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.
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 hasnโt 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.
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. Sheโs 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. Sheโs an adventurer who camps out in Belize and South America. Now, sheโs talking about Antigua.
I walked out to the courtyard to see what was going on. The tables werenโt set up yet, but the Donkey stood idly and annoyed at the other end of the yard. I donโt 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.
โ How is it?โ Dude asked without needing any approval.
โ Magical. Who are you betting on? Greta asked.
โI want a Titty Tut, something nasty.โ
โ Oh, stop that. You do it too much.โ She replied.
โ Not nearly enough! Okay, hereโs my horseโPromises Fulfilled. Oh yes, thatโs mine.โ
โ Everything you say is a metaphor for sex.โ
โ You bet it is.โ Whoโs your pick?โ
โ My prick is Justify.โ
โHah, see, now you get it.โ
I sipped my drink and wandered around the lobby, stopping to greet Jackie, Monserrat, and Danielle. They donโt know what their smiles and caring comments do for me. I must tell them more often.
โ I donโt know what Iโd do without all of you.โTo be continued.
I shot this today with impetuous acceptance of more snow. I swept the stairs, removed branches, listened to music, and smiled. It will be my last winter in this quixotic, charming, historic village that taught me not to complain, instead to make it understandable.
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.
Why can the leaves turn lemon, plum, and tangerine? Why does the sky allow storms to shake up its translucent surface? Why can nature reinvent momentarily with wind, rain, hurricanes, and earthquakes? Why can’t I change the colors of my mood? I get daily messages from an Instagram member named Asadโinspiring, and he circulates around the themes of mood, attitude, loneliness, and inner strength. All of these have toppled my life since I can remember. I’m more taciturn than most people perceive. I can display a mannequin of poise and joy, but if you remove the surface, beneath is a conundrum of self-doubt, second-guessing, punishment, and fear. What’s even more destabilizing is I actually think I’m alone.
Last week, I observed the cashier’s facial expression and gestures at the Stop-& Go, which alerted me to her distress. I was buying a Cadbury chocolate bar after reading that chocolate is mood-changing, not just the hip-hop of energy; it can change your mood.
” I read that chocolate helps with depression, and these dreary dark days don’t help,” I admitted.
” Oh, I know. I used to be a registered nurse,” she said, facing me squarely into my eyes. I noticed a lot of cashiers don’t do that anymore.
” I suffer with anxiety and depression so I had to quit. I can mix up a Cadbury bar with a Snickers but not with medication.”
” I have the same as you, it’s changed my life as well. ” I looked at her name tag, without my glasses.
” You’re name is America? She laughed and her smile emerged.
“No, underneath, Dolores.”
” Thank you for listening to me,” I said
” Thank you, customers rarely acknowledge us.”
We don’t want pity or empathy; we all need recognition, and not in a text!
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.
Silhouette of sounds: a whispering wind, the freight train blowing the sounds of its coming, Neil Young music, and the flutter of thoughts that sometimes feel like sounds.
The sky is building into a rainstorm, and watching its manifestation is dramaticโnature in motion. Although there are tasks to be threaded, Iโve chosen to retire from pesky vacuuming, wood polishing, laundry, unpacking my winter clothes, and preparing for winter. The clothes are trivial to the transformation of light, outdoor porch lounging, and then the trees. When they turn naked as skinned cucumbers or buds without flowers, I think a visceral adaptation occurs in all of us.
This week unfolded over Dad. The most honorable collector of Mafia artifacts bought some of fatherโs collection. Years ago, I sold them to the Mob Experience for their Museum in Las Vegas (bankrupt), and the owner resold them to Julianโs Estate Sales in Beverly Hills. I viewed the items for sale; imagine your phone book selling for sixteen hundred dollars and an album of photos taken by Dad’s doll in the thirties for, well, I forget the price. Anyway, Avi Bash of the Avi Bash Collection bought what was left. When he wrote to me, I felt immediate relief that he owned these moments Dad had kept all his life. He said,โ Let me know if you want to see photos or anything else.โ Heโs a prince of a man. That was one slice of the week. When I checked my list today of my crossed-off tasks, it was not too impressive, but sometimes we canโt produce. As I said, Iโm adapting from sunshine and warmth to seasonal change.
Digitally, I fixed a few troublesome changes Microsoft made to my documents and feeds.
Itโs not me of years agoโdriven, disciplined, empowered, and confident. Maybe it is not worth thinking about, not for me. I think more than I act these days. Everything we do in life needs revision. We are never through evolving into more thoughtful, loving, or wise human beings. Every day, there is an opportunity to leap into a saintly hood. It is the same with manuscripts; they get better.
The next adventure in livingness is one I have lived with all my life, moving. I would love to move, even to another part of town.
