Portrait of a Portrait

A few years ago, I found a sketch someone had done of me; it was buried under a pile of papers in a box—I know not why or how it got there. An art critic might call the sketch whimsical, perhaps a little sad, definitely distant, even somewhat idolized. Slumping in a highback wooden chair, the subject―that's me―is frozen between supine passivity and simmering rebellion. She has bent her disproportionalty long right leg up toward her chest; her left foot remains tentatively on the floor as though she would flee, at any instant, the imprisonment of the chair, of the artist's blind eye.

The artist, of course, drew what he thought he saw, not what he in fact saw. The subject is younger than I really was, her legs are longer, and her mouth smaller. Her face reminds me of one of those drawings you used to see on matchbook covers that advertised Famous Artists Art School. (If you could draw the face, it meant you could enroll in a correspondence course with a famous mediocre artist.) She is not looking at the artist. Instead, she gazes into another room, or world, seeing what she wishes to see, not what she actually sees. The lines of her body are almost tentative as if to underscore her temporality, especially the temporality of her relationship with the world, with the artist, with herself. Indeed, she looks as though she's about to wilt, dissipate, and float into some rarefied layer of flowery dust.

In fact, I did just that for a long time.

I scanned the picture into my computer and sent the original back to the artist. I'm sure he had forgotten all about it—so hastily and mindlessly was it dashed off—but I wanted it returned to him, to his world, to his prison. In sending it back to him, I was able to shed his heavy presence and that part of my soul that he had inadvertently managed to capture for those twelve long years between the rendering, loss, and re-discovery of the likeness.

Of course, that's just a lot of nonsense. No one really has that kind of power over us unless we think they do. And even if we think they have such power, they don't. It took me years to figure that out, slow learner that I was.

He never acknowledged having received the drawing, but I hadn't expected he would. I expected he would do exactly as he did—nothing. No longer treading water in the turbulence of whatever my life has turned out to be, I now look directly at artists and other passersby who would have me turn my gaze elsewhere. Today, no one—not even a blind artist—would think to capture me in such a frazzled eon, or moment, between nowhere and nothingness.

I sometimes wonder what became of the artist. But the wondering is only fleeting, temorary, like the lines of his drawings that skip and miss like a garbled Morse code trying to convey a message across continents, across languages and cultures, across black gulleys and rising ridges buried under the weight of four seas.

Somehow, it doesn't matter. Somehow, it does.

Expunged from History

Sometimes I post a picture of my long-departed relatives on Facebook just because their unblinking gaze into the slow lens of early photography makes for a jarring status update. Indeed, for me, the phrase “status update” is a razor-like neologism that unceremoniously curdles and sputters at the back of my throat.

Although my fingers flit effortlessly over the keyboard of my very twenty-first-century silver-tone Apple Notebook, my spirit remains comfortably engaged in a world of grandparents born before the turn of the twentieth century. It occurs to me that at some point in a long life, everyone feels like a great cowhide tautly stretched and nailed in place at the ragged edges of neighboring centuries. Suddenly, we belong in no century at all.

Depending on my mood, I'm torn between extreme frustration and great relief that I have, at last, a reason for not belonging, a reason for asking people to repeat what they've said—not because I can't hear them, but because I can't understand their lexicon or syntax or tone (especially their tone). I have a reason for not being able to attach names to the perfectly airbrushed and cloned faces that grace the covers of popular magazines. I have a reason to bristle when things aren't what I thought they were. On gray mornings, I think it's a wonder when I've found my way to work, for all the gravel footpaths have been paved with black pitch and all the wooden road signs have been replaced with metal and neon. I'm a blind woman watching a silent movie; a mute singing in tune; an illiterate reading aloud in an empty piazza. The incongruity is irresistible.

I still hear the clanging of dishes on a Roman sidestreet, the clicking of a manual typewriter in an over-heated Dubrovnikian alleyway, silent moonrays melting bored chunks of ice in Northport harbor. These sounds gather at the doorsill of my memory and refuse to cross into today.

“We'll drown,” they protest as I hold open the door.

“I'll protect you,” I assure them.

“How?”

I detect a sneer. I have no answer, for the noise is deafening, and I understand their fear. I, too, want to travel back. But, this is no romance flick. This is a life stretched and stapled and painted upon.

