The Artist


White, button-down, pique blazer and cropped, tapered pantsuit by Anna Huling.

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Organizing a Past

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ORGANIZING A PAST. Bathing and helping my wife in the bathroom is nothing that ever comes easy, but it’s a breeze in comparison to the task of organizing her dresser. This is what they call a “Fiddle Box” in Alzheimer’s parlance. Even a full-time caregiver is limited to what can be done with a person who has lost the ability to focus. The Fiddle Box is a place a patient can be left alone to spend hours screwing things up without doing much harm. For Anna, this is an altar at which she stands endlessly moving bits of her life around willy-nilly; expensive jewels, gloves of Spanish leather, scarves from India. My wallet is missing of a sudden, so this is one of those times when order must be restored and to do so is to pass through our life together. There are a thousand garments in different storage places around the apartment. I am trying to liquidate but can’t bring myself to throw away anything she designed. Anna was a prolific fashion designer. She not only had her signature Anna Hu...
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SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER ONE - DAY SEVEN - July 11, 2019

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Pet Store on Washington Blvd. Anna and I tried our luck with rush hour in L.A., by slipping out at 4:45. It worked. In under half an hour, we cruised to home court - Marina del Rey - where the waves were not good. When you are surfing frequently, as we are this summer, it’s not the end of the world if you get a bad day. There will be others, soon. So I swooshed around for an hour, getting in touch with my board, thinking of Bruce Lee’s words: Tacos "al pastor." “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water…if you put water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.” I caught two waves, which is one more than any surfer is asking for. You don’t want to get shut out. If there aren't always good waves, there are always street tacos and we tried a stand at a desultory spot where Sepulveda and Palms intersect. It didn’t have the clean, colorful Mexican feel our prior streateries did, but it’s street tacos. You gotta take a ch...
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THREE SURFIN’ SAFARI SUMMERS: In the summer of 2019, three years after my wife Anna Huling-Siciliano was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, it became clear that I was losing her. Time was precious, health precarious, money short, and I decided to mine the riches of Southern California and launch a defiant series of regional Surfin’ Safaris as health-driven, couple-shared adventures out of the mausoleum our home had become. As a family we’d always been beachgoers and it seemed a safe bet for my wife who was slowly losing her mind. She could sit on a blanket - as she always had - while I surfed. Things didn't work out to be so neat and clean, but that's the story. Reporting being of a second nature to me, I concocted Facebook posts after each outing through which I intended to keep friends and family apprised of Anna’s condition, and to put them at ease about her quality of life (ie; how I was treating her). Of course, others could read the posts, which were grouped under the ti...
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