https://knpr.org/knpr/2011-05/luellen-smiley
My first interview on Dad, when I listen now it reminds me how liberating it was to talk about my family history.
KNPR.ORG
Luellen Smiley
Luellen Smiley is the daughter of reputed mobster, Allen Smiley. Smiley’s dad was a close friend and confidant of famous Las Vegas mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and he was sitting on the couch just feet away from Siegel the night he was murdered. While Luellen Smiley hadn’t been born at the time o…
Iโve adopted a savant to facilitate making decisions. I donโt want to use the word hate, itโs useless, but this time I will, I hate making decisions. Whether to go out for dinner, or go to one of villages’ festivals, parades, or events, they rake up events during the winter to keep us off drugs. This weekend was a ย village-wide Friday sale for shopping, the lighted tractor parade, and appetizers at all the shops in town. Sounded pleasurable and Iโm proud of the village to induct us into a community of we care about you.ย I didnโt go, but I did go out for Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant Iโd never been to, festive crowded, and the tempting buffet twinkled like the first time Iโd seen decorated food. Itโs been five years since Iโve gone out for Thanksgiving so the jubilee of food was a bit musical.ย I ordered a glass of wine at the bar, the only customer as everyone had reserved tables for grandparents and children and the roar was melodious. My order to go would wait, the celebratory ambiance shattered my loneliness. The bartender, Jovida was like a lightbulb, she kept coming over to me maybe three times asking me polite questions, have you been here before, you must come on the weekends we have live music, while youโre having your wine can I bring you something from the buffet. I wondered if Iโd be charged, she noticed my hesitation and said, No charge. So I choose smoked salmon, capers, onion, and horseradish. On m wish list if Iโm allowed to eat in heaven, along with Gruyere cheese, tacos, salad, and croissants. ย The bliss, was a sandwich of bustling eager activity, laughter, and the children. ย I remember our family Thanksgiving when my parents were divorced and we went to Nanaโs home in San Fernando Valley, through that old tunnel. My motherโs mother is full-flecked Irish so the dinner was grand, and she was a dedicated cooking slave.ย She made mashed potatoes like Iโve never tasted since, and homemade pies, everything spiced with Nanaโs kinship with making the family love her.
ย ย ย ย ย I left the restaurant after an hour later with a jubilant bag of turkey, fixings, and pumpkin pie. I found my seat on the bedroom sofa, and watched, โ The Trainโ with Burt Lancaster.ย My thoughts were rested, abated for the whole evening, and then the next day, turkey revenge. I could not get out of bed, eat, or think. So I said to myself, itโs okay to do nothing and so I watched a romantic comedy, โ Cardboard Husband,โ with Norma Sherer and Robert Taylor, removed three-year-old lipstick and liners, shopped online without buying, saved for later my way of shopping. Then I threw the dice and I got seven. That is where my decisions are now made. If I donโt get a seven with seven throws, I donโt go out or make a decision. If I get it once- Iโm on! It was a perfect day for thanks. I think we should have a Thanksgiving Holiday three or four times a year.
ย ย ย Still flustering over how to save more money, and which expense she should solve; the dental appointment thatโs six months overdue, the servicing of her car overdue since June, or elevated reasons to book a trip to San Diego. The urgency to decide sent her into a minor mid-afternoon tizzy and she decided she needed potato chips to solve her physical edginess. She does not use salt in her cooking, and from experimentation over the years realized that salt could elevate her dizzy thinking and lackluster posture. The momentary outdoor freshness stilted her, to stop moving, and breathe deeply like she was in the doctorโs office and they say, โ deep breath.โ ย ย The street is absent of walkers, workers, delivery trucks, and residents, itโs almost like a graveyard and this does not irritate Greta, she uses the bliss to engulf her creativity, and so she began to write.
PUZZLE OF SOLITUDE will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are puzzled by too much solitude, or not enough.
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. After the first ice rain and snow, the fever dulled, 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 I created. I have to laugh alone so I watch screwball comedies, seek humor in my irregularities; wear a sweater inside out, pour coffee into a wine glass for a cocktail and chuckle 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 could I complain when half of Upstate New York is buried in SEVENTY INCHES of snow and no way out? At the end of the day, pleasure comes in the kitchen; my heart and spirit melt while stirring my weekly slumguillion stew while listening to Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, and swing music.
Winter has in the past been a funnel that leads to writing.
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.
Excerpt from the new manuscript. No title yet.
Will-powered out of the house on a glory hallelujah day of ballet winds and buttercup sun. I walked along the bike path and observed the cyclists, and joggers, some still masked. Along the way, I smiled at passing strangers, and sometimes even a hello. How reviving to connect with strangers after two years of physical masks. Emotionally optimistic, a rare trajectory of nature and my life within. If nature can survive, why canโt I? What prevents us from launching new growth, mentally emotionally, and financially?
