Traveling the World(s)

Ideally, when one goes off for the weekend to stay in a swanky-ish spot, one would not be wearing pink flannel pajamas and be in bed alone. However, I survived. I even had fun. A lot of fun.

My godson's wedding was completely charming. The after-party for the older generation (plus the groom's brother as a representative of the younger generation) was delightful and involved a lot of wine, some really good goat cheese, and one of those irresistible confections from Trader Joe's involving chocolate and nuts and coconut. I have no solid recollection of what exactly we talked about, but I do remember laughing a lot. I was afraid I'd feel like shit this morning since I barely drink these days, but I woke early and hit the road. Driving does weary me though. More than drinking too much wine. I got off the road  for a while and went exploring in a beach town a couple hours north of where I live. It was full of tourists eating salt water taffy, and  fro-yo and the sidewalks looked as though they had suffered a lot of fro-yo and taffy spills. I like where I live better.

So it's lovely to be home. I took a long walk and met an acquaintance/friend for a glass of wine which turned into dinner with more friends of hers, and god, we older women are fascinating. There were five of us and the collection of life experiences was not for the faint of heart. But there we were.

I've been trying to prompt myself to dream of Dan this past week or so. A couple of nights before I left, I dreamed I was at a party and ran into an old college friend who'd heard that I had a wonderful boyfriend. Oh, he died, I told her. He's dead. Her eyes filled with tears and she seemed shocked that I'd been so blunt. I had another dream a couple of nights ago and it slipped away before I could solidify the memory of it. I remember only touching his face.

And so it goes, I move through these two worlds, communing with both the dead and the living.

The Weather Saints

Main Street store: West Point, NE

Going back to the Midwest always evokes a mix of emotions for me. I hate the heat and the humidity, the infernal buzz of biting insects, the endless array of fried foods, and the jello weirdness of salad bars. But C and I drove through postcard prettiness yesterday from Minnesota to Nebraska. Billowing clouds over fields of perfect corn, the silver-green waver of soybeans, the greener-than-green glow of alfalfa. We stopped in a roadside antiques store to browse, and when we got to where we were going, we walked into the little town in search of a dinner. I want a steak in a dark bar or supper club, I told C. She was game. We almost had to settle for the golden arches, but at the far end of Main St., I got my wish.

I don't usually eat meat. I'm a pescatarian--in other words a vegetarian who eats some fish. But I had a steak last night. You gotta eat the good thing that's local, right? And there was no jello at the salad bar. Pea salad, carrot salad, and cole slaw instead. They were all delicious. We returned to our motel without a single mosquito bite and woke this morning to a day of unbelievably pleasant weather. We're here for a wedding, and my ex-mother-in-law has a routine of imploring the appropriate saints for perfect wedding weather. This is her 10th grandchild wedding, and she is currently 10 for 10.

How the Eavesdropping Failed but instead A Brief Soundtrack of My Past

I really did go out.

First, the moon. A photographic failure. I can't make you gasp the way I did when I saw it--a golden crescent cradling the full shadow of its past and future selves. So picture it. Then picture this:

Couple 1: They're wearing black leather jackets--not matching. She has on tight white jeans and black high-heeled boots. They're in their 30s or 40s. He has an English accent. They're drinking cosmos. The glasses glowing like rubies. His arm rests on the back of her barstool all through three rounds of drinks. Occasionally, his hand hovers closer to her back, but he doesn't touch her.

#howtocommitforeplayinabar.

Couple 2:  Another set of 40-somethings. She's wearing a dress and hose. He has on black jeans and a black tee-shirt--and has a neatly trimmed  goatee. They're stylish, but there's something a bit weary about them. He scrutinizes the check a moment too long. She sighs and raises her eyebrows. Over the music, I hear only two words of their conversation. Pregnant and love. I'd bet a million bucks they were talking about someone else.

#IthinkI'llturninearly.Seeyouinthemorning.

Couple 3: They're in their 80s, sitting side by side in a booth. Maybe so they can hear one another. But maybe because they like it. He savors his red wine. She lingers over the menu. They lean toward each other. When they leave, he aims toward the floor to ceiling windows as if there's a door there; she takes his arm and steers.

