A Lotta Dots

Los Angeles, California

Last year was a bit of a bummer. Ok, no, last year was on one hand a huge bummer. Both Joel and I had injuries and I lost a friend. Actually, the husband of a friend, but a friend nevertheless. As a result of our injuries, we didn't dance much. But on the other side of the bummer was some really good stuff. While I limped around Santa Fe last September when we traveled there to see A Prairie Home Companion at the wondrous Santa Fe Opera venue, we also, on that trip, discovered... Yahtzee!

We are game players. We play Double Twelve dominos a lot. Lynnette introduced me  to A Ticket to Ride, and we have played about six versions of it for several years. Some people I used to know introduced me to a fun card game called Shithead (and yes, I apologize for the vulgarity, but that is what it is called!). On planes, we play gin rummy. We play all of these. But when Joel and I went to Santa Fe, we taught ourselves to play Yahtzee.

Cindy had endeavored to teach me Yahtzee on a trip we took together to Carmel back in the early '90s. It was the only time we ever got high together, before she taught me how to play. She had provided the cannabis and it was strong. Not only did I lose that game, I came away with absolutely no idea of how to play Yahtzee. So, Joel and I started from scratch. And we really got into it.

When Lynnette came to stay after that trip, I asked her if she wanted to play Yahtzee, and she did. So, from September through January, I've been playing Yahtzee with Joel, Lynnette and even one game with Cindy. The one game thing is unique. When Lynnette and I play (Yahtzee, Dominos, Ticket to Ride, etc.) we play a lot of games! Back in the days of our early addiction to playing Ticket to Ride, we had sometimes stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, fueled by the mantra of: Let's play just one more.

We have gotten a lot more temperate on playing past our bedtimes, but we make up for that by starting early. Like, in the afternoon. And after a lot of games one evening, and after throwing the dice when it was her turn, Lynnette uttered the immortal words: When I see a lot of dots, I get excited...!!!

I am third and fourth generation American, via my mother's and father's family's emigration to the US. And I think Americans are crazy. We work too hard. We are hypervigilent about our health and how we eat. We don't value recreation and fun. Broad generalizations, yes. But generally true. At midlife, after a particularly heinous life-changing event, I knew instinctively that I needed to stop striving. I needed to unwind. I needed to embrace joy. Joy came from spending time and laughing with friends. Joy came from enjoying hamburgers. Joy lived in dancing. And, I think I discovered last year, in spite of the bummery part of it, that joy can come from learning a new game, and spending special time with my good friend who gets excited when she sees a lot of dots!

Turbulence

Los Angeles, California

Did our lives change after Covid lockdown? Sometimes it's hard to remember how life was different back before lockdown commenced almost six years ago. I see some monumental changes, especially in our government, but I'm more interested in the micro: How people treat each other; their interactions in public; the lack of courtesy and the abundance of entitlement. And in the mini-micro, how are we treating each other as friends?

Lately, I've been getting together with groups of women, some of whom I don't know that well. There was a birthday luncheon late last month for my 'better friend', Cin (I have for more than a decade called her my ex-best friend, but decided recently that we deserved a new designation) It wasn't a 'big' birthday, rather the one before, but she wanted to gather three of the women in her life who mean a lot to her. And it was lovely. Interesting conversation and no discussion of watching series on television. That is one of the ways that I find life has changed since the pandemic. People are so boring, wanting to endlessly talk about their TV viewing!

What I find interesting about what is happening around me is all the running around. I see people filling their lives with a vengeance of activity and distraction. It's very difficult to get people to just sit down. I often invite friends to my home to hang out and I have realized that many just cannot do that. There is so much going on in our country and our world. It truly is turbulent. I guess the question is, what do you do when there is turbulence? Myself, I like to strap down! But I see that others need to run up and down the aisles.

I don't really consider myself a meditator. But I do try to practice meditation. Trying is one of those words that can connote not getting there. And I think that is true about meditation. When I have practiced it religiously, every day, for long periods of time (like during lockdown), the benefit is rather profound. But even practicing intermittently, as I am doing at the moment, helps.