The dismantling of things gives me a twisted alignment to my life. The beginning is again: unpacking boxes, meeting new neighbors, sunsets, and cafes. If I am ever to rest in one address, I’m sure it will be a headstone and a plot of dirt. I have chosen to relocate because of an internal destiny.
These are the ones I know will happen with some certainty. The inner self concerns me and how it jumps from one dream to one nightmare. When I was thirty, I was afraid of getting married; when I was forty, I was scared of not having children. Now that I am seventy-one, I am fighting another fear: the fear of singleness. But Iโve always been a loner; it just didnโt scare me when I was young.
The Rain came, Dylan is singing, and Iโm planning risotto pasta for the night.
I just finished another Denzel Washington film, Man on Fire. DW is my actor of the week, so I watch all his films. An alert popped up, another mass shooting, this time in Kentucky. I wanted to delete my last column.. It’s not what is breaking me apart; personal threads seem vacuous. What I’m escaping in writing and films are mass shootings and unbearable violence. It’s not one every few months; it’s every day. Yes, cure Cancer and all other physical diseases, BUT CONCENTRATE ON CRIME, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. MENTAL ILLNESS.
The leaves, I noticed when I drove out of the driveway a wispy wind and a few leaves blew past my windshield. I don’t think they want to die or hibernate; I don’t want to hibernate; that’s what you do if you are in upstate New York. Even this summer, the porches are empty, and the owners only come out to garden or empty trash. I’m the only one who sits on the wrap-around porch, head perched up to the sky to see what drama she’ll bring.
Where did we go this summer? Where did you go or do? One friend went to Croatia, another to Finland, and another to Sonoma. I prefer to travel in September, with my crowd cowardice and fear of flying; I’m waiting. Of course, I cannot leave because I am showing the house to prospective buyers. They are all very similar, rave and applause for the house, and their offer is two lines above insulting. Or maybe I am still in my delusional dream that Follies House is worth what I priced her. It is a voyage into the Twilight Zone; I see one house, and they see another.
Back to the leaves, the fall’s language, movements, and tasks will turn inside out. Soon, the blowers and street cleaners move all those beautifully colored leaves. I leave mine out until my gardener orders me, sweetly, LouLou, it’s time for fall clean up, or you won’t have grass next summer.” I won’t be here next summer, but I don’t say that because we’ve become pals, and he likes to manicure my lawns; I always greet him and George, his helper, and listen to their grievances.
Beyond the seasonal altercation, like a dress that needs hemming, emotions stop boiling over and seem to simmer. I am still determining where that originates, but I experience it every year as September approaches. Autumn is about awe. I read that somewhere. We slip into the interior chambers of thoughtful reflection, crunching the leaves of our souls for answers to questions.
I called my pal Jerry because it had been a few weeks since I had spoken to him. We have been friends for many years, but we have absolutely nothing in common. He’s famous for his photographs and films, that’s all I can say. I didn’t ask for his approval as I write this.
” Hello,” He sounded drowsy.
” Jerry! Did I wake you?”
” Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll call tomorrow.”
What for I’m awake now. I take naps because I can’t sleep through the night; I close my eyes, think for maybe an hour, fall asleep, and wake again five times in the night. What’s happening with you?”
” You are cerebral, so turning off your head would take a bulldozer or something.
“That’s a little drastic.”What’s happening with the house?”
” Showings, repairs, and a few offers that were insulting. I have a question.”
“Oh no.”
“What do you do when you don’t know what to do>”
“I call my attorney.”
” For life questions?”
” I don’t have any more questions at ninety-six.”
” That sounds peaceful.”
, We sidetracked an upcoming appointment with his doctor about sleep medication.” It’s tomorrow, I don’t feel like going,
” So don’t go. I had an appointment this week for a mammogram. That morning, I woke up trembling, panicked, wobbly, and so I called and canceled. When I told the representative I was having a severe panic attack, she laughed and said, I hear that all the time.“
“What’s the mammogram, is that for breast cancer?“
” Yes.”
” What do they do?
Oh, it’s weird. The nurse takes hold of your breasts, places them between two clamps, and then tells you not to breathe or move while they take an X-ray.
“What if your breasts are too small?”
“Ah hah, mine used to be, so they’d tug at them, and it was more painful than the clamps. When I turned seventy-one this year, suddenly they inflated, and I can fill my B cup to the rim.” He was laughing, imagining he had some visual, and that was good. We have better dreams when we sleep with pillow joy.
“I’m going to go to sleep now>”
” I hope you do. I’ll think of more breast stories tomorrow.
Very nice story. There is a sense that life goes on despite sadness.
Dick was a good friend and mu roommate inAlbuquerque. Last saw him inTaos in 95 .
Saturday, a heavy clog of humidity tries to zap my energy. I slept six hours, so I fight, do laundry, do a bit of weight lifting, go up and down the twenty stairs twelve times, and wander in my mind. I answer the first phone call of the day.
” Hi, how are you? ?”I pause to answerwith some amusing honesty.
