Desert Dessert
Reform
Living
storms
To which we conform
Merely await updating
A bunch of mine
Buried in confinement
Until confections arrived
Desert
dessert
Deserting
former nonsense
In favor of
Reruns
Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise! ~Gomer Pyle by Jim Nabors from Gomer Pyle: USMC
Once upon a time, a young gal of twenty-four took a gamble and ran off from her then two-year stint in California to be a Vegas show girl for five months. Nah, not the can-can legs-flipping kind. I’m referring to the other realm of brightly lit movie biz entertainment industry people hired as crew to bring flicks to cinema-worthy arousal. In this case, the greedy mob meets romance titled Casino, based on Pileggi’s book that Scorsese chose to adapt for the screen. Only, there was a catch for me accepting the Production Secretary gig in that I’d have to “work local” as they call it. Meaning, my agreement didn’t include the usual housing perks for employment in a different state. Still, it was an opportunity too valuable to let slide. So, I’d managed to cobble together to find that a distant, as in then barely known to me, mom’s family for the win connection resided near the strip. He graciously offered me a spot in his home.
Have I drawn enough attention yet to the fact this was in VEGAS, the land of debauchery? As well, that oh-so-obvious era of assumed maturity? Whose age actually falls more standard in the camp of constant partying and nightly customary company alcoholic sprees that everyone somehow thought supported our average fourteen-to-seventeen-hour shooting schedule shifts. While my sleeping quarters hustle wasn’t alone, as I’d begun to learn that my charitable cousin was in the throes of separating from his German wife and practicing his tippler skills at a similar binging rate. If wacky nostalgia serves me correctly, I recall us both emitting plenty of drunken blurs (not a typo) and perhaps a few naked encounters taking turns hugging the shared toilet. Whether for protection or purpose of the innocent to any that could be accused, my memories remain foggy at best.
Chasing dragons with plastic swords ~A Change Would Do You Good by Sheryl Crow
What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas. Although I trust that nothing nefarious ever occurred between the two of us, I did depart partially with scores of shame. Hoping that he wouldn’t spread rumors to my kin about my abominable actions. Embarrassed by what my male cousin perceived of my behavior, I deliberately didn’t maintain contact. Now, forward with me three decades to an ode to a wondrous soul, à la relatives reunion, to honor a recently passed loved one. When across the room one afternoon, bounds a most personable and fit man raring to chat me up. One of the finest feelings in the world is when someone openly tells you how you helped save their life, as you face them grinning inconceivably that you believe they made the rest of your prominent VIP career possible due to that exact same overlap! I swear that if cousin Mike hadn’t sheltered me for those Marty days, I’d never have gotten so far on my filmdom ladder.
My fifties keep doling out ruminative wisdom doozies. The amount of unresolved coming cleanness is quite extraordinary. Retrospectively, one of the coolest things that I’m finally fully beginning to understand is the ways that we tie ourselves to these concrete opinions that are entirely malleable. Equally, as we grow and our bones settle, so do many of our minds. What before resembled idiocy, and not that it wasn’t, might presently range endearing. In complete story sweetness disclosure, the whole reason that my long lost cousin and I were given to our sentimentally honest flashbacking was for the Tucson celebratory memorial gathering of another mutual cousin O’Hara Fleming. A rather devil-may-care character herself, I’m convinced she had a hand in this reparation. I’ll bet everything in my bank account that any of us has tons of chances ongoing to renovate what we’ve allowed to fester inside of our brains. Of all the cardinal sins, I think missing juicy pivots is a big one.
May your roundabouts be such blessed bouts.
