Cogito, ergo I am more confused than ever

I was listening to an interview with Charlie Kaufman the other day. He is the scriptwriter of "Adaptation" and "Being John Malcovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

I enjoy his mind because it is a house of mirrors. Each one is reflecting himself. Which is him looking at himself ... which is looking at himself.

At one point during the interview, he made the statement, "It's hard being yourself." And that sentence really struck a chord with me.

It is, isn't it. I am constantly working hard to be myself. From small daily routines to larger matters of morality. From making sure I take my vitamins every morning to wondering what kind of person I am that would increase my pace toward a checkout counter and thereby cut off a mother with her full shopping cart.

I try to establish patterns of doing my daily 20-minutes exercise routine and possibly sitting for 15 minutes. And when I fall out of that habit, I berate myself. I say how can I be myself, when I can't even keep up a simple exercise routine?

But I berate myself even worse when I drink more than I write. Or when I don't write at all. "Who are you?" I ask myself. "What kind of person do you want to be? Do you really want to be the kind of person who wastes their one talent?"

Well, perhaps I'm not a writer, I answer back. If I was destined to be a writer, I would have written. Perhaps I am more just a business person. And a sailor. And just overall, a good person making his way through life.

The problem is, I don't dedicate myself to pursuing a business career anymore. Since I left journalism and manufacturing, I have wallowed, looking for direction. And the sailing life which I was embarked upon this past summer, lasted for two months. Now I am back in my house and wondering: Who am I?

As limiting as it often is, we generally define ourselves by our occupations. Right now, I don't have a full-time occupation.

Since I can't look to my occupation in search of myself, I need to define myself by other measures. But it raises existential angst to figure out what those others standards are.

Am I me because I think too much? Or am I asea and have no focused identity because I think in too many different directions and not enough in one single, linear way?

It's hard being yourself.

An Examined Life

Whew! I disappeared down the rabbit hole for a while. A few weeks ago, I decided to organize my study. This is a normal winter activity for me. All summer long, while I live outdoors, sailing, beach, hikes, family visiting, trips to the Cape. In the meantime, I just let stuff pile up in my study. My desk becomes a mountain range that rivals the Appalachian chain with crests of letters, photos, financial forms, articles I clipped, books, things "I'm definitely going to read," notes to myself on poems, story ideas, and just bits and pieces of everyday life. It gets to a point where I cannot see the wood of my desk. I put my coffee cup on stacks of paper. Even my mouse pad begins to end up on a pile of stuff.

Then there are the foothills of piles on the floor: Sailing magazines, books that "are definitely next," more folders, my daughter's doodles and scholastic stuff. And there is some bedrock too: A few stacks of books and folders that never found their own home on a shelf or in a file cabinet when I moved into this house seven years ago.

So, this winter I thought I would do more than the normal winter "clean the desk" mission. This was going to be the final assault. Mission Study Storm. Push all the way through to Baghdad. (Are we allowed to joke about this?)

Well, it is not a mission I recommend without prescription-strength drugs. I had no inkling of how psychologically tough this would be. A contributing factor to the depression which developed into a category 4 hurricane was being single. So, there are my warnings to others who might want to attempt this in their own homes.

The way to tackle a project like this conjures up the old joke. Question: How do you eat an elephant. Answer: One bite at a time. So, I picked up the first piece of paper. I needed to look at it and then decide what to do with it: file it? (I am an archivist who files almost all of the mail I get and send) or is it garbage? Okay, next piece of paper. A photo. Keep or chuck?

In this kind of mission, it is not acceptable to create another pile of "I'll deal with this later." Because that pile then just becomes another ridge of bedrock in my study. It's just bulldozing it from one place to another. This time, I was determined to take as many days as I needed to finally clear this land. So, the photo had to find a place in an album, or get scanned and put into a computer folder that was dated and labeled.

I noticed I was suddenly in a mine field, when I found myself in my open file cabinet. I guess I had ended up there because I was going to file something and came across a file of yellowing college papers. "Chinese literature?" Did I really still need that? That file got chucked. But now it was too late: I couldn't just walk a straight line back out of this file cabinet. I had to finish clearing this particular corner of my study before I could get out of the file cabinet.

Now you can see how labyrinthine this project became.

But so far, we are just talking about grunt work. Trudging through the fields of history. So far, we are just talking about (to borrow from Tim O'Brien's short story) "the things that I carried" for so long and needed to be filed. So far, we not talking about taking fire.

The first slugs, you absorb pretty easily. A file with my divorce papers. Then a file with some legal papers from a previous relationship. Then the mortar rounds begin to surround you: Letters from this past love; a poem written for a relationship that burned both me and her. An envelope with a CD and cassette tape of an affair that didn't have enough air to breath, but couldn't die either.

