So much has happened in a month…I’ve had little time or energy to devote to writing. I barely finished last week’s Artist’s Way assignments. But a lot of other commitments have taken precedence, not all of them happy ones.
I began my last post writing about the news of Iris’s passing and the course-altering impact it had on me. It was only because of her that I began working my way through the book at all. This month I was confronted with the untimely deaths of not one but two wonderful young men under the age of thirty. One was the son of my friend Peg from work. He and I had never met, but she always spoke of him with glowing pride, and as if they were best friends. Kirby was an accomplished exhibition skydiver, killed when a practice landing went wrong. He was all of 27.
The other was the son of Lynn, a woman from whom I rented a room eight years ago when I needed to escape from my apartment (situated over two ex-cons who fought loudly and violently). I lived for a year with Lynn and her then-teenage son in a small two-story 1930s house in West City Park. Lynn ran an almost entirely sustainable household: we recycled everything, flushed sparingly, composted, and hung our wash out to dry. Her son Mike was a tousle-haired, good-looking blue-eyed boy with an easygoing and affable manner. He provided a welcome counterpoint to his mom, who could be anxious and high-strung. Unfailingly polite and even-tempered, at sixteen he looked and acted years older. When we met for the first time, I think we were both a little taken aback and even a touch infatuated; there was a shyness and a subtle embarrassment between us as we shook hands and made conversation. Later we would become familiar and comfortable with each other, watching DVDs and eating our respective dinners on the living room couch. We both became addicted to the first season of 24, making dates to watch this or that episode together when he was home.
So it was a cold shock to hear that Mike, now 23 (the same age as Sam, I realized with an odd feeling), had suffered a massive asthma attack while working on a remote farm in New Mexico, miles from a hospital, and had not reached adequate help in time. It can’t be, I thought. Not Mike. Not Lynn’s beautiful blue-eyed boy.
**
But it was true. It was all true. And I attended two memorial services in the span of just two weeks.
Both of which were strikingly similar — and unexpectedly celebratory. Both featured slide shows set to music and abundant anecdotes supplied by friends and relatives. More impressively, what emerged about both Kirby and Mike was that they were tremendously admired by their friends, family, and peers as leaders who pursued their passions courageously and encouraged others to do the same. Kirby jumped out of airplanes on a weekly basis; Mike rode rapids, hiked mountains, and traveled out of the country alone at the age of eighteen. Laughter competed with tears as participants told hilarious tales of one-liners and pranks perpetrated by each of these mischievous boys. It occurred to me that Kirby and Mike would probably have liked each other very much.
More than ever, I was reminded of the old carpe diem, seize the day. “I’d rather die in the pursuit of my dreams than live without them,” I told a work friend after Kirby’s service. Even if I never get where I want to go, I have to believe that I’m moving toward it. I have to keep taking small steps every day, or at least every week. The black cloud of depression that used to engulf me held within it a sense of just biding time until the end, of having given up hope. It was while living with Lynn and Mike, full of despair one night about my poverty and my lack of achievement — feeling stuck in my dead-end job, living in someone else’s house — that I very nearly downed a cocktail of painkillers and muscle relaxants. It may have been my lowest point in a twenty-five-year period of low points. (Mike was a bright spot in that dark time.)
Cynics would say I’m fooling myself in order to feel better…but which is preferable, honestly?
**
Self-belief and courage are more than half the battle, or so saith Julia Cameron. Through The Artist’s Way (and thanks to another departed friend with a zest for life, Iris) I am in the process of recovering both. As our astute friend from Down Under predicted I might, I have been further distancing myself from my family of origin in an act of (artistic) self-preservation. My “morning pages” — the three pages I now write every morning without fail — have revealed the extent to which I’ve let the dread of their inevitable disapproval thwart my every aspiration. (A mock article in The Onion perfectly encapsulated my adult life rather pathetically with the headline “Man Waiting Until Parents Die Before Doing A Single Thing That Makes Him Happy.” It may sound like a gross exaggeration, but it was one more harsh wake-up call. My chronic underachievement and chronic singlehood do keep me under their radar.)
Another thing that has come up again and again in my morning pages is rage toward my mother, much of it having to do with the shame I inherited from her regarding my sexuality, particularly my decidedly robust appetite for men. Watching Black Swan, I both laughed and shuddered with recognition at Nina’s frilly little-girly bedroom, full of dolls and stuffed animals. My mother, like the unhinged Barbara Hershey character, would have loved to keep me in that room, metaphorically speaking, for the rest of my natural life. “What happened to my sweet girl?” I will love Darren Aronofsky forever for understanding the infantilizing that young women endure at the hands of overprotective and/or religious mothers, the parental (and sometimes cultural) mandate to remain thin-blooded Virgins at the expense of their vital, juicy Whores.
**
Now that I’ve mentioned both the phrase carpe diem and my robust appetites, I suppose it’s only natural that I should arrive at one of my favorite subjects: men, and my ongoing quest for The One. Because a great deal has been happening there as well.
