One Hundred Hours of Solitude

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

Billy caught a plane at Monterey Airport this morning, and returned home to Los Angeles for ten days. I am probably not the only person in the universe who feels that every time someone I love boards a plane, I may never see them again. I particularly don't like saying goodbye at an airport on September 11th. And I am certain that on that front I am not the only one who feels so.

Eleven years ago, I was getting ready to go to a pilates session when I switched on the radio in our master bathroom. It was tuned to 89.3 KPCC, one of our local NPR stations which is based at Pasadena City College. Like everyone else who turned on the TV or radio that morning, I knew almost instantly that something wasn't right. I called out to Billy who was in the kitchen, inquiring whether he was watching the TV in the kitchen. He was not. Turn it on, I called out. Something's going on.

Within minutes we each knew something had happened in NYC. And within the next few minutes I emailed my friend, Max, who had begun a new job uptown in Manhattan just the day before. Max, Check in, was what I wrote. How many people emailed, texted, and left voice mails like that on that day? Max emailed me back that he was safe. Then, I sent similar emails to all of our friends who travel for business. Where were they? Were they safe? They all were.

I never did pilates that day, though I did drive there. In most crises in my life I have initially operated under the delusion that if I act like everything is ok, everything will be ok. Though this has never proved true, I still seem to fall under the spell of that failed magic -- that staying on track will turn back the hands of time and reverse the damage. I have a strong belief that this will work. This never works.

I was probably acting under a similar impulse after I left Monterey airport today. I went about normal business for the next two hours until I got Billy's call that he had landed safely: I drove back to Carmel, stopping at Bruno's for a Monterey Herald; I returned to our home-for-the-month, and made myself my second mug of Scottish Breakfast tea; I read the paper. Then I walked into town and went to Carmel Belle for breakfast. Erin, who works there, greeted me and I told her that Billy had just left. We'll take care of you, she said, and I believed her. Billy called. I celebrated his safety with one more cup of tea, a poached egg, and two huge slices of toast with butter and a lot of very good blackberry preserves. I ate it all. I deserved it.

I have about one hundred hours of solitude ahead of me until my two fristers, Lydia and Debra (known here as LOL and DG - see blogpost Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarves, available here and now!) arrive on Friday. Being on my own is a mixed blessing -- the most challenging part being that you have to be open to what it feels like. At times it feels lonely; at other times I feel absorbingly self-centric in my own little Carmel universe -- like when I indulged in the toast this morning. Days are productive and fun. Nights are, well, dark. The house creaks, then is deafeningly silent. I still sleep only on my own side of the bed. When I wake up in the morning, I just have to make the bed on my side. It's weird and a bit ghostly.

But this time alone allows me the luxury of undisturbed reflection; time to ponder some personal issues. It provides the focus that I usually lack in my hurried life in Los Angeles. As my pace slows, my mind clears. Then time moves much the way it is supposed to, and so does life; neither getting away from me as they often do when I am at home. Here, I shop daily for the ingredients that will comprise my dinner. I walk to the beach and into town, and I write a lot: in my journal; emails to my fristers and Max; here on my blog. I breathe. Tomorrow, I will begin to make plans for the upcoming weekend with Las Chicas. But before their arrival on Friday -- one hundred hours of solitude, mas o menos, commencing on this day of remembrance for us all. Thank you for reading my blog. Pray, love, remember . . . Shakespeare.

The Lusty Month of May

Los Angeles, California


Yes, I'm back. Recently, throwing up an impressive two posts in one day. A dazzling feat of composition, concentration, and conundrum or whathaveyou. Whatever that all means.


It is May, and I am, as usual, celebrating that fact. I planted sweet peas, as they are my favorite flower. Usually only a couple of them take, but this year they all did, and they have been busy growing about a foot each night. They are cascading over the walls of the planter, an explosion of pretty pastel and bright- colored blooms. I intended to cut them for the house each week, but, I don't know, like most other brilliant plans I have, that one fell by the wayside. Still, I am enjoying the sight of them out the french doors of our kitchen.


