Declining radius of responsibility

There is this super schlocky book out now, called The Secret. Something about how we can create our own realities.

Yeah, yeah.

The problem I have with these books (which come out every few years under a new title) is that they are nothing that our mothers and grandmothers didn't tell us.

The Secret can be distilled into the six words my mother used to tell us four kids: "Fake it until you make it."

In other words, if you wanted to be happy, then smile. You know what? People will be smiling back at you. They will be friendlier to you. And you will fall into conversation easier. And guess what? You'll be happier.

If you want to be president of the United States, start acting like you want that. You can get something without acting like you want it.

Big secret? I don't think so. Good advice that needs to be repeated to every generation? Absolutely. Except, in my grandparents generation, it was expected to be part of the parental duties; not something for which you tried to get a book contract.

Nevertheless ... life is odd. Call it The Secret or call it plain ole faking it.

Joel and I decided to re-commit ourselves to writing with this blog project.

Because of that, I decided to read novels again, which I had neglected for a year or two. I read a book called "Sin" by Josephine Hart. She wrote "Damage" which was filmed with Jemery Irons.

Because of that, I found the framework for a story that has been lurking in my mind for some 20 years now.

Because of the blog, I connected with a blogger through Joel. Her name is Jennifer and writes a wonderfully witty, self-deprecating and literary journal-type blog called Quidite.

Because I read her blog, she reconnected me with a particular Raymond Carver story that is relevant to one of my short stories.

And now, a few odd, random things happened for which Horace Walpole coined the term serendipity:

My daughter spends the weekend with me and wants to go to the public library. We do. She wants to spend time in the young adult section. I spied a "For Sale" rack by the entrance and tell her that I will be down there. And there, low and behold, amid the 70s remains and paperback mystery surplus books, is a hardcover collection of Carver short stories. It's three dollars. (No, I shit you not. Three dollars. Even the librarian who gave me change for my five, was surprised at my find -- doubled checked the penciled price and reluctantly released the valued volume.)

Ok, ok, that particular story was not in the collection. But, as my mother used to say: Don't confuse me with facts. The upshot is that I WILL find the relevant Carver short story. I DO have the structure for a long overdue novel. And I AM writing more these days than I have in a few years.

So we get home, my twelve-year-old daughter and I, and she asks me if I have ever had the experience of knowing beforehand what is going to happen in my life. As in Deja-Vu, I ask? Well, no, not that. THAT she has frequently, she says. (Which is a whole other intriguing matter.) But knowing much more in advance. Like seeing things.

Hmm, now I am wondering about my entry from a couple of days ago. I don't want to burden her with a vision I had of myself when I was a teenager of being a loner and now worrying if it might become a self-fulfilled prophecy. Too much information for a twelve-year-old.

Is my experience of this writing blog and reconnecting with fictional inspiration the same thing that she means. Am I a poster child for The Secret? I recognize the serendipity of it all, but no, I don't think that is what she means.

What, exactly, does she mean by that question?

My daughter is an uncommonly evolved person for her age. (Has been at every age.) Precocious, some say. She is adept at evasion and though I probed (without wielding a two by four) she sticks with simply the statement that she was asking ME if *I* had that experience. She was not talking about herself, she says.

Hmm, let's see, I think to myself. I knew I wanted a newspaper when I left college, and ten years later, I had one. I knew I wanted to grow my father's manufacturing business when I took it over and, within a few years, I was entering international joint operating agreements. Does any of that count?

Fake it until you make it?

The Secret?

Create your own reality?

Serendipity?

Or am I just a lucky Sunday child who has a bit a brains, the fortune of being born white in an absurdly rich country, with enough means to make my dreams come true?

Any way I look at it, I have precious few excuses for not being responsible for my own happiness.

PS: How did I finally answer? I said that I know that I have had those kind of experiences but I couldn't remember specific examples. And that is God's honest truth. I also told her that sometimes the world works in ways we cannot fully explain or understand. It is best just to accept it. And trust it.

