ones I read because they spark my passion for travel, rather than comfort and complacency. The Mediterranean has been stirring in my imagination ever since I researched the coastal splendor of all those portside villages. Thanks to you, travel bloggers, I made the decision. This is the year for Italy. Now that it’s written, I must follow my word.

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