It’s about a month since my last entry and it feels a little strained writing to you. I have had a number of false starts and as I write now, those disparate beginnings are a couple of spaces below this line and getting pushed lower on the page. I don’t want to erase them just yet because they are a caution sign for me.
It will not shock you to know that I don’t get paid for this, so there is no one I need to please, other than myself and you. I swear I’ve got no idea where this writing thing has come from. It is some kind of urge that surfaces wherever I happen to be and sometimes it flows out and other times, I’ve got to work it hard.
My several weeks in Tuscany felt so rich; sitting at the keyboards each day was like composing a love story to life. Until someone pays me to be a personality-driven, travel writer, the majority of my time is right here on Kauai, sitting at my desk, where I always take my first step on the page. It’s a triangular shaped, computer desk that wedges into a corner. My music is always on, effortlessly dancing all around my very eclectic, 150+ stations on Pandora. I never use the headphones, even though they sit at the ready, preferring to have sound fill the room and not my head. Rocky, my marble mentor, sits off to the right, visible above the screen. Some of my dear friend, Ken’s ashes are white flecks, artfully displayed inside a solid glass, ball, painted with several swirls of colors. I am glad it is hidden behind the screen because I don’t think he would want you to see him this way. I keep forgetting to take it out on my kayak and drop it in the ocean.
I got to say a quick thing about loss. I met Ken in the late Sixties, when we were pages at NBC. I would take the F train from Queens College to 30 Rock, where I was an usher at the Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson (Google it, kids). Wait, I definitely don’t want to detour to that time in my life, I just want to say a quick word about my friend. Ken was a talented actor and he went off to star on Broadway in his early 20’s and was a working actor his whole life. I was already writing my memoir to my grandson, Halloween in Portland, when we reconnected decades later. We had a great phone relationship and I loved speaking with him. He was a huge fan of my writing and I can’t even begin to tell how you much it meant to me. When he died, I lost a guy, who had become very dear to me. It hurts terribly to think about him. You learn to live with loss, but there is no cure. I miss you, Ken.
My little sack of lavender sits quietly off to the right of Ken, resting on a yellow pad and keeping company with some pens. I remember the moment I smelled lavender, when walking around the grounds of Castello di Casole in the Tuscan country side. I was out in the morning sun, taking photographs for my blog post and I was suddenly kidnapped by the scent and looked down at a platoon of manicured shrubs. This sack was delivered to my room, part of the exquisitely packaged laundry from room service. Every so often, I reach for it, slowly close my eyes, breath in deeply and remember how luxurious it all felt just a few months ago.
Windows sit on my left and right, although my attention is always off to my right because sunlight moves across this side and I have a great view of the sky. It is where I keep a bunch of photos, resting on the ledge.
I am sure I’ve mentioned too often that this writing thing of mine began in earnest when I decided to write my story for my grandson. Everything I write is for him and let me tell you, it keeps me pretty goddamn honest. Ultimately, knowing that he will eventually read even this story, makes me want to dig as deep as I can and avoid bullshit. Whenever I look up from the screen, I glance over to see his beautiful face, reminding me to reach inside for the language that only the heart can speak. He is joined by some pix of two young brothers I befriended on their visit to Kauai. They remind me that sharing myself in my words are the foot prints I leave behind, my incredibly modest stab at immortality. Three hundred years from now, The Feinstein Legacy Papers will surface in an ancient thumb nail drive, salvaged from flooding caused by the Great Arctic Melt.
As I have been writing, the top has gotten a little further from this line, but I am still just as close to the series of false starts, the same couple of spaces that are just as close as they were at the beginning. They serve as a reminder of what I don’t want to write to you about. The piece I wrote a month ago about Kevin Spacey and my own experience slid me a little too close to writing about the big stuff going on. I even came up with a title for my next story, Surreality. I was going to begin sharing my outrage at the sheer insanity of this moment, a shit show of epic proportions. I began writing and it didn’t take long to realize these are not my foot prints and I didn’t want to become part of the herd of opinion, lost in the noise.
I am glad we have had an opportunity to catch up a little. At this point in my life, everything gets prism’d through my age. I want to take advantage of my experience and not my knowledge, primarily because I haven’t gotten any smarter, but my own history gets richer with time.
I have an idea for the next piece and I will think about it for a while.