Actor cum writer cum ... what? Zen master?

My brother Daniel is an actor. After a formal finish carpentry apprenticeship in his late teens and then a short stint of studies in psychology, he finally found, well, his voice in acting.

He has been an actor for some 25 years now, but this past summer, he left his troupe to pursue an uncharted path. There are no specific plans for what is next. He lives extremely frugally, with some state assistance and some family support. He has made a lot of sacrifices in his standard of living to make this choice. (His beat-up scooter car may die by the time I finish this entry.) This step away from acting is also motivated by a desire (being a single and primary parent) to spend time with his daughter who lives with congenital rheumatoid arthritis, but that is another story.

This story is about something that started within him a number of years ago. But first, you have to understand that what served Daniel well as an actor was also one of his challenges. He always had an edge to his pace through life. His foot would twitch. His speech was rapid. And sometimes excitement would trip his tongue. His myopic, single-minded focus expressed itself as impatience.

Several years ago, without telling anyone, with no big fanfare, he started sitting. Just sitting. Not thinking, not fidgeting, not hoping, not regretting. Just sitting. Meditating, if you will, but that implies focusing on something, whereas the Zen work he was doing was aimed at mind clearing.

It is not an exaggeration to say that I have never seen a person change so much in their lives. He began listening. Asking questions. Instead of arguing, he was quiet. Our family is quite dynamic and so when someone becomes quiet, it is almost more threatening. But that was not his goal. He just did not allow himself to be caught up in the whitewater of family turmoil.

This "sitting" had such a profound effect on his persona, that I began asking him questions about it with the thoughts that he had some answer for me that I could acquire. He was hesitant to answer. He said something like, "As soon as you talk about it, it can sound cliche. It's really just sitting. And if you do it, it provides the answers itself."

I did start sitting. Not with the regularity that he is sitting. And I have seen a profound effect on my life. My ability to accept life. Just as it is, however it is. But that is irrelevant to this story.

This story is about a completely stunning development in Daniel's life that I just found out about today. Apparently, it has been happening for some time now, but just like with the sitting, he doesn't talk about it. He is not the public emotional masturbater that I am with this blog.

Recently he mentioned that he has been writing. Writing, I asked? I was interested since I have never seen anything written by Daniel. His preferred form of epistolary contact is a postcard with a single funny comment. Yes, writing. I asked him to write me what he was writing about.

And in this morning's email, was a 1,300 word letter in which he wrote about how he was struggling to commit to what every artist struggles with: finding the time and energy to dedicate yourself to something which you wonder is worthwhile in the first place.

The overall direction of his writings are musings on Zen. But he explains that each musing is a mosaic stone; indistinguishable as to his broad views on Zen. And therefore, he was hesitant to send me anything. Not yet. Not until he had more stones assembled.

But the most stunning aspect to his letter was this: He is a fantastic story teller. This man who has never written more than a grocery list or smart-ass birthday card, was suddenly a brilliant raconteur. His letter was about how he discovered why it is important to dedicate ourselves to even the slightest whiff of inspiration, and he was as eloquent as Rilke in his "Letters to a Young Poet." And in his recounting of his turning point, no novelist could have written the passage more vividly or succinctly.

In the first part of his letter, he talks about having ideas and insights during his daily sit. He would scribble the thoughts down to elaborate upon in writing later, but never got around to them. The writing and expansion of those ideas was always "last on the list." So, he began rearranging his life to make room. And finally, he began writing.