When I am feeling the aches and pains of my chores and workouts, I remember that a long ago fitness teacher advised that sometimes you just need to lie on the floor immobilized. Time out from activity and distractions can be invaluable. But also very difficult for people to do.

One of my friends has every day of her week scheduled. After spending a Wednesday with her a few years back, she clearly inked me in for every Wednesday. And I knew she had other people inked in for standing plans on other days of the week. I just couldn't do it. I like her a lot, and we always had fun together. But I am someone who enjoys being in my home, puttering around and tending to things by myself. Don't get me wrong, I am a people person and love spending time with Joel and my friends. But I need a balance of open, unbooked, solitary time along with my socializing. I want time to write here and in my journal. Time to set aside for working out and meditating. Not to mention paying my bills, doing my taxes, filing my paperwork. I once asked this friend when she managed to do laundry, since she was running up and down the aisles with activities every single day. I didn't really get an answer. I guess she figures it out.

I find human nature fascinating. I look for it in the books I read and the movies I see. What motivates us to build the lives we build, at least in the areas over which we have control? You watch ants in an anthill community, and they appear to more or less all be doing the same thing. But we're not ants. We are all different in so many ways. We all have the same emotions, but whether we all feel them is a whole different matter. And beyond that, how we react to them... a myriad of diversity in reaction. Fascinating.

Turbulence is an interesting metaphor because it is in all of our lives in some shape or another. If you don't think you have turbulence in your life, try turning on the news. I was just kidding. Don't. Just let me assure you that you do have it. In your relationships, in your thoughts, in your dreams, for a start. Whether you buckle up or sprint down the aisles is a choice, even if feeling compelled to do that doesn't feel like it. But it is a choice. And a very interesting one, at that. 

V-Day

 Los Angeles, California

Once upon a time, I worked on a writing project entitled Romancing. I never finished it, and I can't even exactly remember what I was going for there, but I think I was compiling romantic songs, films to see, places to go, food to imbibe. Stuff like that. Somewhere along the line, I lost interest in writing about it. But I have always indulged in those things.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a chick flick kind of woman. I find most of those rom-com movies pretty shallow and insipid. There are exceptions. When Harry Met Sally, is one. But there are some other films, mostly indies and classics, that I find inspirationally romantic. They have to be complex. The simplicity of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, each one has one glove from a pair... Spare me.

I was not a fan of Cinderella nor Snow White. And that is probably one of the reasons I loved Sondheim's Into the Woods. There is another chapter after happily ever after (or maybe in place of it). And there is a comfort to Cinderella ending up with the baker.

Real romance, intimacy, is wonderful. It's in words, looks, caresses. In locked eyes while dancing, and warm kisses afterwards... Oh, don't get me started.

So, feeling as I do about romance, I invited three girlfriends over for dinner on Valentine's Day! It was an idea that occurred to me because V-Day fell on a Saturday. You might ask, why I wasn't spending it with Joel. And that answer is, that Saturday is the first day of Joel's work week, and his work day begins at 4:00 AM. So, we never dance on Friday nights, and we rarely spend a Saturday night together. In light of that, it seemed like a good time to gather some girls. One of my friends is recently widowed. And the other two are single women, both still working in the field of psychotherapy.

And, on the topic of their field, I do like having friends who have been in psychotherapy at some time in their life. I've probably written this before, but it bears restating. Therapy is higher education. I have a university degree in English literature. Yes, I am writing here, so I suppose you could say I am using what I learned in four years of college. But if I had to go back and make a choice between my college experience and therapy, I would choose therapy hands down. I use what I learned in therapy every single day. I apply it to almost every area of my life. It provides understanding, relief from anxiety, and an ability to identify and classify every emotion I might feel. It's not the only discipline I use to cope with what arises in my life. I also utilize philosophy and prayer. I have a belief in a triumverite. It is my belief that using only one lens to view your life and the world is unwise, and sometimes dangerous. Dare I use the word cult? That's when you peel away anything that doesn't agree with one viewpoint. Scary? Yes, and shallow.

The other good thing about having friends who have gone through a process of therapy is that they know how to deal with issues and conflict. If you have ever brought up a relationship issue with a friend and realize they have absolutely no ability to deal with it, forget it. They will most likely run for the hills. And, not to sound harsh but, you are probably better off without them (as illustrated in a previous post: Better Broken).

