Lunar Eclipse

I suspect this is a lazy way to go--to post the pieces I chose to read for writing class. But, since there have been NO comments...this might just be whistling in the wind. I don't choose to write about my work--I work for an incarnation of the Soviet Union and we all remember what that government did to it's dissidents. No, I'm not going to rag on LAUSD or my specific place of employment--or the students (they are middle-schoolers and live up to the turmoil of that life stage. A colleague who shares some of the same students confessed that they still are cute and lovable in spite of their spite and restlessness.) I'm not going to write about relationships because they are always an amazing experience--I'm down at the bottom of the learning curve when it comes to love. My own children wouldn't speak to me if I wrote about them--so, not today. I've no real thoughts on marriage except I do feel sorry for Paul McCartney. A bad divorce is a bad divorce--with a Jacoby and Meyers attorney or using the top legal experts money can buy.

I saw Robert Graham today as I was walking home from the beach. He was standing outside his house talking to a workman. I love that black statue standing in the circle by the post office so I thanked him. He was very kind--accepted the compliment--some in the neighborhood complained about her missing head and arms--but the rest of her is so juicy! I thanked him for making her. I drive past her at least twice a day. I should have told him to read my blog! (Read about her in the last post.)

Here's this week's piece, in honor of the lunar eclipse soon to grace us:

I drove through the hills again tonight. I drove beneath the San Gabriels and through the Verdugos, past Tujunga and Sunland and Sylmar. I drove through the valley again, listening to Frank and Billie singing Night and Day and Old Devil Moon. I drove through Sepulveda Pass, but didn't crack a window to check for Night Blooming Jasmin. The fog's come in--my hair rebels.

It's been almost nine years since I left my husband in La Canada with his satellites and ion engines. I left him with my sons. I left behind my dogs. It wasn't the plan. There's never a plan. But it's what happened. I drove all the time then: through those hills, through the city. I loved the swerves of the old 110 into the city. On weekday nights I'd exit at Broadway and cruise by Chinatown, the County Building, the State Building. Disney Hall wasn't completed yet--I watched it grow, like a plant, like my children, like me. I'd move south on some one-way street and let the car go on it's own as I took in the windows of the high rises. I'd take Olympic through Korea Town and west, west, west---past where my grandfather played tennis on La Cienaga, past where my mom went to school--Beverly High, past the hang-out of my teen years--Century City, past Westwood, past Sepulveda and on to Federal and north, back home.

Getting out of downtown to West L.A. was a Chinese menu pick: I loved going down Beverly with the radio blaring and me wiggling to Santana. I drove through Rampart to Hancock Park, to Miracle Mile. I'd scout out the Black Davids near Crenshaw. I'd get lit up near Melrose or I'd take Pico all the way instead of Beverly just so I could sit at Pico and Sepulveda where I'd laugh because of the stupid song I adored at 13.

"See!," I'd tell my boys, as we'd drive through downtown on Friday nights, "here's a real city for you!" I'd remember swaying outside of MOCA at a summer Thursday night jazz concert, the horns bouncing off the skyscrapers and the clouds reflected on their sides sashaying by. I wanted them to read my mind as we rode by the Colburn music school and outdoor ampitheater and the Biltmore Hotel.

Tonight, with Billie singing "never ever change, keep that breathless charm, cause I love you..." I remembered a night of driving in which the clouds were puffed up white and proud. It'd been raining near Pasadena, but then it'd be clear in Mission Hills. There was a lunar eclipse that evening and I wanted to catch it. I could not move the cars fast enough on the 405. Stars peek-a-booed in and out behind the clouds. Fat drops fell and then stopped. I was in the pass with Coltran and the windows down for the deer's ears.

As I got close to Santa Monica I pondered getting into one of those high buildings--closer to the moon. I sped on the 10 towards the ocean and purposely picked fourth street's hill to get me to Venice. Over my shoulder, out the left window, over the apartments and houses I sought the moon dancing with the clouds. What stress and yet the music continued...

Down to Rose (where my grandparents lived in the summer of '29) to Main, to Windward and then east a few blocks. Home. I drove around my tiny triangular block to park. I drove around twice--no place to go and the sky wide open. I stopped at the sign at Windward and Andalusia. A young mother held her son in her arms and pointed at the moon. He was perhaps a year or two old. I looked up and watched too, walked to my front yard, and called my sons. The clouds were in La Canada that night. They missed that eclipse.