Eventually, we're all expunged from history. Some reemerge, like Hatshepsut in Egypt, Nureyev in Russia, and Dante in Firenze. But, it's only temporary. The day will come for all of us when we're not even a memory. As I get older, this becomes more and more okay. It's the little devil in me that pulls a long-dead grandfather from the eternity of oblivion and posts his picture on the comically temporal platform of Facebook.

It says, “Well, here was a prince of a man who lost everything to bankruptcy—not once, but three times—who fathered 17 children, 14 of whom died in infancy or childhood, who spoke eight languages, and who died in 1913 at the age of 60.”

It says, "Here's a little girl who lasted no more than eight years, who spent much of those eight years in a 'school' for unwanted children, who could have been my Aunt Hope who lived to be 100, but didn't."

Within a few hours, the Facebook page is filled. Little Hope Taber and James Jones settle back into the cradle of non-history. They are expunged.

I'll continue to set them upon their unlikely modern stage, prop them up, as it were, before an indifferent audience until it's my turn to be set upon an unlikely stage too modern for my hairstyle, knotted scarf, and Apple laptop. It's my little way of loosening the cowhide and prying up the nails.

Recording the Moment

A busload of tourists pulls alongside the Piazzale Michelangelo, which overlooks just about all of Florence―at least the part that tourists and travel photographers want to see. About 50 people―Italian tourists from other historic parts of Italy―get off the bus and walk three or four feet into the center of the piazza. They smile and say how beautiful it all is. Then the bus driver, also sporting a big smile, signals that it's time to leave: “Okay, everyone back on the bus. Let's go see Venice.” And the people, still smiling and saying how beautiful it all is, get back on the bus.

This is how I live. For here I am at the beginning of another September certain that the academic year will be full of moments that make me smile and inspire me to comment on their beauty; then, poof, I'm off to, well, not Venice.

Every year, I try to trick myself into stopping long enough to record a moment, but I'm on to my tricks and can no longer fool myself into doing anything. September, in fact, is already booked―new schedule, new faces, two parent nights at school, new obstacles, a talk I have to make (and sound smart), an outfit to buy for the talk (in case sounding smart isn't good enough), a commitment to help a friend start a business, another book to translate (“But, please, don't actually translate it; just summarize each chapter. Otherwise, you know, like way too expensive”). The moments crash into one another like electrons or protons. I will forget as soon as the smile fades.

So, instead of recording moments, I record chunks of time, usually manufactured and out of order. But, they're chunks nevertheless. After all, what's a moment? A moment is like a penny―not worth picking up, examining, saving, or writing about. You can't buy or change anything with a moment. You can't even see it. Even when it turns out to be significant―death, marriage, forgetting someone's name (Yo, Alzheimer's, you here already?), picking a dog out of the street and realizing you've just made a commitment that will last for years. We all seem to have these moments; yet, we don't have them at all.

Have. The word doesn't exist in many languages, and if I were more knowledgeable, I'd write a paper about the significance of having the word “have” in a culture or language. What? No word for “have”? How can that be? Well, it seems that in languages such as Arabic, speakers say “to me” to indicate possession. So, this computer on which I write is to me. I'm able to write these words because language is also to me.

In some languages, there is no word for “I” or “you.” Instead, these concepts are communicated by describing one's status or relationship to the listener. In such a society with such a language, relationship and social roles are everything. If that's true, then in societies whose languages have the word “have,” possessions are everything. No wonder we don't understand Arab societies or Irish humor or Welsh road signs―the knowledge of their cultures is not to us. At least, that's what the person who is writing thinks.

I often think about those tourists who spent perhaps an hour in Florence and three minutes in the Piazzale, maybe an hour and three minutes in Rome, and another hour and three minutes in Venice. They probably live in some wonderful historic picturesque part of Italy, which, after all, describes almost all of Italy. I wonder if tourists come also to their cities and towns and remain for an hour and three minutes to admire the beauty and then take off to another spot just as historic and picturesque. I think I'd rather watch a video or maybe a National Geographic special than ride a bus and be led around by a guide. It would irk me to have someone tell me what to do, how long to look at a city, which buildings I should appreciate, and which neighborhoods to avoid.

