ADVENTURES ON THE ARTIST LIFE

 

The throw of the dice this week lands on adventures in livingness, address unknown.

Fifteen years ago, the summer of 1993, I was having lunch in a restaurant in Los Angeles. Across from me was the only other woman of importance in my father’s life, besides my mother, that I had known. Sandy Crosby, a leggy brunette with bark brown eyes, arched brows, and a showcase smile. 

She always had a response that outwitted her opponent, including my father, who relied heavily on, ‘don’t be so smart.’  Half-way through the first course at Jimmy’s, she looked at me and grinned.  

“You’re so much like your father.”

“I am?”

“Oh yes.”

“Your father loved living on the edge, he really did.”

I rested on that thought for a long time. I was temporarily living with a friend in Los Angeles. I lived out of a suitcase, with a broken down Cadillac, and a folder of resumes.  My dad  never lived out of a suitcase, or needed a resume to find a job. After he met Benny Siegel, he had multiple offers in organized crime. 

What I discovered, is Dad didn’t truly settle down until he had to raise my sister and I. He was 56 years old when Mom died, and we were tossed into his lacquered bachelor pad in Hollywood. The same age I’ll be… one day.  

Living on the edge is a term used to describe infinite lifestyles. The momentum, or ignition that fuels that lifestyle, is uncertainty. We live by impulse and imagination. Our plans are last minute, we never buy in bulk, and we are always dreaming of the voyage. We run from stationary life because at heart, we are gamblers.

This time, the edge is the very place I spent two years creating, the photography gallery and place I call home. 

Up until this winter, it operated as a gallery by appointment, while I polished my memoir proposal. After several months, I went to the edge and decided to convert the gallery into a vacation rental. I needed to roam; I longed to gather new material.   

The winter climbed back into bed, and then spring ripped through the ground, and the roses and poppies bloomed. The memoir remained unpublished, and the house began to transform from gallery into a real home. The long uneventful winter punctured my prudent habit of writing, remaining secluded, and avoiding everything but the essentials. By May, I made a silent vow under a stream of sunlight, to enlist into the human race.

The reinvention resembled nature, like today. The day began with  a feverish sky of culminating clouds, a long dreary silence, and an absence of light. The street was empty, just the valet from La Posada running to the garage to fetch the cars. They were bundled in winter coats, while the party rental truck loaded the furniture from last evening’s wedding. The storm struck with impetuous force. The valet’s ran with umbrellas, small children yelled for cover, and I took a seat on the back porch. Suddenly, the storm rescinded, and the sun burst through the cloud cover.

My emancipation back into the flow of mixing strangers and friends was alchemy to the house. Now it’s a home; to cook, entertain, and fill with music, laughter and conversation.  I can see the faces of the people I’ve met, imagine the next meeting, and anticipate the next outing. The windows and doors are opened, the people who pass by look in. I was cooking dinner one night this week, and noticed a man peeking in the window. He looked like Harrison Ford, just back from the Lost Arch.

“ Is this a museum?” he asked when I went to the door.

“ No. It’s a gallery, a home. Well come in, and take a look around.”

Opening the door to a stranger returned the affirmation that impulse socializing is still possible. You don’t have to be a teenager to recognize a good time, but you need to be an adult to recognize a goodfellow. 

Some of us lone roamers cannot reverse the inclination to retreat from life; because we find too much confusion, agitation and adversity in the world. Between all of those elements, there are treasures waiting to be discovered: opportunity collaboration, adventure, and most of all companionship.

Even though the comfort of this home has replenished my spirit and temporarily produced a yawn of security, I am preparing to go to the edge. Though I imagine it is another place of endearment, another address, and another gamble, it may be the inner voyage that will transcend.    

When I tell people we’re renting the house, they ask me where  will you go?    

I don’t know yet. Sandy was right; I am like my father. The edge I picked wasn’t a green felt jungle of dice and chips, it’s an artists’ life.

Any dice to throw Email: folliesls@aol.com

MIDDLE OF LIFE

THE MIDDLE OF THINGS TO COME

 I read in one of my books on writing that the middle of the novel is where most writers face the demon. The beginning is a gallop, the end is a relief, but the middle wiggles in and out of your grasp. The middle of our lives reflects this same difficulty.

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. This year it is more comical. I’ve finally accepted that my constant relocating, reinventing, and being restless are not going to be solved. I am going to keep doing these. 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 Santa Fe is a comforting, ethereal beauty that comes at all times of the day and night, and the flow of people is integrated and festive. All I could think of was where I should go next. The discomfort of mid-life comes from trying to assimilate what you have and what you want.

