Bounce

Los Angeles, California

...and then the pandemic. I ended this blog with a last post at the end of 2018. It was time to move on. And I did move on. I was excited to start a new writing project, which I began while on a writing retreat in Carmel last May, ensconced in a new rental house out on the point. I had Lyfted to LAX; flown to Monterey; rented a white VW Bug; found the house and rolled my wheelie into this unfamiliar place. All by myself. If you have learned anything about me, you will understand that this was BIG. Not my first solo flight. That occured six months before. Not my first time in Carmel by myself. But, my first time doing each sequential step together, all alone. After running to the usual spots to stock up, I started writing on the second day, longhand in a notebook. It went well, until that night when I started writing a totally different project, a memoir, in my head. I ponied up to my MacBook and it began to flow out of me. I continued to write for a week, until Lynnette and Jim arrived. We spent the last few days together before we locked up the house and they drove me home.

Back home, I continued writing, covering birth to twenty-six, which is the age at which I married. And then... I stopped. And I am going to skip ahead here by briefly stating that nine months later, I was aboard a flight from Phoenix to Monterey, when the plane developed a serious mechanical failure. My friends, Diana and Brendan, were waiting for me at Monterey Airport. We had rented a different house in Carmel together, to spend a few days celebrating Diana's birthday. Covid19 had just arrived in the US, and I had dutifully wiped down my seat area on the flight, as well as I had on the flight three days prior from Burbank to Phoenix. This was as we had been instructed. And then. And then... I almost died. This is true. I wanted you to get the hyperbolic impact of that statement which Diana and Brendan subsequently heard a lot over the next three days. I had arrived at the rental at midnight, after hitching a ride with three strangers in a rental car, after our emergency landing amidst a lot of emergency vehicles, in Fresno! We drove back to Carmel which was almost three hours away. And that is a huge story. A blockbuster movie of a story. Suffice it to say, that we four women are no longer strangers, but are a quartet who bonded together in those three hours after a traumatic event. I suspect that this could only happen with women. But that's not what this particular post is about. By the time I flew home three days later, out of San Jose Airport, the world had changed. The airport, in the hub of Silicon Valley, was deserted. There were twenty-six passengers on the flight. And a week later, we were told to Stay at Home.

And so, I have stayed at home. No salsa dancing. No watching Dodgers games at the bar at Sol y Luna. No opera at The Music Center. No Sunday in the Park with George at Disney Concert Hall. No Hollywood Bowl this summer. No Joel, for the most part. He works in essential services, encountering thousands of people each day. He is exhausted, and he wants to keep me safe. So, what there has been instead is Facetime happy hours with him, with girlfriends like Holly, and with Todd and Christopher. Lots of long phone conversations with Joel and Lynnette and my other fristers, both old and new. There is housecleaning; listening to music, and working out as if my life were dependent on it (or my mental health anyway). I work out every day, which means about 5.5 times a week, thanks to repair personnel, gardeners, and other necessary workers who seem to schedule right in the middle of my 2:00-4:00 workout time. I work out without videos nor any syllabus. My only plan is to do aerobics and upper body weight work three times a week; pilates and leg weight work three times a week, with dealer's choice (usually restorative pilates, and that one is online) on Sundays. It's been a revelation, and like most things in my life, it came to me without a definitive decision. It just kindasorta happened. I am listening to my body, feeling what works and doesn't work. A lot of my aerobics is salsa footwork, but some of it is old-fashioned aerobic moves done to Queen or Springsteen. Moves learned from the instructors who led me years ago: Kim and Donna and Trina. It's all coming back. Evidently, as in the journey of therapy, I guess I internalized the process!

What have I not been doing? Reading. Nor much writing, other than in my journal and an almost-daily email dialog with a new friend. The project which I thought I would start at the beginning of this lockdown got stalled. And then today...

Bounce. It is Memorial Weekend, and I have been bouncing back and forth between the Downton Abbey marathon on PBS, and the Sex and the City one on another cable channel. When I hit a pledge break on one, I switch to the other. When I hit a commercial on that one, I switch back. It's easy. I know both series and don't feel in any way compelled to watch from beginning to end. I just keep bouncing. And somewhere in the middle of that, this post began to be written in my head. And I thought: I already have somewhere where I can write. All it entails is logging on and sitting down with my MacBook. So simple. So, I pulled back my last, farewell post, and put fingers to keys.

My blog is named after my first and best frister Sandra. And Sandra's birthday passed a few days ago. I have stopped counting what her age would have been. But I do know that my mother's 100th birthday is coming up in early June. And, I do plan to celebrate this with a chocolate eclair. Her favorite. And maybe champagne, though truthfully, champagne reminds me much more of my father. Meanwhile, there will continue to be no dancing at our favorite club. None of the other things that sustained me before Covid. No Joel. I miss him dearly. I miss all that we do and have together. But there is music. There is dancing (with myself). There is Downton Abbey and Sex and the City. And there is this. Throwing up words that come from somewhere in the dank recesses of my brain. Seeing the connections between them, and between ourselves, our lives, and the lives of the people we care about, including those who were strangers when this year began. Even now. Even in a pandemic. And I have faith that we will bounce back, with some greater lessons learned. And so, I guess the only other thing to write in closing is: I'm back! :-)  Thank you for reading my blog. Stay safe out there 💖.