That's why I prefer to travel alone. That's why I never pack sneakers or bermuda shorts or carry a water bottle. When you're alone in a new city, its textures, colors, sounds, and shapes grab you by the hand and lead you into so many unexpected alleyways and piazzas. You can linger for hours in the decorative margins of a century or you can simply turn your back and discover the tiniest light flickering in the eye of a stranger or the musicality of a cup meeting its saucer. When you're alone in an unexplored field, the moon cocks its head and breathes into the untended grasses, ruffling the petals of dainty wildflowers that still live after eons of trampling hooves and human wars. No tour guide can point to such wonders.

These moments or hours are only to me—I don't possess them, I don't have them. They are to the person who writes or dreams or floats upon rivers that lead to other rivers and to other rivers until the end of time. And, lucky for these people, there is no time. There are only moments.

Rules

A student in my school throws regular fits in the hallway, and I think his mother must be a horror for she insists, “He's just fine at home. You must be doing something wrong in that school of yours.”

And I think, great, then keep him there.

Whenever he throws himself on the floor and begins to scream, my class comes to a dreadful and silent stop. All the kids crane their necks and stare as his screams spiral and jerk to their usual maddening crescendo. His show is far more interesting than any lesson I could conjure up. Other teachers try to calm him with explanations about outside voices, inside voices, manners, disruptive behavior, and rules. The mention of rules inspires even higher-pitched protestations: “I hate rules! I hate rules! My mom says rules are stupid.”

I try not to say anything, but I think, “Yes, but you're using rules when you speak. You're putting particular words in a particular order so we all know how much you hate rules and how your mother thinks they're stupid.”

I'm really glad I'm not his teacher, because I'd make all sorts of mistakes in dealing with him. I'd say things out loud instead of tucking them silently inside of me. I'd tell his parents they've done a bad job bringing up baby; I'd walk away from him and leave him to scream; I might even tell him about his adherence to grammatical structure. In short, I'd break the rules of mature teacherly conduct. Then, I'd be fired and fail to pay the mortgage and have to move into the street with my dogs and hairdryer.

What a mess. I'm really glad I know the rules before I break them.

Part of me feels bad for the boy. And maybe his parents aren't so terrible, after all. Maybe he really has a screw loose, a chemical unadjusted, a synapse badly fired. But, I can't help wondering how such a little child got so messed up in so short a time on earth. (Actually, I know lots of older people who act just as badly and could list them right here, but I won't. I'd rather use them as characters in a short story.)

Anyway, my simple answer for all problem behavior is to send the problem person to Somalia. Eating disorder? Go to Somalia. Bored? Go to Somalia. Impressed by money? Go to Somalia (or Nigeria). Hate the rules? Go to Somalia. Depressed? Go to Somalia. It's a fix-all that's bound to work at least 50 percent of the time, which is better than any psychiatric institution can boast. Yes, I know it's flippant. I'm not actually sending anyone to Somalia. I'm just expressing my belief that our environment isn't always conducive to good mental or physical health.

A week before she died, my mother said, “You should always do what you want to do. Don't let anything stop you, because before you know it, life will be over."

And I thought―but was tactful enough not to say: “Only the wealthy and perhaps the young can do exactly what they want to do. And only the dying can advise people to do exactly what they want to do.” The wealthy don't have to worry about paying bills, the young don't know about paying bills, and the dying don't care about paying bills. Then, there are the rest of us who know that the price of too much freedom is no freedom. The only real freedom is choice.

However, as my 80+-year-old friend David recently pointed out to me, "But you are dying. We're all dying."

Yes, I had forgotten that. Then, as if to echo that thought, I went to a wake yesterday and heard a priest tell us that every death is a reminder that we're all going to die. Ah ha, so I think, well, maybe that screaming little kid is right about his--or his mother's--assessment of rules: in short, rules are stupid.

Without rules, everything of beauty would be a mistake. Wait. Without rules, there are no mistakes. Okay, but, without rules, no one would know how to bend them. That is, every bend of a rule (that didn't exist) would be a limping form of serendipity. And I can't help but think of Charles, who used to shake his head at my dismissal of darkroom rules. "Make a test strip," he would caution me. Of course, I never listened to him. Maybe he had time to waste on a dopey test strip; but, I certainly didn't.