#IblessthedayIfoundyou.Whatdidyousay?

The Soundtrack of My Past (performed by a lone musician): 

I'll Get You in the End by The Beatles

I'm in my room with the liner notes to The Beatles Second Album, listening over and over again while reading the words and looking at the pictures on the album cover. I will memorize all the lyrics, who wrote what, who's singing the lead vocals on each song.

She's Not There by The Zombies

I'm probably not supposed to be there either. "There" is the new frowned upon teen club called The Web. It's a regular after school stop on my walk home. No drugs. No alcohol. Pizza. Soda. A juke box. And it's run by a cool 20-something guy. Was his nick name Spider? Parents didn't approve.

Brown-Eyed Girl by Van Morrison

Was it our song? Had we formalized it in some way or was it just in my head, the significance so dizzying because of the way he looked into my eyes as we danced to it? We are caught up in the ecstasy of a summer dance at the park pavillion. I am wearing a dress my mother sewed for me by ripping apart a hand-me-down and re-using the fabric. A couple of summers later, this will be the dress I wear home from the hospital after our son is born.

Me, wearing the dress.

Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones

A song that takes on new significance after the adoption papers are signed.

Cherry Cherry by Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond live onstage at my first college concert. Is this a dream?

High on a Mountain of Love by Johnny Rivers 

I'm wearing a red mini-skirt and a white blouse, driving to my waitress job at a supper club on the Sauk River in rural Minnesota, the job that will get me to California despite the fact that I'm a terrible waitress and my best tips are motivated by pity.

What's on the soundtrack to your past? 
Is it possible to imagine the sound track to our futures?

My mother will remain in the hospital tonight. Maybe I'll go out again. Maybe I'll have popcorn for dinner and sit on the couch with the cat.

Not quite the luck of the Irish....

One of L.A.s classic taverns closed up shop recently. I spent an incredibly wired and loopy St. Patrick's night there thirty-ish years ago. Quite a few of the regular spots I frequented with the Someone are gone now. The superb croissant place that had the only decent French pastries I've ever had outside of France, the little cafe with the great gumbo, the place on the Sunset strip with the amazing organic burgers, the pizza place just off Hollywood Blvd., the pricey place where we developed a nasty habit of dropping a hundred bucks every Sunday in the last decade of our marriage. And while I certainly don't wish the restauranteurs ill, I practically need to be heimliched whenever I drive by the eateries where I spent a lot of time with the someone, so I'm glad these places have slipped into the past.

Getting out of L.A.--leaving the geography of my marriage--was one of the best things I've ever done for myself. As the post-marriage years tick by, I'm hoping there'll be fewer and fewer of the old haunts left. Just in case I ever give the City of Angels a second chance.

And meanwhile, may the wind be at your back, T.B.

The State of the State of Margaritaville

I've seen a tern snatch a silver fish out of silver water. 
I've seen the bustle of Main Street in the next town up the coast where it seems to be fashionable to sell art and socks, books and journals, soap and scoops of French lavender, coffee, furniture, and antiques all under one chic roof.
I've seen a dog people there call "Care Bear" who trots the streets with a stuffed animal in his mouth, a free spirit seemingly belonging to no one and everyone. 
I've seen myself looking at beach beauties with envy.
I've seen people crawling through a hole in the fence by the cordoned off sand dunes and asked if they've ever been "prosecuted under the full extent of the law." No, they said. They just go to look at the great horned owls who nest in the trees. There are five, they said. I went for a look, myself. But I turned back when the third lizard raced across my sandaled feet.

I've seen beautiful historic buildings bearing earthquake bolts in their facades. My friend Ken, who used to be a building inspector, says that even after being seismically retrofitted, the buildings are still only strong enough to withstand a 5.5. I feel that I've been shored up to the same inadequate standard. 

I've seen a little boy, five or six, clutching a boogie board like a shield while barreling across dry sand until he is ankle deep in the surf and then running back. The board never touches the water.