Remember that this is page by page, item by item, so by this time, I am three days into this war. By this time, I have already shredded a couple reams of past personal records that no longer have any significance to me or the IRS. I have created heaps, (perhaps ten reams) of paper that is lifeless to me and needs to be buried en masse in a dumpster or recycling.

But it gets to a point where I just couldn't bring myself to look at one more piece of my history. Do I slash and burn? I was tempted.

Suddenly all time became distorted. I lost emotional perspective and all relevance lost its focus. If this were a battle scene in a movie, this would be the time, when the sound goes silent. You see the explosions, you see the open, shouting mouths of others, you see the grand destruction, but it is silent and I rise and walk calmly among the cacophony of my study, -- which before this began was just heaps of stuff in piles, but now is a distributed carpet of history spread out beyond my study: onto kitchen counters, dining room table, living room coffee table, couches -- I walk among it and finger the lighter as perhaps a soldier might suddenly think about this gun as a friendly nurse who, in a calm voice, is offering a simple solution to all this.

We all grow up with a simple vision. A career. A home somewhere. A marriage. Perhaps a family. But generally, one picture. One journey. Something that has continuity and cohesiveness.

I began to understand early on in my life, that my life was more varied. My parents' divorce split my world in two. Then moving to Germany when I was ten split it again. Moving back to the states split me from family and friends again. That first early love split my heart in two. But even with all that, I could accept that my life as a whole, was whole. It was still one journey. And even after my first seven-year relationship ended, I had a sense of direction in my life. Then came a marriage, a child, a divorce, the ending of one career, and the dissolution of the next. Another five year struggle to find peace within a relationship conceded to failure.

And here I was: Going through each of these pieces of my life.

Suddenly my life did not feel like a grand picture -- a continuous heroic, Joseph Campbell struggle.

It felt like all I had were these puzzle pieces. Pieces that never really fit together. To throw away any one of them is to deny that all of them have their equal place in my past. How to decide which ones to keep and which ones to let go of?

In the middle of it all, the posse came to my rescue. Joel sensed the desperation in my voice and told me to leave the battle scene and spend a few days with him in Boston. I did and it was needed rest. When I came back, I had strength again. I went back at it with cold-blooded determination.

I am pleased to report that I am 90 percent done now. I have taken a break for the last week. All my past is filed away for who-knows-what; posterity? The things that are left are writings that I have left in half-completed stages. Poems, short stories, novels, freelance articles. Do I put the stack on my desk and work through them methodically? Ha! Just kidding. You know that's not me. But if I file them away, they will never have the hope of completion.

So, the process begins again. There is a pile on my desk of folders with beginnings in them. But now, when I walk into my study, I feel like I can breathe again. It is a joy to come in here and feel "clean."

I don't have any grand insight into any of this. The depression of being amidst blown apart pieces of my past has passed. But I don't have any profound lesson from that process. In fact, if anything, it has made me aware -- more painfully than I had ever realized before -- that I am a bit of a Frankenstein. My life is stitched together.

Thanksgiving

In no particular order of importance, I am thankful for the following in my life:

1) Zoe. Ok, I said no particular order of importance. So, I lied. What can I say? She's my daughter.

2) I got to do a cross-country motorcycle trip on the best bike God ever designed (and allowed BMW to build.) A K1200RS. I only wiped out once, had my bike vandalized once, and got a speeding ticket for doing an unmentionable speed, BUT no damage to any bone in my body.

2) I got be a deckhand on a schooner for summer in Maine. We'd take on a dozen or so passengers, leave for six days of harbor- and cove-hopping, then return for 24-hour shore leave and do it all over. I'm thankful that the worst part of that whole experience was losing the straw-pull with my fellow deckhand. The stakes: having to unbolt the head after a passenger had, uh, used it, and couldn't flush it down. I had to dump it overboard, clean it, and reassemble. Well, at least now I know how to do it if it ever happens on my boat.

3) Four high school friends and I piled in a VW van and tooled around Greece for five weeks, camping by rivers and on beaches. For three days I laid with a high fever at our camp on the beach. And when we got back, my mother said, "I told you before you left that there was a deadly virus going around that killed several young people!" Oh yeah, that's right; she did. We forgot. I am thankful I had such a good time and it wasn't spoiled by my death.

4) I am thankful that I got to play regularly on the Alice in Wonderland bronze sculpture in Central Park when it was still so big that it took both of my hands to hold onto Alice's extended finger. I have gone back and it appears that sculpture is still a favorite with kids, but it has shrunken significantly.

5) It took me ten years to achieve my dream of owning a weekly newspaper. I ran it for five years with my then-wife. I am thankful that I was at such a helm of tremendous community influence and responsibility and no one egged our house even once.

6) I have known true love. I am grateful that I have gotten beyond the period in my life in which I didn't think I ever would again. (Did a lot of damage in those years; to myself and to others.)