And then there is this beautiful story in his letter:

"I didn't start that way, but then I had an encounter that opened my eyes. At Nicky's birthday party in Hamburg, I met this Andonia. Remember? and she called at some point and asked if I wanted to come to Hamburg and watch her movie that she just finished producing. I agreed and drove up and watched the movie with her together in the livingroom on the TV. It was her first movie. Not my style, a little stilted, but considering it was her first movie, and written by herself, and directed by her, and she did all the editing, I was stunned. Considering all that, it was super! I asked her if it was a college thesis. She said no. But somehow for school, right, I asked? and in complete surprise, she said no. And why did you film it, I asked? She looked at me with big eyes and said: Cause I wanted to. She didn't say anything else. Cause she wanted to. That bowled me over. I was hit by a Mac truck. In the middle of the semester, between school assignments, lessons, working for a paycheck, cooking, cleaning, shopping, living, she just shoots out a movie on the side. Cause she wants to. On the drive home it consumed my thoughts and a few days later, during meditation, the realization came to me: there is no sometime, sometime is never, there is only now. I understood how, for years, I stood in my own way."

We read that and have to ask ourselves: Are we standing in our own way? What would we do, if we really wanted to?

The land of the free (free = vacuous)

Does environment determine literature?

I criticize myself that I find it difficult to be post anything bordering on creative while I am here in Florida. But when I think about, what kind of writers is Florida known for? Carl Hiaasen. A dynamic and fun writer, but geared toward mystery and action.

Not the kind of writer I am.

Am I product of my environment? Am I one of those dark, brooding New England writers. I also spent time in Germany and those writers are just as introvertedly psychotic.

So it is really no surprise to me that I find this place completely uninspiring. Everything is bought here in Florida. The tits and faces on women and the front yards of homes.

One day you drive by a construction site and the front yard is dirt. A few weeks later, there is an insta-yard, complete with palm trees, hedges, lawn, walk-way, faux-aged stuco walls.

And the site itself was bought and not natural. There are no natural building sites here. The recent tropical storm Noel eroded the foundations of condo-buildings and homes on the shore. Now millions are being spent on restoring them. Yes, even the sand is bought. Every few years a huge barge floats off shore here and pumps gazillion of pounds of sand back onto the shore.

For building sites inland, first a pond is created to drain the swamp land in order to be able to build on it.

The important feature on cars here is not four-wheel drive to perform in snow, but the rotating hub-caps, or cleaning the last water drop mark off your jaguar, mercedes, bentley, or rolls royce.

Tans are bought, ant and pest free homes are a paid-for luxury, dating and relationships are financial dances.

There is no bottle law, so all the trash has to be hauled to some other state that can accommodate natural landfills.

The mesquitoes and the alligators made this state uninhabitable until air conditioning. Flagler built a railroad in the late 1800s but still nothing much happened here until after WWII. It is a new state. And yet, by now, it is the fourth most populous state in the nation.

Populated by what? Newcomers. Easy-life believers.

In some ways, it is the quintessential American state. It is the new gold-rush state. Golden tans and real estate gold. Gigolos wooing rich widows. (Hmm, something to consider?) And young, busty blonds winking at old rich geezers.

How, amidst these shallow waters, am I supposed to feel inspired to write something of depth?

I know that sounds like whining. And I am sure to get a lashing for it.

Plagiarizing patience

I have been struggling to come up with something to write during my stay here in Florida. I wake up in the morning, remembering before all else, that I must write something for this blog in order to keep my promise to my blogging buddy Joel.

I hope coffee will bring, along with the first jolts of life to my body, some sparks of inspiration for a topic. But nothing. During the day, I keep my eye out, like a cop on a beat with an APB for a robber, for some event, some picture, some interaction that will provide me with the raw material to carve into a piece.

Nothing.

I am embarrassed because it was my idea to start this damn blog. And it was I who was so insistent with Joel to stick with it when he wanted to retreat just a while ago.

Today with doubled fervor, since I missed yesterday, I craned my imagination at every turn to spy some spark, spur or stimulation.

I contemplated for a brief moment calling Joel and capitulating on this project. It wouldn't be the first time we have enjoyed sprints of creativity and allowed them to crash on the shore of daily chores and jobs and family. It's okay, we take them up again and again. But I thought it was too early to give up on this exercise. It has only been a couple of weeks.

And then, the bastard said this in yesterday's post: "Learning to work through what challenges our patience and attention is the parent of all other skills."

Bastard.