I've been out of therapy for years. But when feeling overwhelmed, and when the tools aren't working, I do have a few friends on whom I rely. One of them is my friend, Joy, who is not a therapist, but a 12-step sponsor. She is an excellent listener and always offers beneficial, concrete input. The other is my guru, Cathy, who guides me in fitness and wellness through Chinese medicine, but also has an intuitive understanding of emotional upheavals. And, of course, there is Cin, my 'better friend' who is a psychotherapist. It is important to recognize the friends with whom you share reciprocal caring, but who offer unhelpful input. It can feel like an anvil dropped on top of your suffering.

So it was good to celebrate what has been called Galentine's Day with girlfriends. The women in our lives should be the foundation of emotional wellness, built brick by brick. And besides, I can celebrate the romantic relationship I have with Joel any other day of the year. In fact, starting tonight, when we will open and share a bottle of Veuve Cliquot brut rosé. We won't be able to dance all night, under electric candlelight, as The Kinks sang. Not while Joel is still dealing with a torn rotator cuff. But, we'll work around that for now, looking forward to the future when he will once again be my dancing sweetheart. Menwhile, I am grateful for the opportunity to celebrate with the gals and my guy. Win, win.

The Tattoo

 Los Angeles, California

Have you ever had an experience that changed your life, in a moment, in a hugely dynamic way? There are certainly positive experiences of that. Say, you learn that someone unexpectedly has left you a large inheritance. Or you get the phone call informing you that you are being offered the dream job that you didn't think you had a chance at getting. Or the person of your dreams proposes marriage, or you learn that your IVF treatment has worked and you are now happily anticipating. The list could go on and on.

But what if it's not a positive? What if it is the worst thing? What if it's the worst thing that you never even imagined could happen? A crime committed against you. Or what if you learn something about someone with whom you share your life that you never, ever saw coming? What if it is as if on one gorgeous, sunny day you are driving on your favorite road in your convertible, listening to your favorite song, and suddenly a brick wall appears just in front of you. You can't go around it. You can't go over it. The only way out of it is through it. And that damage will be tattooed on your consciousness and soul forever.

I like to tell people that there are three things that have occurred in my life that are rather rare and special. I have seen three no-hitters at Dodgers Stadium. I have seen the northern lights. I saw The Beatles in concert. But I have also had a few collisions with that brick wall, and each changed my life forever.

Without throwing my mother and my late husband under the bus here, I want to convey what I learned from these experiences. I learned that you will survive the things that you cannot ever imagine surviving. You won't even know how you survived it. Our innate ability to survive is an instinct buried deep. You won't know that you have it until you need it, and even then. I walked as if through water for years after the first incident with my husband. After his death, it never ended.

My mother once said about my father's death that you never get over it, you just get used to it. And this is so true about those losses in our lives. It's just that the process of getting used to it changes you irrevocably. People might tell you that you're not who you used to be, or that the light has gone out of your eyes. Or that they cannot imagine how you are still standing. All of it is true. And, you just go on.

A friend has recently lost her husband, and I am at a loss how to provide help for her. You can ask what is needed. But, truthfully, had someone asked me I wouldn't have been able to tell them. What is needed changes from day to day, from hour to hour. Sometimes from minute to minute. One of the things I remember in those first days after my husband took his life, was the presence of my friend, Carole, who stayed with me and made me sandwiches that would appear on the coffee table in front of me as friends came and went. She didn't ask me if I wanted turkey or chicken. She didn't even ask me if I wanted a sandwich. She just made sandwiches, but didn't admonish me to eat. Because of her, and the sandwiches that magically appeared, I did eat.

One of the things I have learned from all of this is that you should offer an ear and a shoulder. And at all costs, avoid offering advice and input. If a favor is requested, you can make sure you are there to do it. And for the love of God, don't say things like: I hope you don't get sick, as someone kept saying to me while I was trying to keep my head above water. It's like telling children not to stick beans up their noses when they had never thought to do that!