This is Margaritaville. This is the time of my loneliness. I am the dog, the boy, the future crumpled building, and, I hope, the fish holding its silver treasure. I am not the beach beauty. I'm not sure about the owls or the lizards. Maybe I'm them, too. Hiding. Nesting. Startled and on the run.
"You're walking to the beach today if it kills you," I said aloud to my bowl of yogurt at breakfast. So I did. I broke free from my inner Stepford wife who has no husband but a zillion little chores, and I walked back to my least favorite restaurant for lunch, simply because I can get there by strolling on the sand. I sat at the bar, and I ordered a Caesar's salad and a glass of Chardonnay. Do you know the most popular cocktail that people order at a hotel bar on the beach? Yup. People are so literal. And hopeful, I suppose.


Sex on the Beach
1 1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz peach schnapps
2 oz cranberry juice
2 oz orange juice

Seems like it should have sand on the rim of the glass, doesn't it? But no one would want it then. 


I have a beach ball-sized empty jar. I don't know why I keep moving this thing from place to place, I said to Ken as I put it on my patio. Because someone made it by hand? he said, knowing he was telling me what I already know. 


I have a book about Vermeer and his paintings, and this one called Allegory of Faith

made me think of that jar. The text says that the suspended  glass globe symbolizes man's capacity to believe in God.
I don't know anything about God, but I want to fill my jar with the shells, rocks, sticks, and plastic toys I find on the sand. Today I picked up a smooth gray rock, a rock with pink flecks, a small piece of driftwood and a blue plastic shovel. Tomorrow, if I can make myself leave the house, I have faith that I'll find more.

Mercy Tipping

I took myself out to dinner tonight. A walk on the beach led me to Capistrano's in the Embassy Suites Hotel and Resort. "A restaurant in a hotel, not a hotel restaurant," their website says. A noble goal. But if there were movie called National Lampoon Dining Out, tonight's dining experience could serve as the treatment--heck it could be the movie because it took a full two hours to get an appetizer and a dessert. The dining room wasn't busy. There were four or five couples besides myself endeavoring to have dinner.

I'll have the oysters, I said after the waiter listed the specials.
Oops, we just sold the last ones, he said.
The lobster bisque then.
We're out.
The crab cakes.
Out.
Okay, just bring me the glass of wine while I take another look at the menu, I said. I could see the ocean through an opening in the dunes from where I sat, and I didn't mind the pace at first. But after ten minutes or so and not so much as a glass of water, I stood up to peek around the corner to see if I could spot the waiter....or anyone. The man at the next table chuckled. We're having the same problem, he said. I got up again and managed to snare a different waiter. After a few more minutes, the original waiter appeared with the wine. And so it went. Various waitstaff, so young they were practically trailing umbilical cords appeared at our tables, and were then kidnapped by aliens--or perhaps doctors who detained them to check their Apgar scores. Only one of the four waiters materialized in the dining room at any one time. Perhaps there'd been some sort of uniform crisis, and the blue dress shirt and navy trousers had to be shared amongst the entire staff. These things happen. Back in the 70s, I had a misunderstanding at an Athens laundry, and my three traveling companions and I had only two sets of clothes that we took turns wearing for days.

Given the time frame, I might have drunk a bottle of wine while waiting for my scallops, but I would have had to search out the bartender to get it. As for the scallops, I savored them, though they were far from the best scallops I've eaten. Meanwhile the patrons at the other tables were fighting their own battles. The wrong wine. The wrong salad dressing. We began to bond. When I saw the desperate look in the blond's eyes two tables over, I wolfed down the last scallop and snagged my waiter for some cobbler and coffee. The coffee came. No cobbler. No offer of a refill. When the woman at the table across from me got up and helped herself to more coffee from the coffee and water station, I did the same. Anyone? I asked with the coffee pot in my hand. Can I refill anyone else's cup?  We were all giddy by then. The next time my waiter ambled by, I asked about the cobbler. I'll check, he said, pleasant as could be. The blond rolled her eyes.

Maybe we were on candid camera? Maybe there was a wedding reception in another room, and management had forgotten to hire waiters and our crew was doing double duty, I suggested to the man at the next table. He was on the verge of a laughing jag, but didn't find that idea amusing. Then management's not doing their job, he said. I poured myself a third cup of coffee and a minute or so later the cobbler arrived. The waiter, in a burst of efficiency, brought the no longer laughing man his check on the same trip. The man sighed and shrugged as the waiter disappeared again. I'm going to give him a mercy tip, I said, explaining that I'd gotten quite a few of those myself when I waited on tables.