And, then, years later, I started making test strips, and they changed the way I did just about everything. Who knew--that is, besides Charles--that test strips could actually save time and improve results?

I'm determined to keep on breaking rules, but I want to break them carefully, subtly, masterfully, and without consequences that might strip me of the power to choose. So, I won't step over the screaming, thrashing child in the hallway or use people's real names in my stories or even suggest that anyone go to Somalia. I'll just keep one eye on the rules and the other on the possibilities.

I might not agree with David that I'm in the process of dying; but I will own to the fact that we're all closer to death than we are to birth. That's not a rule; that's a logistical law.

It's the Little Things

I love getting lost in minutie, in tiny details of language. Should we say “on line three” or “in line three”? Should we insert a comma at the end of an introductory phrase? What does wrong mean in language?

When I get really worried about the Iranian elections or idiot terrorists blowing up aid workers in Pakistan or the likes of Sarah Palin stating that God put oil in Alaska just so we humans could suck it out, I fold up the print news, shut off the television, minimize BBC.com, and turn to Oxford English Grammar or Modern Italian Grammar or even the Chicago Manual of Style. So comforting to know there are structures that make sense, rules for building or tearing down, explanations that don't shriek or argue or threaten to kill if I don't agree.

People die without structure.

And we either die or go mad if we can't make sense of the world. I almost believe there's no such thing as the breakdown of the body from old age; instead, there's a breakdown of the body and mind from a general pile-up of things that don't make sense, that seem capricious and stupid and violent.

Then, I remember there are people, far more intelligent than I'll ever be, who believe that structure does exist—structure in everything from the atom to grammar to thought to the cosmos. And we humans naturally seek out these structures that have always existed and will continue to exist long after humanity is nothing more than an ember seen through the lens of another time, another galaxy.

If we fail to find structure, we become capricious, stupid, and violent. Either that, or we fold up like a gasping accordian that wheezes and whines and then dies from too many demanding pushes and pulls against its leathery skin.

So, to avoid the big structures, which I have trouble spotting, I concentrate on the little ones, the grammatical ones that bring me such a sense of peace. Why do we use the subjunctive? Can we use nor without neither? And how about that bulky semi-colon? These questions are so much easier to tackle than the mess that festers outside my window and beyond my comprehension.

Perhaps we all have a gift for finding structure. Some find it in music, others find it in rhetoric, and yet others find it pushing up through the black earth as a long-stemmed rose or a future giant tomato. The music is beautiful, the earth is soft, and the tomato and the rose are red—structure and reason at their finest.

Now, does the comma belong in this sentence or not?

Next in LIne

In the old days when I was an idealist and didn’t see the end of any road, I thought people stayed around—that is, my friends would always be friends, my mother would always pour tea on a cold afternoon, my first love would balance forever on his pedestal with that dimple on his chin and that full-lipped smile.

Then—it seemed, suddenly—I started to notice precipices and black holes where people would drop, sometimes falling into impossibly dark graves where they’d get tangled in ropes or vines too thick to cut, too slippery to climb. And I’d never see them again. Others would fall under a wave, resurface for a quick hello, and then float out to sea. They’re gone forever, I’d think. Then, one day, I’d catch one of them cocking his head in front of a Red-On-Red at MOMA or clucking to a plump set of twins outside of Macy’s or riding the subway at midnight, gray, tired, swaying with every turn in the tracks. Once, I heard a voice at the other end of the phone line—“Hi, it’s me!” and I didn’t have a clue who had awakened me from my sleep. “Who? It’s 11:30 at night!”

I never considered the fact that I, too, had dropped off the precipices of other people’s lives. Do any of us ever think that way? Well, maybe the wise do, but I’ve never been wise.

I have no idea why suddenly I wish to make sense of all these extended encounters, or meetings, or whatever they were. The only certainty is that they each had something to do with the present state of my art, my spiritual sculpture. On bad days, I’d say some of them were responsible for my great imperfections; on good days, I realize I invited all of them in for good or for bad. And that’s just the way it is.