I am not the person I was before it all. But even if you have not experienced any trauma in your life, you are not the person you were. We are all evolving, for better or for worse. And, in fact, the unexplainable horrors that I have experienced in my life provided me with growth and a strange confidence. Having been through it all, I believe I can meet whatever comes. Am I grateful for it? Stephen Colbert has said that he is grateful for the grief he lives with after losing his father and two brothers in a plane crash. I do understand that. But if I had my life to live over again, I would move heaven and earth to have not experienced tragedy in my life. In spite of all, I'm just not that courageous.

In our thirties, we liked to repeat a saying that went Life is hard and then you die. We're halfway there. But there are blessings. There is joy. There is dancing. And the balance of having those things in your life, even as you experience them while bearing the tattoo of past, unrelenting pain, does in the final analysis make our lives worthwhile. And that analysis along with that tattoo, my friends, is the triumph of our survival.

The Tech Tangle

 Los Angeles, California

I am beginning a second year of keeping politics out of my blogposts, and it has been an increasingly huge challenge. Pay attention to the news and you will see a country almost unrecognizable except in news footage of places like Iran or Tiananmen Square. Trying not to expand here on the horror.

There are smaller battles to fight. There is a lawsuit currently being adjudicated here in Los Angeles as parents have begun suing social media companies for the damage that has been caused to children. But, what about the damage the internet has caused to adults? If people question this, then I must question their ability to use the simple logic of if this, then that. Yes, the internet has created ease and opportunity for many interests and tasks. But, as someone once simply put it, The internet has made it easier to order pizza and spread dangerous untruths.

I'm sensitive to the internet issue because, as I think I have written here before, I was never sure it was a really great idea, and I was certain social media was toxic from the start. But as I learned more and more about algorithms and the way they were being used to manipulate our usage of the internet, I became more alarmed. Ever had a pair of black boots eyed on Nordstrom's site follow you for months on the internet? And how about the text I received, addressed to my unusual childhood nickname that is nowhere on the internet nor anywhere else in my life, except on my Christmas stocking? The information on and about us which is shared exponentially is world-shatteringly frightening. And the genie is out of the bottle.

I write down quotations. Hell, I sometimes write down whole passages from novels or soliloquies from movies. I can't attribute this to who said it, so I will hopefully paraphrase: We should have been very wary about this idea of taking human sociality, incredibly powerful and shaped by a million years of evolution, and allowing 22-year olds in California to reinvent it. Amen.

So, what to do? Well for a start, for the time being (and I have been diligent about maintaining this) I have resisted social media. I didn't even put myself on LinkedIn when I owned a business. I don't Zelle and I don't Zoom. I am close to seeing Zooming as a necessary evil. But it does remind me of Dennis Potter's futuristic series, Cold Lazarus, which depicts a dystopian world where all experience is now virtual and talking heads are just that, having been revived from cryonics. I just don't want to have experiences with someone's face on a screen. I find it dehumanizing.

Yet, here I am, sitting in front of a screen, communicating with fingertips. I could fudge a little and say, Yes, but this is writing. This is art. And for me, it is creative. Can't speak to the reader's experience. It is also at the case that I have the unfortunate condition of being able to write better than I speak. My brain just works that way, through my fingers. But if our communication is reduced to texting, and even more malevolently, to tagging people's texts with icons of approval or affection. Jesus. What is in the future for human communication? This is dire.

So, though I try as hard as I can to keep myself untangled from tech, it is inevitable that this won't work forever. The encyclopediac knowledge found on google is frankly irresistible, even to a tech-resister like me. That is one of the reasons I still like to see films, even classic films, in theaters so that the immersion experience of being in a theater keeps me from searching the bio of obscure artists. At least when we went to get the encyclopedia in our homes, there was some exercise involved. With Wikipedia, it only involves a reach.

I am enheartened to increasingly read about resistance to the ongoing harm that is caused by living through cameras and screens. A lot of retreats are phones down, and I suspect that the experience would be very freeing. Still, I'm not dissing the useful info that can be found on the World Wide Web. I downloaded Sarah McLachlan's setlist from the concert I recently attended. You were never going to find that back in the day, without intensive research, and even then. But the tangle of information/commerce/connection is a dangerous thing for those who bought in fully. And mindfulness of this minefield is a standard to uphold.