 Many years ago, in the summer of 1987, I was seated in a café in Monaco, truly, and a man that I was traveling with told me, “You have to make a choice.” 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 Niçoise 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 didn’t have an evening gown to wear to dinner. I listened without argument or insult, but I was disturbed by what he said. I didn’t 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 is, I do not want to sign, commit, or make final decisions. I want 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, “You have not changed at all.” 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 booked. You cannot wake up one day and say, “I ‘m off to become more compassionate, or more practical, or more generous.” 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 are the same. We and our characters have to make a choice.

THE BIG HOUSE BY THE TAOS PUEBL0

             I fell in love with Taos on a two month retreat. I arrived in April; when the hills were  sugar coated with powdery snow.  For days I sat in a lump on the bed. I burned incense, and stared like a cat into the fluid magenta skin of land, tattooed with sagebrush and cottonwood trees.  Taos has many lovers, thousands actually, and many of them live inside her/him. But none like the native Indians that made Taos.   Some people say Taos is a vortex, all the spiritual senses are cracked wide open.

            Locals tell you many things when you arrive. If you last more than six months, you’re considered a local.  Most of the funny stuff happens within six months.   Someone who came to Taos before you will draw your attention. Mine was drawn by Mabel Dodge Luhan.  In 1917, Mabel was a well heeled avant-garde patron of the arts living in Greenwich Village. She had lived in a villa in Florence, a mansion in New York, and acquired the material possessions people envy.  One day an admittance of emptiness poked her soul. She abandoned the animated literary and artistic roundtable discussions, and journeyed to Taos.  Within a few months she stripped off her cerebral persona and possessions and fell in love with Tony Luhan.   Tony lived on the Taos Pueblo and gave her the moon, stars, and the sun.   She never returned to New York.  Funny things happen to people in Taos.   

        My yearning to discover Mabel, was discarded during the years I tried to forget Taos. Like a former lover, my photographs and journals reminded me how much we shared.  The first retreat manifested into a two-year residency. I left when the romance went belly-up in the bank. That was 1999.

            Three years passed before I could face Taos again. I had butterflies in my stomach thinking about the Gorge: how we hiked into the groin of the canyon where nature expels anything unnatural, and Wheeler Peak at the moment the sun parallels the mountain, and the Taos Inn on a cold winter evening listening to the Spanish Guitars and drinking cheap red wine. I made reservations to stay where I felt my love affair would go into full bloom, The Mabel Dodge Luhan House. 

           There are no phones in the room, no radio or television; the natural sounds of Taos are symphonic.  Mabel and Tony built one of the only two-story adobes in Taos, with a screened in porch to use for sleeping.  Inside this house, the elements of nature are molded, carved and bonded in away that you feel like you are inside a true pueblo dwelling. The dining area could be used for a yoga class if you removed the tables and chairs. The senses are opened to explore freedom of movement rather than precious objects of art. From every angle, there is a window with the Taos light spying on you, reminding you nothing can compare to warm sunshine caressing your back.  To be continued.

PART TWO OF ON THE ROAD

 

Smiley’s Dice-Adventures in Livingness

 

The throw of the dice this week lands on Part Two of On the Road.  

When we returned to Pagosa Springs later that day, the town’s harshness was shaded in the drapery of dusk. I looked up the hillside, to a blur of bathers still lingering around the pools.

In television transition speed we showered, dressed, and raced back to our Keyah Grande. Driving up the entrance in the darkness, a spotty moon webbed into a triangle of clouds, a blackened forest on both sides, and a death like silence surrounded us. The lights of the house beamed onto the parking lot, and the door opened.   

We were seated in the intimate empty dining room, and given time to look over the menu.  The room was decorated with candlelight, soft cushioned high back chairs, chandeliers, a big picture window, and beautiful crystal. For this evening, I am to forget all the financial uncertainty, and the menacing drip of anxiousness about the future. 

   “There’s a lot of meat on this menu.” I said. I noticed Elk, Duck and Moose. When the waitress returned, I stopped her.

  “You have a very carnivorous menu.”

  “Um. We do.”

   “I noticed all the elk on the property.” She squirmed and tightened her lips in an abashing manner.

   “The owners raise elk. They are world class hunters.”

   “Oh I see. Then what happens to them?”

   “They–hunt them.” She winced.

   “They kill them?” 

   “Yes.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, like a child waiting to be given directions. I placed the menu down, and tried to reassure her I wasn’t making any judgment which of course I was.

   “It’s all right. I don’t care for beef too much.” I looked at SC. He was silently examining the menu.  

  “We’re not the hunting type. I suppose most of your guests are.” 

  “Almost all of them.” She answered apologetically. She was only in her twenties; a local gal with sufficient education and class to understand precisely what was going on.