7) I got to grow up in Germany and get an international perspective on how arrogant and ignorant America is.

8) I got to live in America and get perspective on how pedantically bureaucratic and emotionally constipated Germany is.

9) I sailed straight east on the Atlantic ocean for nine days. We were so far out that we were completely dependent on ourselves. The part I am thankful for, is that the seasickness subsided after the first 48 hours. And that we had GPS to find Bermuda.

10) For seven years, I got to be a Captain of Industry when I took over my father's manufacturing company. I had the complete playset. The factory, 150 workers. International deals. Business trips all over the place. And then I got the accessory kit too: the sports car, the, um, lifestyle, (that means women.) But seriously, it was hugely satisfying to grow a company (which I -- perhaps unfairly -- had always criticized as purely capitalistic) in such a way that the employees enjoyed it, and the banks were impressed. But the part I am really thankful for: when it all tanked, I never missed any part of that. Not the money, not the fast and loose lifestyle. I am thankful my parents taught me that materialism is not what makes you happy.

11) Twenty years ago my partner at the time and I went over to new friends' house for a get-to-know-each-other dinner. The guy of the other couple and I ended the evening in a two-hour long argument over art and capitalism that ruined the couple dating thing before it even got off the ground. I am thankful that he and I haven't stopped arguing since. For the latest on what riles me, click on his link above my profile.

12) I am white. Financially secure. Live in America. That is to say, as much as anyone hates to admit it, I am thankful that I belong to the oppressor class. Oh yeah, I am male too. But I am not convinced that we are the superior gender. Just brute force that's kept us there until now. Two three generations from now? Beware, my sons.

13) I am not allergic to coffee, chocolate, stinky cheeses, Hungarian salami, olives, and wine. I am grateful for the last one in particular.

13a) I wanted to make a smart-ass remark and say that I am thankful that I am not addicted to any of the above either. But that is not true. In fact, it has just taken an enormous amount of self-discipline to step back from being an alcoholic. (I am hesitant to use that word, but what else can you call it when you used to get drunk every single day that God let the sun shine on this beautiful earth?)

14) I have lived so many lives in my time. Seen so many countries. Lived as a scholar among books and as a woodsman in a hunting camp. Rural and urban. So many jobs, divergent careers. Wealthy and poor. Drunk and sober. From school drop-out to best-in-class. With dogs. With cats. Didn't care for the reptiles. Volunteered for a battered woman shelter and yet enjoyed my share of fun spanking. Motorcycles, VW camper van, sports car, sailboats to comprise a fleet, skis, rollerblades, banana-seat bicycle.

15) Some people are born with musical ability. I am tone deaf. Some have incredible mathematical minds. I need a calculator to count my fingers. I am not the rifle, but the shotgun: scattered and unfocused at times. But there has been one thing that I have been able to rely on as something I was good at in life. And that thing has sustained me in life. Helped me through tough times, and provided me with opportunities during the best of times. And that is writing.

I know I am more at home than most in the landscape of language. And I enjoy this landscape. The other day I was writing about a lack of homeland. Maybe this is my homeland. Words. Towering novels off there in the distant horizon which I have been threatening to ascend some day. But for now, here in the rolling hills of letters and essays, I am enjoying these rivers of thoughts. Every now and then a sentence will take me by surprise and sprout up, quickly branching out into a poem. And there are some low hills here too of short stories on whose summits I gain surprising insight into my own psyche.

I am grateful for being gifted with writing.

Fatherland, Motherland, Homeland

Natalie Merchant has a song called Motherland. It is an odd lullaby that I can't quite figure out.

Maybe it's simply because the singer can't figure out her feelings about her motherland. At times she calls her motherland "this wasteland, this terrible place." She turns her back on it and steels herself to show no emotion about leaving. And then, in the next breath, she begs her motherland to lullaby her to sleep.

"Motherland, cradle me, close my eyes, lullaby me to sleep. Keep me safe, lie with me, stay beside me, don't go."

I have been listening to that song every time I get into my car. Over and over again. "Motherland, cradle me..."

It is not coincidence that this song has captured my attention. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about where my motherland is. Where is my home?

I like to think of myself as a nomad. A pirate. A lone cowboy. One who needs no home. Belongs nowhere and therefore roams everywhere.

I remember being a teenager and listening just as obsessively to the James Taylor song "Sweet Baby James." I envisioned myself as that lone cowboy with nothing but a rolled up blanket on my saddle and someway to make coffee. At times it seemed real to me; that it would actually happen. As if I was having a glimpse into my future.

Maybe I am that lone cowboy now. Maybe not quite yet. I do have some freedom in being able to choose where I want to roam these days. But as with everything else in life, there is a cost. My cost is feeling that empty space where most people have a rich album of their homeland.