Canal Ghosts

Here's what I read to my writing class today.  

Here goes:

I hold this white laptop as I recline on my dirty yellow sofa in my slice of a small white cottage that sits on a palm-tree lined street that had once been filled with water. Sometimes the spirits of those canal days, those amusement park days, those days of prohibition and hidden rooms under local hotels, break the water mains to recreate those canals. but not this year. Last year, when the temperature dipped below 32, the spirits converged in the tiny intersection of Altair and Andalusia to set up a geyser that squirted a fountain--like a New York City summer fire hydrant. It lasted for days. On a dark night under the palms and the branches of a giant Chinese elm that droops over the corner and blocks out the light from the street lamp, a workman argued with me. Pipes don't burst from freezing temperatures in Los Angeles, I told him. It was some ghost. I didn't mention that. If I were a ghost and could hose out the concrete and asphalt to reveal the canal in which roaring twenties bathing beauties dived, I'd grab my canoe and paddle over to the lagoon to see if the naked black torso (sometimes decorated with marde gras paper mache head or peace sign stickers on her buttocks and breasts) was still there. In my time she stands facing the ocean, armless and headless, voluptuous, black and gleaming. The spirits pull her into the lagoon--an obstacle hidden under water, to paddle around--or crash into deliberately so as to join her for a wade and a splash. Under the arch-way hotels the drunken spirits sway and laugh, trudge up hidden stairs, sway through hidden pathways to see her gleaming shoulders caressed by waves from the boats. Everyone in! they yell. The roller coaster rails tumble over the crash of the waves. The park workers sleep in their small white cottages fronted with palms with fronds that explode fourth of July all the time. The ghosts of the depression sit on porches to see the fireworks and the stars--to see Altair and Orion.

I live in Venice, California--a mere five minute walk from my door to where the ocean touches the sand.  Although I grew up in a different part of West Los Angeles, my grandparents lived here for a summer--in 1929, when my grandmother was pregnant with my uncle (who's a few years older than my dad).  She told me about going for walks in the neighborhood around 6th and Rose with her dad.  They were all from Youngstown Ohio and thought LA was hicksville.

There are some good websites to learn about the history of Venice.  That statue I mention is by Robert Graham--there is a very funny article in the Venice Free Press (a hippie poet's paper if there ever was one) about him removing peace sign stickers from the statue.  Google Venice History or Venice Free Press (I think it's the August issues).

I'm a student.  Forever a student.

Dating--Waste of Time?

It's not raining--it's windy and gray.  I've not written this week because I've been fighting my cold and trying to wrap up loose ends from the fall semester.  I almost forgot to go to my Thursday night writing class.  But I went--it's inspiring and intimidating.  Such fantastic authors!  They grab my mind and make me laugh.

I've not been in a chuckling mood.  On top of my little money funk, the man I'd been seeing decided that would be a good time to decide to see if he'd miss me if he didn't see me for a while.  I wish he'd had the honesty of the guy who said he didn't do relationships.  Mr. I Don't Do Relationships stated that when I first met him.  I knew with him at least it wouldn't be about love.  This one, I thought there was possibility (because I do think people can love if they want to--if they let themselves).

 The thing is, I can't figure out if that's just the type of man I attract.  Dating isn't fun enough for me to just play around.  I'm not interested.   I don't need validation that I'm attractive or can hold a conversation or even that I'm kind or affectionate--I know I'm okay.   I don't need an f-buddy...that's faux intimacy to me, you might as well buy a plastic doll or use an electrical device. Being intimate with another person--not just physically, but emotionally isn't some little la-de-da picnic.  But I figure if I can give love than I should be able to take it too.  I've not a clue about what the men I've known think they want or why they bother hanging out with women at all.  I realize they are wired to want to have sex, but at some point it's got to be boring without love.

I may be having experiences--but I wonder if it's just a big waste of time.  I had other things I would have been doing that I put aside to give a guy a chance--and it bothers me that for him it must seem that there's nothing there unless there are no problems.  My days are difficult--they are not the highlight of my life.  I'd like my love life to be juicy and interesting--without trepidation.  And yeah--if there are highs, then there will be lows.  Who wants to live without the real in life--that includes sorrow, pain, and joy?  I actually want something out of a partnership too.  Too bad.  I don't know how to attract that right now.  And I'm a little pissed about it.