The inner voice where gaps of expression are liberated as art of the heart
I have never written about politics. I don’t understand the rules to qualify. My political thinking is this; the election is a reflection of our integrity, what’s left of it. Whomever wins is sabotaged. They will be brutalized by the opposing party, and the News will report it.
We are
divided now, opponents on the same team. That’s more than I can tolerate. Either I will go underground wherever that is, or move to a farm and pet goats. I mean really! How much more can we take?
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
SEASONAL AND SENSUAL OVERTURE TO REVERIE.
SUMMER is not a memory yet; my skin too sensitive, and my heart still attached to the moments. I’ve misplaced my journals and so I have to read my to-do list to recall the events. Let’s go back to June; well my head was bent like a candle wick in this memoir. By then I was into the first rewrite, the worst of the next ten. That first one is deceivingly promising, the chapters line up, the suspense tickled, and it was five-hundred pages. The first draft was actually two books, as I dared to try and run the 100 meter in two different directions.
I must have had some standout memories, but I don’ recall June being amusing. Writing about my deceased parents was not summer reading. A year had already passed since I began, and I was now at the last stretch. My sense of completion was annoying. I began to hate the word focus. My body ached for water, in any form, a pool, a river, and the ocean. June was also the month when rejection letters arrived. For a moment, I’d forgotten. Whoa! Stay away from LouLou, her nerves are visible! On the flip, it was also acceptance of those letters. I had to prove to myself that I could take it, and continue writing.
Outside my window, Palace Avenue raised to motorcycles, skateboarders, conversational bicycle riders, and families out for a walk. My concentration was beguiled. So I turned on the fan, the loud kind that screens the room in a hum. I tried to imagine as waves just after they have capitulated into bubbles.
Memorial weekend was gemstone sunlit of color and clarity. I’d decided to break and go to a party at La Posada. Yes, that was my first grasp of summer, the sudden appearance of flowers, greenness of the landscape, flowers, and light. I think it was warm enough to sit outdoors all night. We were not yet ready to kick and scream, it was more of a real memorial kind of party. For our troops who finally are reaching us through the news, the films, and the books.
Most every evening I’d walk across the street to La Posada, have a glass of wine while listening to the chattering guests, age-out themselves by immobilizing a very liberated and young spirit. It’s a beautiful sight. Most people in my experience, come to Santa Fe and strip 
down to vulnerable. They invite conversation and are genuinely interested. I am asked, ‘What’s it like living in Santa Fe?’ To be continued.
IT’S UNLIKE ANY OTHER CITY I’VE EXPERIENCE.D It’s called the city different, it is also the city difficult. She ( I see Santa Fe in the feminine gender) has to be treated gently. Her weather patterns resemble a menopausal woman,her stature demands respect, and she can be congenial and patient.
You can walk this city as if it were a neighborhood. If you do that consistently you’ll meet people, and get to know them. Unless you’re like me, a standoffish fast walker dazed by the outdoors.
If you’re dazed and illusional you can master this city very well, as the drowsy pace and cordiality allow freakish freedom. I ‘ve seen the liberating soul of Santa Fe, teenagers racing down the middle of a commercial street one foot on the skateboard, bad-ass bikers talking with bad-ass cops, women with parrots on their shoulder, dogs in baby carriages, cats in a bag, and women on horseback galloping up Palace Avenue.
At night you’ll see raging midnight ramblers dancing on the sidewalk, and all of this is appealing to an LA transplant. I have driven in my robe, danced in the street and broken the heels on most of my shoes because of the pot-holes. They are always working on a street, but never the sidewalks. I ‘ve been bounced out of the locals night-howl El Farol for accidently pushing a dancer, who knew the manager, who came running after me and took down my license plate.
So many of us are loners, the serious kind, that have to be rigged out of our nests. Luckily I live on a commercial street and have no choice but to be commercially friendly. After nine years, my seasonal behavior is obvious: sprite in summer, blissful in fall, giddy in spring, and withdrawan in winter. I’ve learned patience, understanding, and adopted a mixture of cultural traditions. I’m close to fifty percent certain I’ll miss Santa Fe terribly when I do leave.
Has living in Santa Fe given me more than I’ve given back? Yes, it has and that’s why when I’m asked what’s it like living in Santa Fe, I try to reveal the blessings here and not the bullshit. 
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I’m reminding myself to write more poetry.
DOUBLE VISION 1996. I was empty pocketed then. 