I grew up in Manhattan until I was ten. I and my three siblings spent almost every day of our lives in Central Park, which was only four blocks away. I loved it. And I am glad we moved away from that "wasteland, that terrible place." That place where we were trained to constantly be on guard for our safety. That polluted stink hole. Sometimes I have romantic dreams about returning for a year or two. I envision myself in a fifth floor walk-up in Hell's Kitchen writing on a typewriter.

Then I lived in Germany until I was 18. In Germany, the primary reference is fatherland. (German citizenship is determined by the nationality of your father.) When I left Germany, at 18, to live in Vermont, the transition was not easy. I missed the culture. My teenage friends and I talked about life and god and politics and what constitutes friendship. When I came to Vermont, the only topics were sports, cars, girls. Oh, and sports. Okay, well, there was girls *in* cars; that too. And sports. I missed Germany.

Now, only my stomach misses Germany for its food. That wasteland, that horrible place, that stink hole where, as soon as you step off the plane, you are choked by cigarette smoke. And practically the only thing for which you do not need a permit in triplicate stamped by three different bureaucrats, is smoking.

At night, sometimes I will dream I am not in bed, but in a plane heading back to Germany. I finally get to speak a language again that makes sense and have friends who mean it when they ask "How are you doing?"

The minute I arrived in Vermont at the age of 18, I felt my organs inside relax. They must have dropped by about an inch or two, and finally my lungs could breath deeply. Not just because of the clean air, but because of the views. And quickly I learned that nothing needs to happen quickly. I was in a car behind a car whose driver got to talking to a friend passing by. I sat there in shock as they talked through an entire green light and there wasn't a single honk from the line behind me.

I have lived here for 30 years now. And there isn't a week that passes in which I don't, at some point, look around, take in mountains, turning leaves, grazing deer, snow-capped peaks, sunsets over Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks, I look at one of these scenes and breath deeply and think or say out loud to whomever I am with: "I love it here. I am so lucky to live here."

In Vermont we say that Burlington is not Vermont. Burlington has a lot of "flatlanders" who have moved here. The rest of Vermont towns have had extremely small population fluctuations and thus are inhabited by families who have lived there for a century or two. One of the main differences of mindsets between Burlington and Vermont is that, after 30 of living in Vermont, Burlingtonians consider me a Vermonter. In the small rural town where I lived for five years and my daughter is now growing up with her mother, you are not a Vermonter until you have a few generations of your family in a local cemetery.

And that is how I feel. I feel to say that I am a Vermonter would be putting myself on a false par with the farmers who are dedicated to this soil which they work, and on which I only walk. And besides, I would feel it would be somehow disloyal to Manhattan. And a snub to Germany.

Perhaps, with a nod to John F. Kennedy, I need to say, "Ich bin ein Globaler." (Not a word that exists in any language I know, but it seems like it should belong in Esperanto.)

Perhaps all the wastelands I have ever experienced are actually just one single, horrible place. And my desire to be suckled on the nipple of a home is just the desire for a brief rest from life itself, wherever I find myself. And a reminder that life has much beauty left in it to feed my dreams.

"Cradle me, close my eyes, lullaby me to sleep."

Almost. I could almost fall asleep to that greater sense of home. But it is too much of a grand hall with too much of an echo for me to find rest.

Then, two days ago, an old friend (my first longterm relationship which ended 20 years ago) took me for a walk around a pond which I had never visited in all my years in Vermont. That walk solidified what had been simmering inside me for some time now.

We started on the pond's western edge in a field that was brown and firm from cold, but its wet spots were not quite frozen in this warm autumn. We could see a rise, Brigham Hill, on the far side of the half-mile-long pond. The low, shallow-mounded hill still wore a coat of muted colors, which was surprising for this time of year. We walked along board paths protecting the wetland from shoe-rutting. My friend saw a wild turkey retreat into the brush. And I half expected to be surprised at any moment by a pheasant exploding out from the underbrush and flying off.

From field we entered the woods onto a bare hiking path. Yellow brown poplar leaves carpeted the forest floor. As we curved the northern end of the pond, we hiked up through the inclined path between rock outcroppings forming the footings of Brigham Hill.

At odd turns in the path we would stop and point out to each other changes in landscape or vegetation. Look, now we are starting a gradual descent through firs on this east side of the pond. We rounded the southern belly of the pond, the end with the dam controlling its corpulence.

Back at the western edge, by the car, we looked back over the pond and surrounding woods. With pointed fingers along the landscape we traced the path we had taken. And then we both said, in so many words, the mantra I have been repeating for 30 years:

"I love it here. I am so lucky to live here."

I have to admit: I am not a "Globaler." I want a parochial, provincial, pastoral sense of belonging. I want a motherland. I want a very intimate, nipple sucking reassurance.

For many years now I felt this: I am a lost child. And Vermont is my adoptive mother who has taken me in.