I might start off by mentioning that one of my Artist’s Way activities (and quite possibly my favorite to date) was to make a “dream collage.” Using travel and lifestyle magazines purchased from a nearby thrift store, I cut out dozens of photos, including pictures of gorgeous sunny places in Europe and on the Mediterranean, happy couples (including an appealing man feeding a normal-sized woman in a disheveled bed), a woman meditating by the sea, another woman riding a bicycle in France, and of course some seriously tasty men (including a wryly smiling Johnny Depp). Most of the men were anonymous models from the pages of a Details fashion spread; I didn’t recognize them. When they were all arranged in a visually pleasing manner on a black posterboard, I sighed contentedly. The images gave me joy. And hope.
Around that same time I found myself wondering how my old friend Eli, the beautiful doctoral grad student, was doing — and whether he was still with that visually impaired girlfriend of his or not. Things had not been going well for them when I’d seen him several months ago. They were fighting; she wasn’t meeting his needs, if you know what I mean; he had gained quite a bit of weight in his lower body. He was wearing his straight brown hair long and pulled into a slick ponytail, which with the added bootyliciousness made him decidedly less attractive to me (although he still had “such a pretty face,” as they often say about heavier women patronizingly). Thinking of him now, I considered whether, even in his more hefty state, I might possibly offer him some relief…if Jessica had finally driven him away by continuing to starve him of what he was really hungry for. I did care about him, after all, and he was still far from unattractive. Even if he weren’t the One, I might be okay with some good old-fashioned friendly tomfoolery. I had needs, too. I proceeded to entertain a few possible scenarios in my head.
Exactly two days later I got a text from Eli out of the blue. “I was just wondering how you were. Want to meet for lunch this week?”
He always does this. I don’t know how he knows.
**
We set a date for Friday noon. On Monday, for my weekly “artist date,” I dressed up in a special-occasion velvet top and matching scarf just for the hell of it, and walked down to my old neighborhood to check out an art gallery I’d never visited. When I tried the door, it was locked. Walking away down the street, I heard someone call out after me. “Hey!”
A wiry brunet with disheveled hair, roughly my age, was grinning at me from the doorway. He had big sleepy brown eyes and a scruffy beard and was dressed in a holey, paint-spattered sweatshirt and jeans. His look fell somewhere between “homeless” and “adorable.” I turned back and came into the gallery.
The artist’s name was Nick, and he was clearly a gifted painter. His large acrylic canvases were abstract and expressionistic, layering a variety of brushstrokes in a skilled interplay of color and form reminiscent of de Kooning. I knew Greg, my GBF (gay boyfriend), a talented abstract painter himself, would love them. I wound up talking to Nick for almost two hours. He had been living very much on the edge lately, having no other means of income, but seemed utterly confident that he was going to make it. He mentioned that he was also a writer, so I wound up divulging my own artistic aspirations. He showed me some of the paintings he had in back, and was floored when I mentioned Jesus at the wedding in Cana while viewing a painting he hadn’t yet told me featured the Sangre de Christo (Blood of Christ) mountains.
The whole space was practically vibrating with a sort of breathless and intoxicated energy. I found myself giggling a lot. Nick kept apologizing for talking too much, and said that I had a way of drawing him out. My eyes darted surreptitiously over his spare, compact frame when he looked away; he was just the sort of lean, hard, and veiny that makes my mouth water. I wanted to just sink my teeth into him, devour him on the spot. (My “scenarios” that night certainly didn’t lack for excitement.)
When I brought Greg back with me the following week (and yes, he did love those paintings), he was abruptly called away by a friend with a broken leg who needed assistance. Nick and I were left alone for about an hour. “Is he your boyfriend?” Nick asked, as if he dreaded the answer.
I could have danced for joy at the tone and the nature of the question. For once in my life, I could tell a guy I actually liked was interested! I was more than happy to inform him that Greg was gay and my best friend.
Greg called me from the car while Nick and I were talking — I didn’t hear the phone ring — and left me a message that made me laugh uproariously in front of Nick. “I’m on my way back now,” he said, “unless you two are having sex.” I didn’t tell Nick why I was doubled over. He looked a little crestfallen.
I haven’t been back to see Nick since that night, but I friended him on Facebook. I don’t think either he or the gallery has a phone; he’s that poor. If I want to see him, I have to go over there. And as I mentioned, I’ve had other things going on…
**
Eli and I met at my favorite nearby Thai restaurant. Walking in the door, I spotted him — his fine hair shorn to a far more flattering length, a day’s stubble on his face. He looked a lot sexier than last time, if still uncharacteristically thick.
Eli had two big pieces of news: first, that he had given up on his history Ph.D, and quit his ten-year amended and revised (and at this point loathed) dissertation. Second, that he was finished with Jessica. The relationship was good and dead. The love was gone, and they both knew it. He hadn’t officially ended it yet, however, because he still had “a lot of projects to finish around the house.”