Neckties choking thin men with beepers
I want to strip the needles pricking inside their ambition
Stone the waxed smiles spitting false promises
Shatter the pointed arrogance
Wrapped in crisp bills
Inside brand wallets
Strapped on trendy trousers
Driven by rovers and jeeps
Never been on life’s edge
Save the Artist
Who wears his life holy
Waiting for the moments to create
Starved from meat and wine
Sits on a ray of light
Enraptured
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
A VERY CLOSE FRIEND that trades you in for a step up the ladder, to improve their bank statement is unjustified malice. This is the most disappointing of all adventures in livingness. At my age, I am still adapting to this egregious consciousness. How do we all get through the maze of life’s obstacles? FRIENDS AND FAMILY. Your pet loves you, your home and garden blooms, your car runs because you service it, your teeth don’t fall out because you go to the dentist but REAL FRIENDS HAVE YOUR BACK.
Thank you to all of my friends that are in my cradle of LIFE. I am sensitive and Im proud!.
life.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Intersections between mid-late-life adults with youth; anyone under the age of forty is an adventure in livingness. I remember strangers that counseled; passed on a prized preface to life.
It was my first solo trip to Europe. Emboldened with the freedoms in every cupboard of life: abandoned career, home, and possessions I lived out of a suitcase for about a year. Three of those months were in Ireland, France, and Italy.
I was dining in Venice, alone, down to coupon crushing finances and no interest in going back to the USA. The rise to relocate plunged a new view ; find a job in a glass foundry or a museum, and rent a little room in Venice. The Venetians of my age, artistic, independent, and humanely trusting enchanted a woman who’d been sharking San Diego in commercial real estate. I got eaten alive. Venice was the shore that I wanted to curl around and become fluent in Italian, learn to cook, and wrap a scarf.
I was standing next to a bar-bistro melting in the lustrous conversational elan’ when a couple in their sixties approached me. The corner of the bar waxed us in and for the next hour, that man changed the direction of my life.
” Yea, I knew you were American. Where you live?
” San Diego.”
” Oh! I’d move there if I could. ” I cannot recall where they lived other than the Midwest.
“What kind of work do you do in San Diego?” He shouted.
“I was in commercial real estate–leasing and marketing.”
” Good for you! That’s a great career.”
” It was. I want to live here… in Venice
He set his wine on the counter, I remember that, and pulled at his trousers or tie, and then he said, “What would you do here?”
” I don’t know yet?”
” You can’t beat what you left. Are you crazy?”
Before I answered he continued a breathless sermon peddling the virtues of my life; not jumping into a fantasy, and to forget about moving to Venice. My references to challenge, adventure and change met more opposition than I’d expected. He deplored my naiveté. “You shouldn’t go through with it. San Diego has the best climate. It’s coming up in the world, not just a little getaway resort. If I were your father I’d bring you back myself. ”
They departed when his wife begged him to calm down and I returned to the evening’s allure. There was a scar left, an abrasion of my plan. Over the next few days, I met a group of Venetians, younger than me. After revealing my plan to live in Venice, they drew me into their group. I haven’t any diary of Venice, so the names and dialogue are absent. The memory is vague, a collage of framed vignettes. We went to a friend’s apartment, who had a spare room to rent. This friend, a young man with speedy senses whipped me around the apartment. He spoke English, with saucy speed, and he had more friends. By the end of the evening, I was tumbling in a wave of stimulation. It was too much too soon. The next week I was in Milan unknowingly colliding with Fashion Week.
After three months, my wardrobe was wasted from hem to neckline. My shoes: a pair of lace up boots, lace-up sandals, and flats. I landed in Milan at the Train station, and then where did I go? OH I remember. It was my last night with Julius; my traveling European Chef companion. We stayed at Relais & Châteaux, selections for three weeks. We dined and slept in surroundings that dubbed European film sets. I was dazzled and too overfed.
The last night with Julius was in a very chef gathering restaurant, busy waiters, lots of background noise; the place to say goodbye and not cry. After dinner, we strolled around the Piazza and window shopped.
” Look at these shoes. I’ve never seen shoes like this-not even in Beverly Hills. ” Julius chuckled at my unworldly impressionable outbursts. He enjoyed educating me on all things European.
” In Italy shoes are the most important part of the wardrobe.”
” You mean seriously. ” I asked.
” Oh Yes. They will judge you by your shoes. Not every one of course, but the important types will.”