I will leave Vermont again for periods of my life. I know that. I need that. I get too claustrophobic otherwise. But it feels good to have a motherland to come home to. If only adoptive.

"Close my eyes, lullaby me to sleep. Keep me safe, lie with me, stay beside me, don't go. Don't go."

The crucifixion of porn on my living room wall

If the statue of David were in my home instead of the Galleria dell'Accadamia in Florence, then ... well, then my house wouldn't be my house, but a museum.

And we will get to that point later. But first let me tell you what *is* in my home.

I have a large poster of "Woman in Sea" by Herb Ritts hanging in my study. It is a print of a black and white photograph, depicting a woman from behind standing in wind-rustled water. She is wearing a bikini bottom but no top. Her long hair hangs down her back, sleek and as one mass ending in a point.

It is certainly not pornographic. Some would say say it isn't even erotic. In fact, the only thing even suggestive about it is that we know her breasts are bare to the sea and that they could be to us if someday she would become three dimensional and turn around.

Never liking being defined or labeled, I sometime later decided to shake up the expectations (and sensibilities?) of visitors by acquiring a companion for her. I bought an equally large poster of "Fred with Tyres" by the same artist. Fred hangs on a perpendicular wall to the woman in the sea. Should she morph and turn while I am out of the house or sleeping, at least he will have the benefit.

Fred stands in a grimy, greasy garage and he is holding two tires, ready to sling them in a way that will remind us of Greek discus competitors. He is wearing baggy pants slung low on his waist and his naked upper torso is grimy to refract the garage, and it is muscled perfection to refract the Greek Olympians.

Again, not pornographic. Erotic only in its suggestion.

This essay is less about the age-old discussion about the difference between the two. (I find that discussion only intriguing between two people who are drinking wine and practiced in the art of flirtation by denial of acknowledgment.) Rather, this piece is about how much of either is appropriate to display in one's home.

Upstairs in my bathroom, I have a signed photograph by the photographer Trevor Watson. (Surprisingly enough I couldn't find an official website of his. But you can google his work.) Now here there is little debate. His art is erotic. His art is pornographic. The particular photograph I have is on the erotic end of his spectrum. It is taken from above a bubble-filled bathtub in which lies a woman whose arms lie crossed on the edge of the tub and her head is craned back to look into the camera. The only other body part revealing itself from the bubbles is her bubble but.

This discussion becomes apropo now because I am deciding what to do with three prints in which nudes are central to the content. My favorite is comprised only of nudes. It depicts a dreamy collage-type of many nudes, all intertwined. To me, it is as if they are a pod of intermingling mermaids. Then I look again and see they are individuals. No, the same woman in different instances of the same dream. They are various muses, why didn't I recognize that? Because you can't glorify splayed legs as anything else than base invitations to uninventive acts. This morphing vision of haunting, soothing images floods my mind whenever I look at the print. Which is why it attracts and inspires me.

Art should ask us questions.

And one of the questions this piece is asking right now is: Do I hang it in my house? Again, if this were a museum, then the answer is clear: Absolutely. It is okay to have what is arguably porn if not at least blatant erotica if your house is the Galleria dell'Accadamia. If I were an artist bachelor living in a loft in Tribeca, then why the hell not. It might even be the most tame among the more flamboyant works.

But I am not those. I am a man living in home in which I entertain (too rarely) a variety of friends who all have different values. From friends who wouldn't give two thoughts to this moral question and appreciate the print, to my second father who is old-school Italian. And though he might laugh, he would do so while shaking his head.

Does the work's provenance have any influence on this? Does it make a difference whether the artist is famous? How famous does the artist have to be for this question not to matter anymore? If the artist is Picasso, then there is no question. But what if I told you it was the product of my ever-stoned neighbor whose model was the junkie girlfriend he abused and then kicked out. Now we feel differently about the work.

Now we know the artist is a nobody; an abusive one at that. And we feel sorry for the model (or models.) The work's value is diminished. Regardless of its objective quality. We are ashamed to "tell its story."

The print is not the work of a drug addict. The print is a signed and numbered print (one of ten) by the artist Herbert Fink. A reproduction of the print appears in John Gardner's book The King's Indian.

And so now, its story is a good one to tell.

But the question is still being begged. Appropriate to hang this gaggle of naked girls?

What if I tell you that I have a twelve-year-old daughter who makes this house her abode every other weekend? Does that influence your opinion?

And perhaps this is, of all, the essential question. I have no problem explaining my tastes, both on a visceral level and on a philosophical one, to my peers. But how do I explain to a 12-year-old the differences between the values of this prude American society and my European appreciation of beauty?

I wish I had some answers with which to finish this entry. I don't.

I know what I am going to do. I am going to have the print framed and I will hang it. I think I will pick a less prominent spot, but I am not certain about that either.