So, this is a cheating entry. It is blatant plagiarism of commitment. (Hmm, didn't know that could be done, but that is exactly what is happening here.) In other words, I am just going to leave it right there, with Joel's words. They are good ones to remember in this day and age of multi-tasking and accelerated desires of instant gratification.

Full Moon

Today, I was going like a bat out of hell. So much to do. So many errands. And toward the end of day, I was driving up to northern Vermont, up towards the border region to Canada. It was going to be an hour-long drive to return a car I had borrowed. Up to a small town amidst the last hills of the Green Mountains and Appalachian chain before the flat lands of Quebec.

And just as I was heading north and enjoying the unusually late display of fall colors -- red, orange, yellow, with still some green mixed in -- off to the right, I caught the majestic top half of the full moon cresting over the colorful range.

I don't know how many poems I have written about the full moon. It consumes me. The moon is the muse to whom I am enslaved. I cannot escape. I cannot help but become full of feelings of ... so much that is ineffable. And yet I feel drawn to constantly trying. Like Baskin with his half-man, half-bird imagery.

The full moon sagged wan and heavy in the fading daylight on the crest of a particularly colorful mountain ridge. The sun was still in full reign of the light, and so at first my eyes glanced by the white ghost, which I at first assumed was just a cloud, but then ... its imagery was too specific for a cloud, and my eyes darted back: Yes. Yes, the full moon. I felt my body go slack, as if I was finally back with my lover. But this lover is aloof. And, so, I am helpless to approach and left with just that feeling: of being in the presence of an aloof lover.

As I was saying: The full moon sagged wan and heavy, barely perceptible except to the devoted eye. The highway curved and temporarily denied my worship. Then the road, heightened and flattened, giving me a glimpse. Ahh, but then disappeared as I had to dip until it rose again and the ridgeline gave me another brief view. It was as if I was stealing glances from my bed while she was walking to and from her vanity and sink and robe hook.

I anxiously awaited her full presentation.

By the time, I was off the interstate and onto state roads, I knew I would be heading straight east. Awaiting her entrance. I know these roads well, and remember the many times before when I have enjoyed craning my neck to steal a glance, then looking back at the road, then back at the moon. A constant attempt to pay attention to safety with brief allowances to the pleasure of pure abandonment.

The jealous sun eventually relinquishes. Her last assertion is to taint all in deep yellow, pink, orange, and red, which gives the flaming hills a crescendo of color. But this jealousy is the sun's undoing. Because just then, I take a turn in the road by the Abbey. And there is the sight that just slays me:

To the east is a line of mountains against a colorful sky: Jay Peak, with its loyal entourage: Little Jay and the Cold Hollow Mountains. They look gentle now with their soft edges against the purple-bluing sky. But I remember getting lost in them once, and came to fear their relentless disregard for a human life wandering among their vastness. But that fear is subsided now like the reverence of a powerful deity that you instinctively feel must be benevolent.

Dead ahead of me, to the east, are the Cold Hollows and Big Jay and Little Jay. To my right, a river -- the Mississquoi -- winding its crooked way toward me, down from those mountains, over rocks now because at the end of summer the water is low and creates ripples and small rapids.

And rising steadily, the full moon. She has freed herself from the horizon's gravity. She floats freely upward. Full now and bright. Almost white, but still with enough tint against a purpling sky to make out details. And shining a shimmer of her light in the river.

This. This is what I write poems about. What does this mean? I know it has meaning that I cannot fully capture, no matter how many lines, how perfect the meter or rhyme. I can never capture this. This effect. This feeling. This more-than-what-this-is.

I wish I could.

Do I wish I could? Is it possible that I appreciate that this one thing in my life -- this full moon -- is ever just slightly beyond my grasp? Does my inability to describe all of my emotions in one poem, in one letter, in one essay keep me writing?

Tonight I will fall asleep my images of the full moon. I will confuse the full moon with my lover. With my muse. With goddesses of ancient civilizations. I will confuse her and be confused by her.

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.