Sometimes I feel that we’re all just a bundle of nerve endings that happened, by crazy chance, to come together in a sort of molecular big bang—no pun intended. Some of us join together for a period of time for no reason other than proximity—we’re neighbors, we go to the same school, we’re walking down the same street, we both like extra parmigiana on our pasta. And then we’re off. We find someone else to rub up against, someone else who likes extra parmigiana and, even better, likes dogs or Shakespeare or Jackson Pollack. And we think this one’s a keeper, and then he dies or finds someone who lives way closer to him than you do.

It’s not that these changes are earth shattering. They do, however, shake up life’s initial certainty that the people we like or love or care about will always be on the same road as we are. That’s ridiculous, of course. We no longer live in traveling bands or walled city-states or Disney fairy tales. In fact, we’re supposed to “get on with it,” as they say. And so I do.

Oh, there’s nothing to resolve here. I’m just looking around and taking stock. After all, I’m licking life's last lollipop—just want to make sure I don't miss the soft chocolate filling in the middle.

Other Hands Scrubbing

My brother and sister have been doing all the work—the bathing, the toileting, the dressing and guiding; they're the ones who slog through nights of sporadic sleep and days of doctor visits; they're the conductors of the physical therapy sessions who also measure out and dole medications, prepare and clean up after high-calorie meals and snacks hoping to add a layer or two of flesh on the bones of our emaciated father who wears Alzheimer's like a loose sweater, too grand for him, too long and pilled and ragged, even gaudy. Most of the time I'm far away, appearing occasionally via webcam. But today I appear in person.

I reach out to hug him, this skeletal waif so pale and stooped, but still six or seven inches taller than I'll ever be.
“Well, well. Somebody took my thing with the money in it. The, the, the.... ”
“I'm sure it's here somewhere.”
“Remember the place we went to last time? I wanted to buy.... I wanted to buy.... The icecream. Did you like the icecream?”
“Yes. Especially the chocolate.”

My brother gives my father his wallet and tells us he's going to make some lunch.
“I'll be darned. Where'd you get that?” he calls after my brother.
“I pulled it out of my butt.”
“Would you look at that! Well well.” The man who made his living drawing cartoons doesn't know how to laugh anymore.

He tries to slide the wallet into his sweatpants, but he doesn't have a pocket and continues to scrape it against his leg as he talks.

“Do you want to come with me? I want some more of that icecream.”
“Sure. After lunch I'll go with you.”
“Lunch? Oh, that's what you say.”
“Yes, Tony's going to make some lunch.”
“Tony?” And he leans closer to me cupping his ear.
“Yes, Tony is making lunch.”
“Tony? I'm not sure I've met him yet.”
“Well, I might be able to get you an introduction.”
“Oh, have you seen him lately?”
“Not since he went into the kitchen.”

His face has cascaded into his neck, his eyes wet and without color. I could read a newspaper through their transparency. Women used to gush: “Your father's eyes are soooooo blue, so penetrating.”

He stares at his feet. “What’s these things? I don't seem to have shoes anymore.”
“Sure you do.”
“Well they're not much in evidence, are they?”
Like magic, my brother appears with a pair of my father's shoes.
“Well, I'll be darned. Are those yours?”
“No, they're yours. Would you like to try them on?”
“I don't mind.”
My brother helps him sit on the couch and puts his shoes on for him.
“These are very comfortable. They're mine?”
“Yup. All yours.”
“Where'd you get them?”
“I pulled them out of my butt.”
My father studies his new treasure.

He likes to stand by the window and watch the city traffic six floors below. “I never saw so many yellow cars. So many yellow cars coming and going.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Oh, yes. It's very nice. The man is always putting food in front of me.”
“Tony. That's Tony. Your son.”
“My son? Son? Well, I'll be darned.”
“That's right.”
“Then who's that man putting the food in front of me?”

I've brought snapshots along with me. I show them to him, one by one, perhaps with the assumption that he'll somehow snap to and become his old self, his memory pleasantly jolted by a glimpse into a saner time, a more reasonable world. He doesn't know any of the people. Not Ruth, the woman he had lived with for over thirty years, not Bärbel or Ute, his old girlfriends from Germany, not his favorite friend George or his neighbors across the street. Yet he recognizes a picture of himself taken about forty years ago when his beard was black and his hair long. “That one looks like me. That's one scruffy looking fellow.”