And I am least certain about what I will say if my daughter asks about the picture. But I do know this: I feel to the depth of my being that there is nothing wrong with appreciating the body in the form it was created. And since that is at the core of my beliefs, I know I will come up with the right words to explain why I like it and why I hung it up.

Or maybe I will just direct her to this entry.

(PS: I don't have my camera with me, so I couldn't take a decent shot of the print. Click on the above pic and you will see a larger photo that I have from the print's appearance in Gardner's book.)

Falling glass

As a sailor of these emotional waters, I recognize the weather patterns.

It starts with a sensation that is similar to the day before you come down with a flu. Confusion about why everything seems confusing. Paying attention to traffic. Making decisions. There is a general pressure of distraction.

As I have gotten to know myself over my lifetime, I check my emotional barometer and can tell it is dropping rapidly. I have gotten used to checking the horizon. And there, indeed, are the clouds.

I understand the sources of these feelings. High pressure of dealing with my father's chemotherapy. Low pressure of heart ache. Ridges in between of shifting winds in my life. It is difficult to set a direction and hold it.

I can read these feelings as clearly as if they were outlined on a map. And yet, understanding doesn't change the weather.

I know what I have to do. I have to prepare ship. So, I shorten conversation. I close the hatches to myself. Those who know me, can make out my storm lights. Others become confused. I admit only to feeling a bit unwell; maybe it was something I ate. Maybe I am coming down with something. Maybe I just need a good night's sleep.

I am lucky in that I don't suffer the depression that requires drugs to dispel the clouds. Having the blues is what I prefer to call it. And I have lived long enough with myself to acknowledge these times and not try to fight them too much. Trying to plow through them with full sails is far more dangerous. One makes poor decisions and irrational comments when fatigued by foul weather.

Better to go below and sleep it out.

Swimming

For the last few nights, I have been talked into going for a swim in a pool adjacent to the Atlantic ocean. The reason it has taken some arm twisting is because my Dad's partner C goes swimming after dinner, in the dark, around eight or nine o'clock.

C talks me into joining her to keep her company and to keep her motivated. I acquiesce because I know she will enjoy the company and because I know I can use the exercise.

Recently, our weather here on the east coast of southern Florida has been dominated by the low pressure system Noel. It is in the Bahamas right now. Winds here in the Boca area have peaked at 50 and 60 miles per hour. During the day, it is around 35 mph, but today up to 40 and 45 mph.

During the days, our windows facing the ocean whistle. Today I got annoyed at the constant low-grade whine and C said, "Well, on the sailboat it would be the same." A humbling comment to a sailor.

At night, after dinner and a couple glasses of wine, the last thing in the world I want to do is go down to a pool and do laps. I hate laps. That's why I hate jogging and that's why I have never done laps in a pool.

But ... I go down with her.

Down at the pool, the wind ripples the water. Doing the breast stroke is not easy because wavelets lap against my mouth. And since C likes to swim for at least 45 minutes, after a while I begin to feel my neck cramping into its backed-up position.

Time to dive from one end to the other.

I suck in a satchel full of air into my lungs and duck straight and long into the water; my hands straight out ahead like the figurehead of my body's hull. And instantly:

Quiet.

Absolute quiet.

The wind is somewhere else, but not here in this dampened quiet. I have escaped the commotion. Here, down below, it is quiet.

I play with this quiet. I stroke long and full. And propel myself through it.

I come up for air and then dive under again. This time ... languishing. Hanging. Sinking, rising, floating.

Up for air again and then back down into the womb. This time gently "frogging" along, feeling the water glide off my thighs, wondering if the sensation is erotic or fetal, or in some perverse way: both.

Up for air again. And every time I come up for air, it is into the harsh wind. The rushing noise of urgency. The wavelets punishing my face for escaping.

I know there is something symbolic about all of this. I know it has to do with sleep and death and escape. For me, sex is an escape, and thus perhaps the association with the erotic feelings. Sleep is the only time we don't think we hear, and hence that association. And death, well, it is the ultimate escape.

The only reason I have to eventually come up to the surface is because my lungs cannot stand the lack of air. I try to push them. They heave in and out. And when they are doing that, I notice I am no longer enjoy the quiet, but struggling against it.

That is when I need to let the quiet go. And submit to the noise.

I'm dreaming of a bronze Sentinel

We should dream like Beethoven's Eroica but act like Glen Gould playing Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Dream grand. Act with deliberate subtlety.

This analogy came to mind during my decision not to buy the Sentinel; a statue by Leonard Baskin. It was grand to think of buying it. It was grand to think of how it might inspire me. But ultimately, I must act with more prudence.

I cannot afford it. Some might argue that I don't want to afford it. That I don't want to make any and all sacrifices necessary to afford it. Yes, I will agree even with that.

