On the other side of my life, I’ve been in and out of those depressions we talked about before. There’s something terrifying about pulling up all your stakes and moving to new territory. Some days you admire yourself for your spunk and courage; others, you wake up in the morning thinking, God, what am I doing here? And there’s the constant question of what to do with the rest of your life. Looking down the corridor of months and years that you hope are still left, you have to wonder sometimes, How am I going to walk all that way? You ask the question no matter where you are, but it goes deeper when you’re far from home and can’t lose yourself in a familiar culture and years-old daily routine. Or else I’m only being self-indulgent.

Sweet Weber has been very good about sending over books he thinks I’ll like. Lots of novels and collections of poetry. I’m amazed at how he finds the time to read with the schedule he keeps. One poet he likes very much and has now addicted me to is Charles Simic. Listen to this, from a poem called “Evening Talk”:

Everything you didn’t understand

Made you what you are. Strangers

Whose eyes you caught on the street

Studying you. Perhaps they were all-seeing

Illuminati? They knew what you didn’t,

And left you troubled like a strange dream…

That’s how I feel so much of the time, especially when I’m depressed. There must be people around who know the big answers. If I could just find them I know they’d help in a million ways. Is that silly? Is it silly to think someone’s out there who’ll know just the right thing for me to do to find love and small peace? Sounds optimistic, yet I never think of myself as an optimist.

In one of Weber’s early poems (which I’ve also been rereading), he wrote, “When we’re old and held above the earth only by the hammock of our memories.” But what kind of memories will we have if we don’t live fully right now? How come so many old people look shriveled not only by age, but also by hate and failure and disappointment? And how did you, my best friend, end up with a good man who loves you and a healthy child? Was it only luck, or living correctly, or was there something else going on?

I went to dinner at the Easterlings’ the other night and had a terrific time. I like them. Both have a sense of calm and solidity that’s deeply reassuring. And they’re funny! They told stories that cracked me up and I swore to write them down so you could enjoy them too.

Maris’s first. Apparently her father was a grade A bastard and the whole family lived in fear of him. Lots of slaps in the face, mean punishments, speak only when spoken to—that sort of bully. Our dad the shit. Mealtimes were always silent unless Dad had something to say or asked you a question. Even when they were eating, the children would keep their heads down because just raising their eyes and looking at him was an act of defiance as far as he was concerned.

One night the fam sat down to dinner at the regular time, but Dad wasn’t home yet, which was very unlike him. About ten minutes later he walked in, looking as if he’d been bitten by a snake or had had a religious experience. His eyes were as big as hubcaps and his hair stood straight out from his head. His lips were wet and his hands were shaking. It was so strange to see him this way that Maris couldn’t resist asking what had happened. “I was just struck by lightning!” The guy had been walking down the street when it started to rain, and suddenly a bolt zapped down and sizzled him on the spot. But he was so awful that even lightning couldn’t kill him! It’s a terrible story, but Mans described him as such a skunk, and living with him such a reign of terror, that when I heard what happened and what he looked like that night at their dinner table, I laughed.

Later we were talking about high school and Walker said he knew a woman who went to a big gala party at the Palladium in New York for Liza Minelli. All the chic’y-mickeys were there in their finest and the place was really hopping. Scene scene scene—meet you at the bar. That sort of party.

After she’d been there a while, this woman had to go to the ladies’ room. She found a toilet, did her thing, then stood at a sink putting on fresh makeup. A very beautiful woman wearing a tight, tight dress and looking totally glamorous came up next to her and started staring.

“Birgit Thiel! My God, it’s you!” Birgit looked over at this goddess at the next sink but didn’t recognize her. Not at all. To help her out, the other squealed, “It’s me, Richard Randall! Don’t you remember? Mill Valley High School, class of ‘Eighty-six? We were in drama class together!”

It took old Birgit about a solid red-hot minute of staring and disbelieving and remembering to realize who she was listening to. When she did, she almost went into meltdown. Richard Randall had been a little nerd in the class no one ever noticed. Now Richard had become Rochelle and looked like a Las Vegas sex goddess. Our girl was trying to regain her balance and gravity in a world that had suddenly gone weightless, while Rochelle rattled on, wanting only to reminisce about the time they were in Oklahoma together. Wouldn’t you have loved to be there, watching the whole thing?

Some people have to be struck by lightning; others cut up their bodies to make change happen. I was much luckier. I only had to look at my life to see I loved no one, had no passion for anything, didn’t care what happened today or tomorrow or next week. You asked why I left all that and came here. Now that I’ve thought about it like this, I think the answer’s kind of easy. Life has to have some geography. Color, mountains, variety… If not, you’re just living on the moon or out in the desert. When you watch those nature documentaries, you learn that only the weirdest, most sturdy lizards and bugs can survive where it’s either hot or cold and never anything else. That’s not me. Perhaps what I realized most of all was that I was losing my geography, whatever richness I had inside. No, wait a minute: maybe what I realized was I was becoming one of those nasty little desert bugs who spend days digging endless tunnels into the sand.

Enough of this.

Ciao, Main—

Arlen

Dear Rose,

Here it is, the end of May and I haven’t written you in too long. Please forgive. The truth of the matter is, I’ve been in a funk for weeks, and no matter how many Sacher tortes or glasses of new white wine I drink, I can’t seem to get over my self-inflicted bruise. Part of it resulted from a big mistake I made after writing to you.

When I retired and moved here, I swore I would not “be” Arlen Ford anymore, not the Arlen that people knew me as. Oh, sure, once in a while someone stops me on the street to ask for an autograph, and that’s nice, but otherwise I don’t want it. I recently rented an old Tony Curtis film, The Great Imposter, and watched it with the greatest longing. The character fakes his way through many different lives and professions and gets away with almost every one because he’s so good at what he does. People don’t question his authority. I know it’s naïve of me to ask, but why can’t we stop living a certain way and simply change direction without being brought to task by others? I know it sounds bratty, but I do not want to be an actress anymore; it left me empty and hugely unhappy, and the time came when I realized I wasn’t a person as much as a personality. Acting is a wonderful profession, especially when you’re successful, but is it ungrateful to say I’ve had enough of it and want to do something else now? What? What do I want to do? Unfortunately, I don’t know yet, but it took me half my life to decide I wanted to be an actress. Maybe it’ll take the other half to decide what’s next. In the meantime, the past sticks like something ugly on the bottom of my shoe.