The next morning I rose to the uncertainty of traveling without Julius. That’s when I got on a train headed for Annecy, France. I have no memory why Annecy, other than the couple I met at Lake Maggoire who might have suggested I visit the Southeastern part of France before going to Paris.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
GROWING UP IN LOS ANGELES, under the umbrella of powerful, wealthy, and stylish wings. Women were models and men were moguls. A lot of wealth came overnight in the film business – some it took years to acquire, but mostly it was a time to spread your wings and ride life. Polo matches, speeding yachts in the Marina, horseback riding in Bel Air, movie premieres, and nightclubs. By the time this congregation was in their fifties the wick of life had waxed over, and a new generation was born to carve their statutes. That is the billboard that I didn’t like, resisted, rebelled against, and scrutinized. At twenty it was easy to jump ship by enrolling in Sonoma State College and transforming. My thirties were career driven and at forty I saddled up for rebellion. It jumped out of the birthday cake and sent me on a jolly ride. Here now, at 60ish, a reversal of rebellion has popped up; I want to walk a panoptic view. 
Living in Santa Fe has forged a masters thesis on reinventing my rhythm, opinions, tolerance, affinity, and creativity. That is why I’ve been stationed here for nine years; it has taken that long to strip down the prongs of my LA umbrella. If only I could homogenize both parts, but it always feels like oil and water. I’m a city gal and a villager. That word balance bounces up a lot. I find it an abstraction that I cannot untangle. Oh well, there is always the surprise of life, the moment when you go down the drain and then a hand reaches out and places you on a new path.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
The sunlight shatters the curtain-less bedroom window and burns into my eyes at daybreak. From this unsheltered spot I rise to see a pot of blue sky over the rooftops, and the expectant afternoon showers building up in the clouds. The sky is filled with crows, eagles, and magpies lingering overhead weightless and free-falling, beyond all of us caught behind electronics. The days filled with desert showers that drench the soil and turn the arid dry land green and lush. For this I am thankful. At the end of the day, I am inclined to sit in the courtyard and watch the sky manifest colors unmatched by any Dunn Edwards collection. By the time dinner is topical, I have substituted preparing food, to just snacking, This August underscores the need to sit down, to sort of bob my head to Nancy Wilson music, and do very little. I’m self publishing Cradle of Crime- My Father, Me, and the Mob. 
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
The memoir began as a compass to my father’s secret and disreputable criminal history. It pointed to a young girl whose survival was wedged between shameless love and immobilizing fear of her father.
As Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s best friend and business partner from 1937 until his death in 1947, Dad acclaimed Ben Siegel. “He was the best friend I ever had.”
Dad sat inches from Ben the night he was murdered. Why did he survive? He ducked! After convincing Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello he would not accept immunity from deportation, and five counts of claiming false citizenship, the Mob honored and protected him.
Faced with an identity meltdown ten years after Dad died I implored his friends, associates, historians, the Freedom of Information & Privacy Act, the Immigration and Naturalization Services, and the Archives of the Department of Justice, to build the branches of my family tree. Along this irreversible journey I suffered disgrace, rage, and Dad’s ghostly disapproval as I delved into the FBI files and discovered the family secrets. Most startling was not his gambling addiction, criminal activities, or imprisonment. I learned my father’s attempt at reformation was thwarted by the FBI. A vendetta by Hoover for not cooperating as an informant. I expose what I’ve learned because I’ve made the family history mine.
Incorporated within stories of discovery are government surveillance records, newspaper articles, court testimony, and criminal activities that defamed his reputation and our family. As the discoveries occur the reader is taken inside the transformation of my identity. Once liberated from Dad’s paranormal disapproval of my investigation, the book was written.
This is a startling, yet inspirational look inside the struggle of a gangster’s daughter to understand her father’s allegiance to the Mob.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
The subtitle of Mr Copacabana – An American History by Night– is peculiarly apt for this biography of the author’s father, Monte Proser. Monte, it seems, was born with the cultural history of the United States locked into his DNA. His life was lived literally and metaphorically in the nighttime world of nightclubs, addiction, […]
via Mr. Copacabana – Book Review — The Book Review Directory
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
There are reasons to quit and more reasons not to. The one reason that hovers above all is that 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 revise your valor and conviction.
Revising the position you sit, walk, talk, judge, form opinions, contribute to your home, friends, partners, and discovering what you’ve learned, dreamed, and mastered, is your novel. How to write a chapter when you feel caught; trapped by decisions that are outdated. Antiquities of a former persona.
Changes in life are like photographic images. Looking at old photographs and what I see is someone else. Some are recalled with approval and others are works that led me astray. I’m not alone. Life is a runaway that we have to catch for ourselves.
The puzzle is how to live, where to live, and for whom. It is the same with manuscripts; they improve with each revision.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
All of them. I mean all ages, classes, genders, and sexes. Single people must be brave; they do not have a partner to hold on to when THE LIGHTS GO OUT. The eye of the United States Government knows we are single. Why are we not included in your speeches, legislation, and laws?
?
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 