” I’m cleaning my brain?
” How do you do that? You’re funny.”
” “I sweep away all the repetitive scary thoughts.”
” What about you? My friend sighed and then zigzagged into her struggles, taking care of her ninety-six-year-old mother, who does not speak English; my friend is Armenian. She works full-time as a court translator, has two children, a husband, and about fifty friends she continually connects to.
“You are four people in one. I don’t know how you do it?” Is your Mom still living with you?”
“ Yes, she can’t walk. She sleeps in the living room because the bedrooms are upstairs. It’s difficult. I have to feed her as she’s now refusing to eat.”
” Please try and get a nurse’s aide to come in and help you.”
“She won’t let anyone touch her but me.”
“I find that selfish, not to be critical, but you will wear yourself down.”
” She’s always been like that; in my culture, you never abandon a parent, no matter what. Her mind is sharp, so that is good.“
” Heaven isn’t good enough for you,” she chuckled. I often improvise to be amusing because her laughter is boisterous, and we all need more injections of humor.
” Have you decided where to move when it sells?”She asked again.
” Yes, I was looking at my book on Italy, all the different regions, and I think Anacapri is a good choice.”
” Oh, Greta… that is so expensive; what are you thinking?”
“I’m not thinking I’m daydreaming.”
” I have an idea for you. There is a new trend, something like Boomermates, a group of people who share a house, and you don’t have to sign a lease. Go look in San Diego and find something.
“Roommates, strangers, you mean?”
“Yes, why not?”
” Would you do that?”
” Probably not. A studio anywhere in San Diego is two thousand at least, and don’t use the proceeds from the house.
“Now you’re daydreaming. I’ll have to use some without the rental income until I find employment. Are you home now?”
“No, I’m driving to San Diego for a court appointment
“It’s what, six in the morning?“
“Yes, I wake up at five.”
” Every time I come here, I think of you. You were a great leasing agent. You leased about fifty of my units. You can get a job leasing in a nice project. Oh, you should have bought that unit. I remember G4 when we converted to condominiums.“
“Yes, you’ve told me that a hundred times.”
” I made the same mistake. What can you do?”
” Complain and then accept what you can’t accept. Like selling my home.”I went through my steamer trunk and found my marketing portfolio when I opened Follies as an artist retreat. It was nonstop theatrics. One time, I hosted a theater group of six young actors; they were so much fun. Ah, memories.
” You will make it; look what you accomplished, winning a foreclosure, Greta; that is something big.”
” So is my glass of wine.”
“I’d be doing the same in your situation.”
” Another showing, a really nice family. They’ll make an offer. They commented that the exterior paint is their issue, so did I tell you already? I found a marvelous painter from Albania, and he’s given me a very reasonable price to paint the entrance, balisters, and overhang. You know that curb appeal is critical.”
” You shouldn’t spend your money, Greta, how much?”
” Three thousand, and it’s a lot of scraping and ladder work. It’s the right decision if I may disagree with my real estate guru.”
” That is reasonable. Keep me posted. I’m in San Diego now, so I will speak to you soon.”
” Heaven isn’t good enough for you.”And I’m leaving Follies in the best I can because she was so good to me.
I read some older columns on singleness from times when I was alone and still friends with Dodger. Now, the pattern is unthreaded. There is no intertwinement of intimate conversations with a man, guidance, indulgences, or frolicking like children. When I see couples dining or walking hand in hand in the village, the vision snaps me into memories. The past lurks like a shadow, an overture to the present. Stream of consciousness, that translucence of mind that can drift like a leaf in the wind, is out of reach, so I donโt even attempt to reach for it. Acceptance of this interlude is permitted, as my mind is impregnated with a new canvas: relocation, standing in lines, driving the freeways, a city life that was once as natural to me as breathing feels like a complete revival. Employment, straightening my team playing skill set, working on deadlines, and finding excuses to get out of my chair away from the computer. Working in an art gallery is the only option besides being a remote writer.
Today, as I attempt to make strategic, methodical decisions and edit my resume, the yellow line appears that separates the present from the future. Can I navigate a city confidentially, decisively, and with discipline? In the village, those skills sleepwalk effortlessly.I have a punishing skill for avoiding reality.
I have packed most of my books, vacillated on their importance several times to eliminate the load. I chose ten to give away, Last night on the phone with Jerry, I mentioned parting with my books.
โ Why are you keeping them? I assume youโve read them.โ
” No, I have a lot of photography books I’ haven’t opened once. “
โ So, keep those.“
” I want all my favorite authors, some read, some not. I can’t let them go.– Don’t laugh, but they are my friends, in an abstract way, of course,” Jerry chuckled.
This morning, I kneeled and took another serious examination; no remains the answer. I’ve sold some of my favorite furnishings and artwork, so I made the strategic decision that my books are for keeps.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 
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