NOTHING COMPARES TO NOTHING

31March 2012      

This time last year we were less than halfway into our first journey to, and through, Provence…this was just about the time when Joel’s burned hand was beginning to heal and we were beginning to get a glimpse of what Provence would mean to us. Now, 2 weeks after returning from our first post-book visit, I feel I am still there in spirit, while feeling somewhat stranded here, now that the book is over. 

I said to Joel yesterday, as an artist, one must be prepared to feel the desolation of emptiness and accept the necessity for it. For I believe that in order for the next creative work to arrive, one must have vacated the space of the previous work, at least, I need to if I am not to repeat myself.

But God, I hate standing in that vast, windswept plain of nothingness. It is so tempting to teeter into depression from this sandblasted place; depression, in this case, being an action of sorts, an unconscious decision to call oneself ‘nothing’ and thereby be free to contemplate the ultimate choice.

But I know better – and that aggravates me, because knowing better does nothing to alleviate this necessary, transitional state of emptiness. And aggravated enough, I become furious at the appalling lack of worth of this knowledge. It’s a lovely mix; depression and anger, tilting at the abyss.

The pattern is always the same: days of feeling nothing and not knowing why, then days of knowing why and insisting the knowledge ‘do something’ about it, followed by a day of remote horror that the end is nigh, then about 15 minutes of dramatic confession and primal sobbing and it’s all over – not exactly raring to go, but willing to put my coat on and stroll through Central Park.

One takes nature however it comes and the unalterable fact is that it’s always bigger than us. To surrender to light and earth, trees and flowers, to watch a squirrel race and listen to birds chat, well, it does ground you; the inner desert goes to the oasis.

We sat on a bench in Shakespeare’s garden, took off our coats and basked not only in the heat of the sun but also in the glory of spring. We’d planned on visiting the Whitney Biennial, but sitting together on that bench was an experience too precious to be replaced by art. So we lingered there until our sere spirits were slaked.

The whole park had a lovely stroll to it, rare these last couple of decades when so often it is overwhelmed by skaters, joggers and bikers, all going at a speed more suitable for the street. Not yesterday. Yesterday it was relatively unpeopled, left only to those of us in a mood to meander. 

After a couple of hours we made it down to the Paris Theatre, perhaps the last cinema in Manhattan that has an aura of yesteryear; its velvet, dove gray curtains falling in quiet grandeur in front of the screen, parting only for one preview, followed by the feature. And the film, “The Deep Blue Sea,” also a relic of the past, whose main character we watch teeter on the edge of her barren interior, desperate for misguided love; anything to fill the ruin that WWII brought – not just the ruin of streets and homes, but the ruin of something worth fight for. I thought it a brave film. So much braver than the conversation I overheard some 30 minutes later where we sat at a communal table in a restaurant.

Next to us a man in his 50’s, sleek skin and a head of steely-cropped curls is waiting for the bill. His 20-ish daughter’s youthful perfection somehow null and void – too many spa sessions perhaps?

FATHER: “As a grandparent I’ll be pretty much how I was as a parent; I won’t get involved with their emotional lives, but I’ll take them places.

DAUGHTER: “Awesome.”

FATHER:  At least I have all my hair.

DAUGHTER: it’s so amazing.

FATHER: I’d be gay but I love girls… I go to musicals…

The waiter brings the bill. Not to be deterred from what he considers a really hip conversation with his daughter the father continues:

FATHER: I think your mother and I sexually fulfilled our stereotypical roles.”

DAUGHTER: Totally. More than.

Joel returns from the men’s room, his shaved head gleaming, his smile, true north. I come in from the wasteland.