He looks up. He's forgotten already.

Sometimes he realizes his brain is in a jumble, and he'll jerk upright in the middle of alpha-sleep, perhaps expecting gravity to shock his synapses into firing as they once fired. Last night, as he sat on the edge of his bed, my sister suggested that he lie down and wait for dawn. But he didn't know he was sitting up in the first place. He's not sure what his body is doing or why it gets in his way or throws him off balance or makes rooms spin around and around.

My brother took him to church last Sunday afternoon where he stood before the altar shaking his fist and yelling: “Goddammit, God. What do you want from me? I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do. Why don't you just take me?”

The six or seven parishioners, prayers rudely interrupted, blinked over their pressed palms.

“Look, God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Can't you just forgive me?”

My brother's hand rests on his shoulder: “That's what everyone here is saying. Everyone is sorry. Everyone in here is sorry. Everyone wants to be forgiven.”

My father continued to rant, not from any cognitive or superficial portion of his brain, but from some reasonable core of his being: “Goddammit. Why do I have to be living? What do you want from me, God?”

One of the parishioners got up to leave and blessed herself with the holy water at the back of the church.

“Look, I believe in you, God. I believe in you. Just tell me what to do!”

My brother guided my father, still shaking his fist, to the ceramic bowl and sprinkled some water on his forehead.

Startled, his eyes widened, his fist suddenly undone: “Okay, I get it now. I have to wait. I have to wait.”

I visited him on the webcam that night.

“So, I hear you and God have been talking. What did God say to you?” I asked.

“God told me to go home and do my homework.” I think he’s trying to manage an old-time laugh. “Now I’m speaking to you all from God’s land. After the anger, I’m in God’s land. I'm in God's land, and I want all of you people to be happy.”

After we clear away the lunch dishes, my brother tells my father it's time to get ready to go out for a walk. He asks him to sit down so he can shave him.

“No, I won't sit down. You sit down.”

“No, you have to sit down so I can get you ready.”

“Will you go away? I've gotten along just fine without you all these years.”

“I know you have. But, now you have Alzheimer's, and you can't take care of yourself.”

My father sits: “Fine, I'll sit. But, I don't want to.”

My brother runs the electric shaver along my father's sunken cheeks.

“Help! Help! Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because I love you.”

“Oh sure. Oh sure. You should hear yourself talk.”

“I know. I'm a terrible person.”

“Can't you just leave me alone? Who are you anyway?”

“I'm your son, and I love you. I have to take care of you.”

“Well, that's your choice.”

“You're right about that. It's my choice.”

The “happy pill” starts to take effect, and my father calms down enough to allow my brother to complete the shave.

My father runs his hand along his chin. “Boy, that sure feels better than it did last time I felt it.”

“That's right. And now comes the worst part of all. The horrible part.” My brother dips a washcloth into some hot, soapy water and begins to wash my father's neck. “Isn't this horrible?”

“No. It's not horrible at all. It feels good.”

“Oh, darn. I wanted it to be horrible for you.”

“Well, it's not horrible. I like it.”

And so it went until it was time for me to go.

I had been lucky. I had found a parking spot right outside my sister's building—a big pothole where no one else had wanted to park. I studied the hole, which was big enough to accommodate all four wheels and planned how to pull out of it without damaging my tires. Success.

On the way home, I noticed how heavy the traffic was on the other side of the Expressway and congratulated myself on having gone in early enough to avoid being stuck on the other side. Whole Foods in Jericho was packed as usual. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's refuse to open stores in my area, which they've designated as “depressed.” Depressed. What do they know? Whole Foods in up-scale Jericho was all out of my favorite vegetarian curry, but their fried tofu was to die for.

On Monday, I'll deliver one of the application packets my sister has put together—doctor forms and x-rays and Medicare documents and patient reviews—deliver it directly to a nursing home near my depressed-area home. There's a point when you have to say goodbye and continue to do whatever it is you do until it's your time to sit in the chair and allow yourself to be scrubbed up, toweled off, combed, and dressed by hands other than your own. It’s just the way life goes.