Let me take this day and bless it with hope, miles, and miles of hope and faith that I will land, plant new roots, and bloom.
The safety pin that allows us to walkabout is gone. Lawlessness has landed, an alien from the dominion of hatred, frustration, anger, revenge, mental illness, and loneliness. Depraved directionless menacing strangers leap upon INNOCENTS and are EDITING THEIR PURSUIT OF LIFE. ย A mounting civil war that no one really calls out, is like lava spreading throughout our cities, suburbs, monuments, schools, hospitals, daycare centers, stores, and restaurants. Everywhere, even on the freeway drivers shoot at drivers.
My gang has stopped watching the news, I have cut down to news flashes, then mute, then maybe the evening news. Not a conversation that I have or overhear is about the crime crisis. Why is that?
When do we begin to lie about our life our feelings, our fears, our everything? I ask this because of simple observation, knowing when someone is not telling me their truth and I remain silent, it’s not my way to ask, why do you lie to me? My friends are not lying, it’s more like a social cultural mask. My wise father once told me ‘Tell them your sister or father just died, and they’ll respond, excellent because they do not want to hear your problems.’ But I do, I’ve always wanted to know the truth. Why should we shield our traumas and hardship, more than our triumphs and accomplishments? Do you know who does not lie? ART and SPORTS. That is why we listen to music, read books, go to galleries and museums, films, the theater, and ballet or other dance performances. I cannot comment on sports because I’m not a spectator although I do love basketball.
We, and I mean this in only a visceral sense, do not believe the politicians, news, social media, or advertisements. We want to, but deep in our inner truth, we know it is the manipulation of our individual thoughts. And that my friends is why I trust art to deepen my understanding of the human condition. Thank you to all the artists and athletes who share their pain and glory.
TWO EMBANKMENTS WEDGED BETWEEN A STREAM
THAT RIPPLES THE UK TO THE USA.
WHAT FALLS BETWEEN THE MEANDERING
USHERS GENTLE WAVES, LOVING CARESSES
SMASHES WHEN THE WAVES ARE EVIDENT.
SOAR TO BRING THEIR STREAM TO REST
TO FIND THE BEST
BELIEVING EXIST AND DESTINY FLOW
THEY DONโT KNOW
IF THE STREAM WILL ENTWINE
ENSNARE OR EMBRACE
EMBANKMENTS MEANT TO SHOULDER
UNTIL THEY โVE FOUND EACH OTHER
Paper deaths mounting in pages written
By authors and reporters
On the day of bloodshed twenty-one years after
The morning news
Around the world
That our Towers fell on innocence; walking, living, twirling the streets of Manhattan.
Tears are shed in buckets of smoke between the sheets of death
The men and women that died shine through the wicked divide
Of hatred and love
Flames of courage cape first responders, and unknown heroes
Beaming down every morning
On tables arranged by nations and religions
In the homes of Democrats and Republicans
United tears all of these years.
Months turn over on calendars
New episodes and reality shows
Graduation and separation
Replaced furnishings and
Sketches of a vacation
Events the rest of us chatter up in coffee houses
While the stories of nine-eleven lay today in the headlines
On newsstands
In the windows of memory
Never forget
The middle of a life span reflects all we have accomplished and all we have left incomplete. This is what they call a mid-life crisis. I get it every year. Iโve finally accepted that my constant relocating, reinventing, and being restless is not going to be solved. At the bottom of the restlessness is the fear of finding rest more enjoyable than movement. This flotation of comedy rotated around me last night while I was standing out on the porch observing the peacefulness. The scenery of Ballston Spa is a comforting, historical beauty that comes from the harmony of architecture and nature. The flow of villagers downtown is along two main two-lane streets, all the shops, services and restaurants are a patchwork, and all the business owners know each other.
All I can think of is where I should go next. This is wholly a village of ancestral families, with defensible adaptation to the severe climate, simplicity, and uncomplicated lives. My discomfort comes from trying to assimilate.
ย Many years ago, in the summer of 1987, I was seated in a cafรฉ in Monaco, truly, and a man that I was traveling with told me, โYou have to make a choice.โ He embarked on a long discussion about choices we make in life and how everything depends on these choices: how you live and with whom, and what you do. He pointed out to me over my first really authentic Salad Niรงoise that I was an oblivious example of a woman refusing to choose. I was more interested in the salad, the yachts, the casino around the corner, and the fact that I didnโt have an evening gown to wear to dinner. I listened without argument or insult, but I was disturbed by what he said. I didnโt understand completely, but he was older and had much experience and conviction. That conversation now fits into the mid-life crisis, the comedy of errors in my life, and maybe in yours, and just how much travesty we can ignore. For my fault, as it WAS, I did not want to sign, commit, or make final decisions. I wanted it all to be a temporary placement that allows me the freedom to change.