Eli didn’t understand why this made me erupt into helpless laughter. He looked almost wounded until I explained that I found his sense of responsibility unbelievable. He had already filled me in on his current “job” taking care of his elderly grandmother, for which his family offered to pay — offending him in the process. He didn’t see why he should be paid for doing something he was already glad to do for his family. (Do you recall my mentioning that he also looks after his disabled mother?) Honestly, Eli is like no man I’ve ever met. He’s a caretaker, effortlessly assuming the role traditionally expected of the women in a family (on pain of being considered “selfish” otherwise). Of course I didn’t know any of this about him last year, when I jumped to conclude that he was exactly the kind of arrogant misanthrope I knew all too well.
Over Pad Thai and Panang curry, I listened while Eli further unburdened himself. He was having a crisis about having to enter the “real world” job market now and find some soul-crushing administrative or customer service position he really didn’t want. I argued on behalf of creative entrepreneurship and unconventional vocations; Eli felt he had to make decent money “because I want to travel.” This revelation made me pause for a second. No, he still wants to live here, I told myself. His family is here. He was very clear about that. Aloud, I maintained that there were all kinds of ways to travel on the cheap, and reminded him about my stay at Centro.
Toward the end of the meal I started talking more about my own life, actually gushing a bit (as is my wont these days) about my sunnier lease on life since the twenty-five-year cloud cover lifted — how learning to practice the art of simple presence and silence the torturous mental chatter had been so instrumental to my healing.
“Now you sound like Eckhart Tolle,” said Eli with a smile.
“You’ve read Tolle?” I gasped.
He had. In Cairo, during grad school. He had been in the midst of a painful breakup and undergoing chemotherapy (did I mention Eli successfully fought cancer, in his 20s, in a foreign country?) when he picked up a copy of Practicing the Power of Now at an English-language bookstore. And he began to try to practice it. “I got to the point where I did have these moments of incredibly vivid perception and clarity,” he recalled. “I remember gazing at something purple, and having nothing in mind but this really amazing…purple.” He chuckled. “It was like being on drugs or something.”
Privately picking my jaw up off the floor, I mused that I was beginning to feel like a Jane Austen character. Could this diffident skeptic who seemed so prickly and elitist at first blush (and whom I had written off a year ago, for all of Elizabeth Bennet’s reasons) be my Mr. Darcy, after all?
**
We parted ways with a customary noncommittal and platonic hug that gave no intimation of what more intimate contact might feel like. Shortly thereafter, I met up with Greg at our favorite coffeehouse for an impromptu debrief, and he came up with a brilliant unconventional career for Eli: leading history tours abroad. Greg’s roommate had gone on such a tour; apparently there was good money to be made at it. It sounded perfect: what a great way to combine Eli’s love of history, travel, and teaching with his foreign language skills! “And you could go along, of course,” Greg joked with an implicit wink and a nudge. Probably already envisioning our wedding. How I do love Greg. He’ll say out loud things I haven’t yet dared to think. It’s wonderful to have a friend who can both read your mind and be one hundred percent on your side. (Not to mention switch gears on short notice.)
A few days later I finally got around to buying a glue stick to affix those magazine images to the posterboard permanently. As I was pasting up photos of Rome and Sardinia and Athos and couples strolling in the surf, I reached for one of the male models, an intense-looking brunet with penetrating blue eyes and seductively parted lips. Looking at him again as if for the first time, I stopped dead. And then erupted into incredulous laughter.
Who do you suppose he looked like?
**
Eli and I exchanged a few emails in the days after that. In my last message, I informed him of Greg’s brilliant idea, and added, “If you like that, wait’ll you hear about my foolproof fitness plan.”
It was a teaser, and I feared he might have taken it the wrong way when I hadn’t heard back from him in almost three weeks. Was he affronted by my suggestion that he needed a fitness plan, or did he grasp the hidden innuendo and decide not to pursue it? Did he even think of me that way?
**
The morning after I finished writing all of this, I received an email from Eli. He had just unearthed an earlier message from me that had gotten buried in his spam folder. He apologized for not responding and asked me how I was doing. He must never have gotten the email about Greg’s Wonderful Plan For His Life either.
I don’t know what to do now, especially now that my schedule has settled down and I have time to visit Nick or turn more attention to Eli. I guess the risk you take with every choice or action — the risk I try to avoid — is making a mistake. But what’s the alternative? Stay in my room like a hermit? I’ve been there and done that. I have the spirits of two bold, adventurous young men haunting me with carpe diems…and two men who are very much alive prompting me to step out.
Contemplating my years of solitude and monastic simplicity, I was reminded of a Rumi poem I love, which reads very differently to me at this particular moment:
Someone who goes with a half a loaf of bread
to a small place that fits like a nest around him,
someone who wants no more, who’s not himself
longed for by anyone else.
He is a letter to everyone. You open it.
It says, Live.
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