Priapus, Priapus, wherefore art thou Priapus

Yesterday, in my blog, I wrote, "For me, sex is an escape."

That triggered a discussion.

We all agree that ultimately, sex is many things. Escape, love, play, gestalt therapy, violence, art, spiritual connection, acceptance, and sometimes Olympic-worthy calisthenics.

As a species, we have been talking about sex since slightly less longer than we have been having it. (First ur-grunts excluded as "talking.") So there is little new that I can add to that discussion in a short blog.

But let me introduce an opposing theory that was presented to me: "The first association a person makes often gives you insight into what s/he values most in life."

Her first association with the word sex is love.

I guess rather than waxing pontifically, I will just leave this blog at that question: What first association comes to your mind with the word sex?

I dare you to raise that discussion with your partner. Just remember, this is a Rorschach test. So the goal is not to be accurate or arrive at a encompassing definition. Of course sex is many things. What is more revealing is: What is the first thing? What is your knee-jerk response. What does your gut say, not your mind? The goal is not to arrive at an answer, but to prompt discussion that will be emotionally revealing.

Now that I think about it, I know exactly why my gut association with sex is escape. But this public forum is certainly not the medium for that revelation. That admission, confession, depth will only be delivered in whispers.

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.

Lucky

I am in Florida these days spending time with my father and my stepmother. He has been diagnosed with lymphoma and is about to undergo chemotherapy and I am here for the emotional support and, as things get difficult for him, to physically help out.

My dad is going to be 83 in a few weeks. He does the crossword every day and plays golf every other. Strong as an ox, sharp as a whip. A curmudgeon, yes, but a witty and charming one. An irresistible combination of traits. No wonder my sister has a Daddy complex. If I were gay, I would have one too. Hell, maybe I do anyway.

I am keeping another blog for family and friends on his convalescence. In that blog, I wrote a piece that was meant to be somewhat humorous about what it is like to spend a day with him. Good humor does not hold a punch and so I let him have it.

I wanted to add to that blog that in addition to driving me crazy, we also get along famously. At one point, I said, "You know, Dad, we have a seriously dysfunctional relationship."

"Oh really," he said, taking the bait (though perhaps just to humor me,) "Why do you say that?"

"Because I am a 47-year-old man and I enjoy hanging out with my father."

Throughout the day (amidst the very activities that I was describing as intolerable in my other blog) he and I chatted about God and the world. We exchanged our recurring nightmares and offered interpretations to each other. During another car ride from one store to the next, I told him that he saved my life when I was eighteen by proving to me that parents can be emotionally "normal" which is to say: predictable, consistent, open, and honest. At another point, after he was rambling on about something, he stopped and said, "I guess what I am trying to say is that I love you."

I should have some poignant closing to this, but I don't. I guess what I am trying to say is that I love him.

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.

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.

Does appreciation demand sacrifice?

Ok, so I found out today that a Sentinel is available.

If you want to catch up on the Sentinel, a sculpture by Leonard Baskin, you can read my previous blog.

Notice, I said "a" Sentinel is available. Apparently, Baskin made a few from that mold. I don't know how many yet, since I haven't had a chance to ask.

I haven't had a chance to ask, because the gallery wants ... $26,000 for this piece. My god (to quote my words from yesterday) that is the price of car!

Ok, let's park the contemplation of the Sentinel right there for now. So more thought needs to go into this before I act.

Today, my property manager and I pulled the side off my old manufacturing building and pulled my 25-foot Cape Dory sailboat inside. That is a major accomplishment. It usually wintered at the boatyard. This winter, I am thinking of making her look "purty." Varnishing, buffing the fiberglass, painting lazarettes, those kinds of things.

My friend, Joel (see link on main page) has been quite clear with me: Sell the boat. That will get you a good way's toward the Sentinel.

I could sell the boat, since I have another. I have a 33-foot Hans Christian on which I will be living aboard and cruising the Atlantic circuit starting next summer. (Hopefully.) I haven't been able to sell the smaller one yet because, well, I just love her. She was my first keel boat. So many good memories. (Maybe I will someday post the story about Joel and I venturing up the Otter Creek in Vermont, as if we were Lewis and Clark on some as-yet uncharted river in Northwest.) And I have this fantasy, in which I am sailing with the larger boat, Dolphins, along the coast of Maine, and my daughter (now 12, but soon old enough) leap-frogging the various ports with me in the smaller boat, Sunset.

This led Joel and me into a good discussion about sacrifice. Would buying the Sentinel mean as much to me if I didn't have to sacrifice something in return? If the Sentinel represents all art and all creativity to me, then isn't it also true that I believe that we must make sacrifices to choose art and choose creativity. We cannot keep our nice day jobs and be the productive, dedicated and committed artists. This is the very theme of the letters by Rilke that were collected and published under the title of "Letters to a Young Poet."

(Ok, let's forget the fact that Wallace Stevens -- my favorite poet perhaps -- was an insurance man while writing the world's most insightful poetry. Please, don't confuse me with facts.)

Sacrifice.
Sentinel.
Sailboat.

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.