I have lost track of my European friend, but if he met me today, he would say, โYou have not changed at all.โ So that is why I was standing there in the darkness on the porch and laughing like a silly girl because it is true. I have not changed at all.
The choice facing us at mid-life is making a change now, risking losing all we have accomplished, compiled, and attached, or throwing the dice.
Beyond the obvious changes in activity, relationships, and scenery are the internal travels. They are not so easily engaged. You cannot wake up one day and say, โI โm off to become more compassionate, or more practical, or more generous.โ These journeys are taken when other factors play into our lives, such as when we get sick, demoted, or experience a trauma.
It is a very subtle inconsistency. When I unplug all the voices and listen to the one that understands, that is when I write. The middle of the story and the middle of life is the same. We and our characters have to make a choice.
***
I think of the comforts of exhibiting my life on paper. It is not the act of writing with pen and paper moving along at a steady rhythm; itโs the activation of the heart and mind, collaborating to unravel the relevant from the irrelevant. To reach this state of matrimony a writer needs not a Tuscan Villa, or an English Castle, but experiences that flake off the skin, the mise en scene that shakes its relevance.
.
Page 525. Terrified to post this but it is Sunday and I’m brave on Sunday. The book is fiction, first-person, and close third person so you’ll need a jogging suit to read. Based on true events.
Greta let the moment of the village rescue stay with her, like a new pet for as long as she could hold on to its beneficial ointment, away from what she calls her immersion into self. She gives me examples that illustrate her obsession with matching outfits in her closet.
Itโs a bedroom she converted into a dressing room. Thereโs a single bed against one wall, a cabinet where she stores the winter boots, and an eight-drawer French nouveau dresser and mirror. She sits on a chair facing the windows so she can watch the trees live through sun, wind, rain, and snow. Across from the chair is the bed. She diligently arranged her summer pastel skinny jeans on the bed, and next to that row she arranged the T-shirts, camisoles, and shorts. Itโs quite practical considering Greta as she has admitted to me half a dozen times, that she was born without common sense or practicality. At the base of the bed, she lined up her shoes, the slip-ons, the flats, the pumps stuffed with tissue paper to preserve their shape, and the wedges. After a breach of sanity, she goes into this room and visualizes outfits and color matching like someone might play chess. โ It does have a purpose, this way I visualize without wrangling with hangers and you know it just takes too much time when youโre in a closet.
‘”These days I look at them as if they belonged to someone else, I mean the red suede with gold heels that I wore on a New Yearโs Eve of gaiety and not since, the black velvet pumps that always make me feel dainty and light. What care I give to all these garments when in the other part of the house, Dodger was descending into a financial coma.”
ย Greta did not acknowledge the few months before his departure that he was riddled with abject unfulfilling tasks, bills, and construction jobs that no longer fed him purpose and accomplishment. She did not notice that his slacking posture on the front porch, head lowered and staring out without any body movement was a sign, she in fact despised it and walked away. ย In the last few months, all of this seemed to rise up like a curtain before a play, in a theater and she witnessed his insolence and his silent howl for help. ย
The irony of her activity is that she doesn’t go to the events that she plans on going to wear the outfits.
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The inner voice where gaps of expression are liberated.
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Saratoga Springs, New York - Arthur Gonick, Editor
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Live Your Dreams Don`t Dream Your Life
Even a bad guy can have redeeming qualities
Style, Books and Life with Hermione Flavia.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER / IGNORANCE IS BLISS - YOU DECIDE
Author of the Avery Shepard Detective Mystery Series
For Readers and Writers
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Entertainment website ยท Marketing agency ยท Advertising agency ๐งโฝฃ๐ ๐
The inner voice where gaps of expression are liberated.
Funny Blogs With A Hint Of Personal Development
Become a Travel Journalist!
It's just banter
Larry Harnisch Reflects on L.A. History
Escaping reality or facing reality.
Saratoga Springs, New York - Arthur Gonick, Editor
Space, Travel, Technology, 3D Printing, Energy, Writing
Live Your Dreams Don`t Dream Your Life
Even a bad guy can have redeeming qualities
Style, Books and Life with Hermione Flavia.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER / IGNORANCE IS BLISS - YOU DECIDE
Author of the Avery Shepard Detective Mystery Series
For Readers and Writers
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
ADVENTURERS IN SINGLE LIVINGNESS 