So, it's spring. And, the joke amongst my friends about me and this season is this: I suffer from such spring fever that the gardeners are not safe from me. I am a faithful wife, but at this time of year I am ogling firemen and paramedics; young men with surfboards on the roof of their cars; any guy who is shirtless and riding a motorcycle. I don't know what it is. I am like this and always have been. I make no apologies for what goes on in my head at this time of year.


I am lucky that I dance, because it allows me to spend a little bit of time holding hands with a variety of dance partners (yes, firemen, and maybe gardeners, but somehow, I suspect, not surfers). Sometimes they squeeze too tight (ouch!); sometimes they hold too lightly (that's a lead? Where in the blazes is he expecting me to go?). Occasionally you get one of those dances that I have written about before. I call each of them: the dance of my life. Though, luckily, there have been more than a singular amount of them.


Had one recently at the wedding of The Lovely Cathy. My friend, Gwen, started calling Cathy this, and it has stuck in my mind for years. Cathy has been my Pilates trainer (spellcheck says she has been my Pirate trainer, arggh . . .) for well over a decade. But she's more than that. She's a frister; a warm-hearted soul who has helped me in more ways than I can enumerate. I love her, and hope she will be in my life forever. And I would feel that way, even if I hadn't had one of those dances of my life at her wedding recently.


Cathy married Norman in April, and it was a beautiful wedding and reception. It reminded me a lot of Billy's and my wedding -- both at 5:00 pm, both with an abundance of both red roses, and champagne. But the big difference is that Cathy and Norman's wedding had dancing.  And you know where I'm going with this. Cathy's close friend and attendant, The Lovely Carmen (oh what the heck! Let's throw this around when it fits), introduced me to her fiance before the ceremony. He's a really good salsa dancer, she confided, and further, offered to send him my way when they played salsa music. Salsa music? My ears pricked up.


The first salsa came on the heels of a song which had brought Billy and I onto the dance floor. He immediately tried to escape. Oh, come on, you can do this, I said, holding fast onto him, as I wasn't trusting that words alone could keep him on the dance floor. He reluctantly began the salsa steps that he learned a long time ago, but has not practiced in any way recently. But here's the thing: Billy can lead a right turn; he can lead a left turn. And, the piece de resistance -- he can very competently execute a cross-body lead. Voila! Three good moves and you've got combinations. Ok, so he needed some verbal cueing. We did fine, all the while moving closer on the dance floor to Carmen and her fiance, Charles. I wasted no time when the dance ended, pouncing on them and asking Carmen, Can I have him? She graciously turned Charles over to me. What ensued could have been awkward. We'd never danced together. It could have been ugly. It could have been really, really embarrassing (like me embarrassing him, I mean). But it was s-m-o-o-t-h. Charles is honestly one of the best dancers I've encountered, and he knew exactly how to match his skill with my abilities. I sensed that the floor had cleared, and I could hear Cathy and Carmen whooping as we finished. It was so much fun! Later when I went to the bar for water, the bartender complimented me on my dancing. A Visa moment: priceless.


You can carry moments like that along with you, even into the dark of the night, and the bleakness of a family situation. And, as I've said and written before, that is why we dance. It's for those moments; for the friendship with other salseros; for forgetting whatever is not right in your life. And all by just dancing. I do it all year long, but it's particularly not a bad thing to be doing as spring unfolds, the temperature rises, and all these guys on motorcycles, who are young enough to be my Idon'twanttothinkaboutit, take off their shirts. Winter is over. It's that time again. As Alan Jay Lerner wrote: . . . the time for every frivolous whim, proper or im-. And, while I keep it proper on the dance floor; I shouldn't be held accountable for the im- that keeps dropping into my mind this time of year, and neither should you. It's May . . .Thank you for reading my blog when you could be doing something else altogether. Come on people, do I have to tell you again? IT. IS. MAY.