I am a renaissance man. I enjoy so many things in life. And I am mediocre at a number of skills. (My favorite movie scene is in Amadeus where Salieri is in the loony bin at the end and being wheeled around in a chair while he makes the sign of the cross in front of his fellow residents, saying "I absolve you of mediocrity.")

I am not the arrow: I don't want to be doing just one thing in my life and sacrifice all else for that. I used to think I did. I used to think I wanted to be the publisher of a small town weekly newspaper until it was time to wrap me in it. But after five years, my soul felt trapped by that life and I needed something new.

I used to think I could be a novelist some day. But I didn't have the emotional stamina or determination or perhaps peace of soul to commit myself to the requisite self-incarceration to pursue that.

For seven years I took over my family's manufacturing company and was Captain of Industry to 150 employees and $10 in sales. It was grand fun. Thank god we went bankrupt on the shoals of globalization and cheap Chinese imports. Thank god, because if not, I would have had to one day admit that even such fun would be routine.

I am not made for routine nor the single task.

If I were, then perhaps I would be the quiet, steady artist that would make all sacrifices necessary to buy the Sentinel, set him on my study shelf, like Poe's raven, and write as well as he, and do nothing else; nevermore.

But as it is, I want to circumnavigate the Atlantic with my sailboat. I want to see more performances by Cirque du Soleil. I could see myself tempted to get a motorcycle again some day. I want to see more of America, like the Badlands. I want to eat unusual food in distant cities. I think about overcoming my fear of scuba diving. I imagine that a hot air balloon ride over the flaming fall mountains of Vermont would be amazing. I want to be able to afford college and presents for my daughter.

All this will take money that I am unwilling to sacrifice in exchange for a bronze statue.

Baskin will have to be my Eroica. And the rest of my interests my Goldberg Variations.

Inspiration

Yesterday, Joel and I went to interview an old family friend of his. Edmund Epstein, now 76, (Eddie to Joel; Mr. Epstein to me) is a Joyce scholar. He was a friend to Joel’s father, John Gardner. More than a friend. In Epstein’s words, a challenger, a discussion partner, a critic, a confidant, an office-mate at SIU where they both taught, starting in the mid-‘sixties. Eddie described his intellectual relationship to John Gardner succinctly, “I was his whetstone.”

Joel is making a movie about his father, and this interview with Epstein was fundamental to a complete portrayal. The Gardner and Epstein families were close, and our drive out to Port Washington, on Long Island, was layered with many emotions; not just the mission of capturing the interview on camera.

John Gardner worked Epstein into a number of characters in several books. His book Sunlight Dialogs is dedicated to Epstein.

Epstein describes himself and John as opposites. While John was the spontaneous one, Epstein was (still is) the planner, the orderly one. In John’s books, he often portrays the fight in life as being between the sinister intentions of those who advocate order and the procreative power those who incarnate spontaneity.

And even to this very day, 25 years after the death of his friend John, Epstein said he still has discussions with him in his head. Whenever he feels himself being too much the planner, too much the orderly one, then he hears John’s voice in his head, challenging him, fighting with him. Inspiring him.

As you walk into the Epstein home, you feel as if you are in the trough of a huge wave of books that are about to crash on top of you and rumble you into eons of literature. Almost every wall is lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves. And every shelf is full and overflowing with books and documents and sheaves of papers, artworks, photographs, placed sideways on top of the books. There are books on tables, stacks on the floor, piles on sills. Albums, volumes, catalogs. A whole collection of bibles. King James, Luther. English, German.

It is the home of a scholar. Of a family of believers in that precept that the mind not only has the freedom to roam far and wide, but that is has an obligation to journey. Not ride through the landscape and be casual observer of ideas, but to strap on the hiking boots and struggle off the beaten path, force the mind up the mountains of Joyce or Blake and down into the valleys of Nietzsche.

But what drew my immediate attention as soon as I entered their home was a framed print on one wall spared of book shelves, perhaps because it was too narrow between window and door. I had instantly recognized the artist even though I was still too far away to appreciate the details. Leonard Baskin.

Of course Baskin would hang in this house. Baskin was exactly that artist who believed in challenging the mind and spirit and every preconception we might have about life and death.

Epstein came over while I eyed the print up closely. I noticed it was dedicated personally to Edmund Epstein and named “The Death of the Laureate.”

We fell into a discussion of Baskin. But it wasn’t until the end of our entire afternoon with Epstein that I fully appreciated how much of a hand-in-glove Baskin was in this home. Baskin was the spontaneous. The challenger of the orderly. And just as Eddie kept having mental discussions with his old sparring partner John, so too does he keep Baskin on the wall as a reminder that death and disorder and the dark are depths that need to be plumbed, need to be understood in order to taste emotions such as fear, absence and longing.