  “So we’re a novelty?” I asked.

  “Yes.” 

  “Well, I’ll have the salmon.”

  “I’ll have the same.” SC added.     

Jen backed away politely and I faced SC.

  “How can you raise an animal, shoot it, and then eat it.”

  “It’s called hunting.” He answered while taking steps to devour the entire basket of homemade breads. 

  “No. Hunting is when you go after wild game; it’s a test of power and masculinity and all of that–if you ever saw the movie Deer Hunter.  But to raise the baby elk, from the time they’re born, and then one day, marinate them in the oven. I find that distasteful.”

  “I knew people like that. My school buddy Covel Sneed came from the back woods of West Virginia. He and his dad went hunting all the time.”  

I objected to the thought of well-fed sportsmen killing those doe eyed elk grazing on the property. I hated the whole lodge for about two minutes, until Jen arrived with my appetizer. “I hope you’re pleased with everything?” She eyed me cautiously. 

   “Jen, tell me about the owners.”

   “They’re such great people to work for and really easy going.  She’s got great style and taste as you can see, but she isn’t fussy.”    

   “Where are they from?”

   “They live in Manhattan.”

   “Really?”

   “Yes, they built all of this over about ten years.”

I imagined Lady X a cross between Carole Lombard and Maureen O’ Hara; a woman who hunts and rides, and then sets the table with Versace flatware, and dresses in Black Label Ralph Lauren.  

Just then a woman in riding pants passed through with two kids in tow.  “She’s here for Easter. They come every year.  She hides the eggs all over and the kids hunt for them.”  

  “They learn to hunt at a young age?”

  “Not everyone here is a hunter. We have a huge riding clientele, and the fishing and hiking are excellent too.” 

It was plain as white toast; this was a sub-culture I’d not mingled with; not ever. I grew up in movie theaters, night clubs, and amusement parks. By the time I got to my dessert, one of the best flans I’ve ever tasted in my life, my objections weakened. These folks would be equally un-charmed with the staged and superficial life style that I understood. 

We drifted outside onto the palatial landing and caught one last glimpse of the sleeping scenery before getting on the wide open highway back to town. Suddenly, SC turned off the road.

   “Why are you pulling over?”

   “Cop.”

I turned around. The officer slowly and mechanically moved towards us.

   “Your tail lights are out, and you’re doing 45 in a 35 mph zone. Can I see your license and registration?”

   “We’re visiting for the night. I didn’t see any signs. It’s so dark, we must have missed them.” I said with a big smile.  

   “Yup, posted right on the road Mam.”

The wine sentiment was thick on my tongue, but if he noticed it he didn’t reveal his suspicion because he was as friendly as the spa attendant at the hotel.       

   “Okay you folks have a good night, and keep the speed down. You have to watch out for the elk.”

After he left I turned to SC, “Watch out for the elk? Does he mean don’t run them over because we shoot them?

The next morning I felt this ping of awareness, of who I am and I was happy with it. It’s very unusual, I don’t wake up singing, I’m so happy I’m me.

   “I’ll go into the baths if you want me to.” SC said as I took the toothbrush out of my mouth.

   “You will?”

   “Yea. If it will make you happy.”

I doused in the shower, wrapped up in the scratchy bleached robe and we scurried outside. The pools were empty. We dipped inside the hot mineral springs, waving the steam as it rose up and formed little clouds. I felt like a leaping lotus flower, and then I understood why the guests floated all day. It was heavenly; until the gate opened and a couple appeared in startling realism. I rose up and SC followed. My body felt like cotton.

We checked out of the hotel and drove down the road to High Mountain Café, the place Jen recommended. The hillsides were blushing with sunlight, and bikers were on the road.

  “Stop!” I said.

  “What!” SC answered annoyed.

  “I saw a bald eagle back there–eating something.”

SC drove in reverse, and we stopped in front of a brown spotted eagle.

  “He’s huge!” I’d never seen one so close, his claws looked almost human.  

   “He’s eating the carcass of an elk.”

   “Oh God, why am I not surprised.”

The next few miles, the scenery unfolded into piercing sharp mountain tops, narrow curves in the road and dramatic drops, that made looking out the window more like hanging over the edge. We’d decided, just that morning, we’d go to Durango. 

Durango is lined with brick buildings, store front awnings, and a cooperative symmetry exists from one end of town to the other. It has the look of a Main Street award winner on the National Historic Preservation website. It was Easter Sunday.

   “Do you want to stay over?” SC asked.

   “Not really, I’m ready to go home now. You know it’s only been twenty-four hours.”

   “Yea, amazing. It feels like three days.”

The twenty-four getaway is better than none at all.    

Any dice to throw email: folliesls@aol.com