I was an awful waitress. But I remember my customers in that supper club on the Sauk River the spring of 1975 as being mostly kind. Those mercy tips added up to just enough money to get me to California.

Wanna come over for a beer?

I fret about my lack of social life--or L.A.'s version of a social life anyway which usually requires one to get in a car and race down the freeway, planning around rush hour traffic whenever possible.  I'm spoiled by writer's residencies, I guess, and maybe my long-ago life in a small town where familiar faces are close by and eating dinner alone would be just plain weird. I do have friends in L.A. It's just that I seldom do what's required to see them. I'm not sure why.

But yesterday I actually had two social encounters: Lunch with two writer friends at a Silver Lake restaurant called Forage--which in my head I kept wanting to call Rampage, which is what I wanted to do when I saw the food. In a good way. All fresh and delicious and healthy with plenty of inventive veggie options. Goat cheese and date jam, with a crumble of hazelnuts and diced mint on toast. It's all in the garnish.
I should garnish more.

A little later it was Mythos beer and pistachios on my patio with a poet I met in Greece. Somehow it seems to me that all these fabulous women writers I know should be getting together more often and making our own mini-residencies where we write all day and get together for dinner. We should trade houses or apartments from time to time, too. Shake out our brains in different surroundings and see what ends up on the page.

It's a revealing encounter--getting together with friends you haven't seen in months. You have to get caught up, explain where you've been and what you've been up to, what you've written or what you're working on. I realized that  since the BIG DIVORCE NEWS  in July (that was practically a month ago,) I  haven't done much writing. I've been reading short things--poems, and New Yorker stories, and blog posts. My attention span is telling me that it spent four years spinning through nastiness and absurdity. It doesn't want sustained anything now.

And I want to be outside on my little citified patio. Who's going to win--me or the white fly? Will the blueberries get off their twiggy little butts and bear some fruit? Is it the same damn squirrel who keeps stalking my apricot tree. Or is it a hybrid squirrel-rat (squat--you pronounce that with an A like in apple,) and can a squirrel really breed with a rat and is the neighborhood overrun with these skinny-tailed beasts? Do I have room for another flowering plant--or should I see if I can get some tomatoes going this late. What about an olallieberry? This is what I've been thinking about.

But I did realize while talking to my friends, that though my brain is in neutral, my life seems garnished with spoonfuls of sweetness these days.

I'll Teach You Greek All Night Long

Restaurant owners stand in the street to lure you into dinner in Athens. As you walk by, they guess your nationality and say, Bonsoir, or Good Evening or whatever. I like to answer back, Kalispera. They sometimes assume I speak Greek then, which I don't. So things usually get funny and complicated  as they press their business card into my hand. I told the guy giving my friend Meredith and me the hard sell tonight I was sorry but I couldn't understand what he was saying. "I don't speak Greek," I said.
"I teach you Greek all night long," he said, out and out flirting with me." And if you have dinner at our restaurant tonight--free wine!" Then he presented me to his father, and his father lifted my hand and kissed it. One helluva economic recovery program. But Meredith and I demurred and said we needed to walk--which we did.
Then we went back. The father himself waited on us. He brought us not just two glasses of wine, but an entire pitcher. Come to Greece everyone! The wine is freeeeeee! After our Greek salad, and briam (vegetable stew), and tsatziki we had no room for dessert. But the father brought us a plate of fruit anyway. Come to Greece! The fruit is freeeeeeee!
I'm having fun already. The day has been nicely padded with flirtatious men--really this could be the key to turning the economy around.
I have another theory about the flirting--it's intensified since I've gone gray, and I think it makes me seem safe. Go ahead and flatter the nice grandma. She wouldn't actually take you up on it. The man I love laughed when I told him this theory. I'm hot, he says. Which makes me laugh.  I'm old.  Maybe that restaurant owner tonight was looking for a girlfriend for his father.