I have two Baskin works in my home. About 15 years ago, before I even knew who Baskin was, I came across a huge print of his in a shop in Maine. The print was of a man’s face in the worst contorted anguish that you can imagine. Off to the corner, was the signature juxtaposition of Baskin’s work: a bird. The work is called “Torment.”

I was stunned and discussed with my wife at the time for weeks whether we could afford the $1,500 it would cost to buy this work of art. We discussed the sanity of spending such a large sum of money. For what? What practical value was there in spending that kind of money on art?

Ultimately, we bought the piece. Art is emotional, not logical. And ultimately we knew something then that we couldn’t articulate ourselves, but an art dealer put into words for me years later when I wanted to buy my second piece by Baskin.

I wanted to buy a piece of his sculpture. Even though Baskin is more known for his prints since there are more of them in the world than his sculpture, he identified himself as a sculptor. The least expensive piece of sculpture the gallery had was a piece about a foot high and cost $15,000. By this time in my life, I had a well-paying job, but even so... to me, this was an outrageous sum of money to spend on art. My god, it was the price of car.

I told the gallery owner I could not afford the piece. He was very calm and almost reserved, but said very clearly, “Well, you probably can, but what you are really saying is that you don’t want to afford it. We all make choices in life, and if this is what you really wanted, you would rearrange your financial priorities to be able to afford it. And because you would be rearranging your priorities, you would be rearranging your values. And it would begin to affect every choice in your life. In other words, it would change your life.”

Nice words, but I told him I just didn’t have that kind of money, nor could I take a loan. Not necessary, he said. He said I should mention any sum of money that I could afford on an annual basis and he would accept annual payments for as long as I wanted to stretch it out, until I finally owned the piece. Until then, of course, the piece would reside in his gallery.

I was stunned. I offered a $1,000 per year. Done, said he. In fifteen years, I would take the piece home.

Why did I do that? Because, as a writer, I have struggled with the extent to which my creativity is my vocation or merely an avocation. Having Baskin hanging in my study is a constant motivator to me. He is an artist I admire because of his attention to detail, his fearlessness in presenting the undesirable, his knowledge and inclusion of humanity’s history into all of his work. And every time I sit down to write, I think that if I can achieve a small fraction of that, I will be happy.

Perhaps similar to what John Gardner meant when he said words to the effect of: “Whenever I feel I have written a great book, I re-read the first page of Moby Dick.”

After making payments for two years, I lost my good income. I went to the gallery and brought home another print instead of the sculpture. I have had just as much enjoyment and inspiration from that print.

On the five-hour car ride back from the Epstein home to Boston, I told Joel this whole story in much more detail as such car rides elicit.

As I came to the end of the story, it suddenly occurred to me that it might not be the end of the story. You see, my mother died last year, and there is a small inheritance coming. Just enough to allow me to make a call to that gallery and find out where that piece of inspiration is.

Who I am. I am who?

"We are what we repeatedly do."
So said Aristotle.

My challenge for the past several years has been to define myself. At times, this has been a terrifying prospect. At times, a deeply depressing one. At times, a liberating and exhilarating prospect.

Since societies have segregated themselves into specialized tasks, we have defined ourselves by those tasks. We have even named our family lines by those tasks or jobs. Miller, Taylor, Baker. So by that definition, here is my brief history: I was a journalist for 15 years. I quit the newspaper business to take over my father's manufacturing business and I was a captain of industry for seven years until I had to close because of Chinese competition. That was in 2005.

I kept the building and became a commercial landlord. Since 2005, I have been able to attract five tenants who take up about 60% of the building. This allows me a modest income and requires only about 25% of my time.

So, I was left asking: Who am I now? What will I do? What is it that I want? Most of us fall into our occupations. We don't just sit down and have to put our fingers down on the occupational map.

For many years, off and on, I had harbored the thought that perhaps I would write fiction. Was this the time to finally make a commitment to that? Was I a writer?

Throughout my life, I had enjoyed sailing. Should I cast off and be a live-aboard cruiser? Was a sailor?

Always having enjoyed the entrepreneurial aspects of small business, I thought about starting a new business.

The sailing won out. For the last few years I have been preparing and planning on casting off and sailing the Atlantic circuit. The Northeast, the Caribbean and Europe.

I figured this would allow me to define myself over time. Am I writer who sails? Or am I sailor who writes?

But life is never straight forward. I have been unable to cast off for the last couple of years for a number of reasons. Filling the building with tenants requires me to be in this area more than I had anticipated. And my boat (a Hans Christian 33) needed repairs that have taken longer than I thought. And then... well, I am single, and to me the prospect of cruising alone is terribly lonesome. So perhaps I have intentionally slowed the process in hopes of finding the right partner for this venture.

But all of this leaves me with a lot of time to doubt myself, and my goals and to question myself. It is surprising to me, how often I have to force myself to "want" this adventure. To stay focused on it.

Making public affirmations of what I want helps.