Worth Remembering

 Los Angeles, California

What. A. Year. It started with the fires and evacuation. A few months later, Joel had surgery to repair a forty-year old injury which had broken his nose. The post-op and recuperation was tough. But he got better. And then, about three weeks after that, Joel had an accident at work and tore the rotator cuff in his shoulder. That injury is still not repaired and Joel has spent the last nine months wrangling with his Worker's Comp-provided treatment (or lack there of).

Over Memorial Day Weekend, we attended the Valley Greek Festival. It is something we do every year and we were joined by our friends, Connie and Curt. Connie is Greek, 100%, and I have learned a lot about Greek culture from her since we became friends while we were still in college. And I am in lust with the honey-soaked, yeasty Greek fritters called loukemades. And, I only get them once a year at this event.

In June, I purchased a new Tesla and a magnet for it which basically indicated no support for Elan Musk, in spite of buying his product. I thought long and hard about replacing my 2018 Tesla with a new one, and my friend and guru, Cathy, helped me work my way through this decision. Some of my friends were unloading their Teslas in protest of what havoc Musk was wreaking. But then, they were still shopping Amazon, which I frankly find reprehensible. They all say: Oh, but it's so convenient. Yeah, well it is also convenient to not have to go to gas stations. While the devils are different, it is still the same hell. So I continued my boycott of Amazon but bought a new 3. The newer model is sublime and I have had no guilt pangs over my decision.

July brought Joel's birthday and a mid-month visit from my friend, Karen, who flew in from Phoenix. We attended a screening of Ken Burn's new documentary at the Academy (of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) Museum. And, Ken Burns participated in a pre-film intro and post-film Q+A! I was ecstatic at attending this event, preceded by a lovely dinner at Fanny's, the restaurant at the Museum. Later that month Joel and I began dancing at the Autry Museum. It was part of their Sizzling Summer Nights series which they host every year. It was a great opportunity to see some longtime salsa friends and dance under the stars.

Around the middle of August, I woke up one morning and limped into the kitchen. No idea where that was coming from nor what to do to get remedy. I have a toolbox full of devices to use when something in my overused body is aching. I used them all; I got a massage; I underwent acupuncture. I tried everything, but nothing was working and I continued to limp. After a few weeks of this, my PC doc diagnosed this as iliapsoas tightness and demonstrated a physical therapy routine to help. It didn't help. Then Cathy determined that I was having a sciatic flare-up. This made sense as the pain was jumping around from hip to quad to shin. I had always thought sciatica was intense pain down the back of your leg. Not always, Cathy said. And she clarified that this wasn't sciatica, but rather a sciatic nerve flare-up which can manifest in a number of symptoms.

We attended a Dodgers game late that month, and Joel supported me while I limped into and out of the stadium. Luckily, we have our Dodgers routine down with parking just outside of our entrance, but it still felt like a long trek. Though not so long as on our travel to Santa Fe in early September. By the time we arrived in Santa Fe, Joel had received two cortisone injections for his torn rotator cuff and was once again pain-free. I, however, was hurting, though it was manageable with Advil. Still, we drove routes that should have been walked, and when we went to the A Prairie Home Companion show at Santa Fe Opera, I needed to ride the shuttle to the venue. Luckily, the show attracted a lot of seniors, so there were ample shuttles.

By October, I was no longer limping and by the time we arrived in Carmel to celebrate my birthday and the World Series, I was able to walk around town, though my flare-up was far from over. By November, we were finally both well enough to dance. It was lovely to share a dance floor once again with salsa friends.

And then it was Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve. Not a great year, but now behind us. I am much better, working out well and feeling grateful for a return to normal (more or less). Joel, not so much, and we recently took him for a second opinion as to why his shoulder continues to pain him, and more importantly, what it takes to get care after a work-related injury. Hopefully, this too shall pass. This is his year in Chinese astrology. It is the year of the Horse. Hopefully our horse and rabbit show can get back to salsa dancing in early 2026. Horse and rabbit show. Somehow I never thought I would coin that phrase, but I hope by year's end I can write that it was a very good show and year. For now I can only wish us all a very Happy New (and improved) Year! 🙏