Gwen Quixote

So once again I have dreamed the Impossible Dream, moving West, imagining or rather hoping I could recapture the energy of my youth which I didn't realize was over.  Having found and leased an apartment so I could begin my joyful labors, balancing work and sunshine(which I AM undiminishedly joyful to perceive) with swimming, which keeps me middle-aged, as I am within close walking distance of the Hotel Mosaic, where I have stayed all these years on holiday and recuperative time, and where I have been made to feel not only comfortable but loved, at least by the staff, I went swimming my first day ensconced in this apartment, to be told by the manager, who had a few hours before said "Come any time," that the rules had changed. WHAT?!!!  Apparently, or, if I may take a semi-furious stance, allegedly the owner, somewhere in Brunei or Belize or someplace exotic with a 'B', had sent over a dictum saying there were to be no more neighboring swimmers.  Only the day before, while I was still staying in the hotel, a pretty young mother with a babe-in-arms had come out of the pool, and I asked if she was staying there, and she said they were in the neighborhood and the hotel allowed them to swim. To which the Angel Carleen responded on the phone, "Well, good: then you won't have to crash."

    Not so fast. As close friends know from my childhood tales which I never tell until well down the road, my parenting was not so kind or supportive, which stories I find hard to believe even as I write them, so I and they seem to prefer those Glitterers I have met along the way who became friends and supporters like Cary Grant, who only 2 out of a whole high school class seem to know who he was =WHAT?!!!  Anyway, nothing is ever easy except failing and falling down, so no sooner did I have my first warm and comfortable swim as an ex-resident than the manager came up with her bulletin, which threw me into a quiet seethe.  At that point I began combing the neighborhood for watery sanctuary, and went to the Y which I will have to quickly qualify is a Jewish Y so no one thinks it is a M or WCA, and asked when the swimming hours were, only to be told by the boy at the desk that the rules had just changed, and there were only private lessons.  No swimming at the Y.  It's a good thing I'm not paranoid.

    So from there I went to lunch at the Peninsula, which is just around the corner, and made friends with everybody I could.  So we'll see.

    The good news is I was here in time for Memorial Day, and barbecued ribs.  Ordinarily I do not eat pork, not for religious reasons, but because I'm not convinced they've fixed it.  But as the Rabbi at the Y said he would speak to his wife, Barucha, no kidding, about my swimming and asked if I was a Jewish girl, and I said Yes, and he said I should light candles on Friday, which I would be glad to do if I was in shape from swimming, but I haven't heard back from him, or, do you believe it? Barucha, when my girlfriend Anita Pointer of the once famous and still highly melodic singer-Sisters asked if I ate pork, I said 'Sure.'  So yesterday I went up to her beautiful house, and ate my more-than fill, and had a really most excellent time.  Besides being a glorious singer, she is also my favorite thing in human storykind, a survivor.  She has a story of teenage molestation and horror that matches anybody's but still went on to sing and be wonderful.  Her story to tell, which I hope she will.

     So now I sit waiting for inspiration for SYLVIA WHO? which I am to re-begin today, this very hour, hoping my Muse knows where I have moved to, and someone to come in who knows how to fix the plug in my sink, which I closed to wash my panties, and now cannot open.  Ah, life!  When I think how long ago it was that I walked that little path to the sea from the mountaintop in Torremolinos before anyone else had found it besides the young Richard Lester, that shit, who was staying with the Bill McGiverns, he the wonderful mystery writer, she the author of Seventeenth Summer, a Catholic classic, and their two beautiful little children, who prompted Bill to try and invent something called "STAY BABY."  A great idea, especially when I consider what has happened with mine.  Dick Lester told everybody he didn't have any money, letting everybody host and feed him, but when the car he got a lift in was burglarized in Madrid he said "I had four thousand dollars in there!"  He went on to become the director of the Beatles' movie, highly successful, and I would bet no better a person.  My personal rancor comes from not the fact the was a liar, but my initial seducer, who, as he climbed into bed, said "I'll close my eyes and try to pretend it's someone I like."  A swell guy.

     But not as grim an histoire as Anita's.  Sometimes I think women are given the stories they have because they have more courage than men.  Anyone can fight a war.