CHANGES
JAN. 15. 2016. I had intended to post the following essay on Monday past, but I woke up to the news of David Bowie’s death and along with so many people was surprised by the shock and sadness that this news brought. Many thoughts and memories have been shared during these ensuing days, by people who didn’t know him, but who were deeply touched by him; I would like to add mine.
From when I first saw Bowie, decades ago, I felt deeply connected to him. I thought of him as a brother from whom I had been separated at birth. It wasn’t just our physical similarity… skinny, dirty blondes, with high cheekbones…that had me fantasizing a biological connection. It was a tribal thing; an air of loneliness, his quick smile and sly humor; a certain take on the random quality of life and, in spite of our similar journeys through drugs, alcohol and sexual experimentation, there remained a deep sense of fairness. I admired him for his unique, ego-free creativity and was inspired by his ability to touch so many lives while keeping is own private.
What really got to me about his death – apart from the sheer sorrow of it – was his decision not to tell the world that he was dying. His commitment to his creativity and to the privacy of his family was undiluted by a need to publicly “process” his dying; so very un-modern for one so avante garde. I have been playing his music and watching videos of him all week, but find myself hitting “pause,” as if in so doing I can delay his departure.
And now, today, comes news of Alan Rickman’s death. Like Bowie, of cancer; like Bowie at age 69. My age. Rickman was another bright star in the English tradition. Both he and Bowie were always more interested in the work than any fame it might bring them. Both of them were blatantly talented and yet personally understated and possessed of decency and fast humor.My gratitude to them both for all that they gave of themselves and for showing us the important difference between art and celebrity.
10 Jan. 2016 CHANGES
I was just out in the garden having forgotten to water the plants wintering over in the greenhouse…not that it is really winter here this year. Today is mild and mostly sunny and an inspection of the grounds shows that everything is budding when it should really be dormant.
I, too, am straddling the seasons. On the one hand, loving the lazy-lay-abed upon awakening; soaking up the supreme luxury of a) not have been awakened by an alarm clock and b) gleefully snuggling with Joel under the covers for as long as we want. Although as artists our work will never be done, we are in a moment of our lives where we are finally, after years of hustling, able to relax. On the other hand, I am teeming with energy and creative ideas. This new opportunity to create our own schedules is what all of us who have had to work for a living dream of. And like all dreams it contains elements of mystery, confusion, and the unexpected. Choices become minutely detailed: lie in bed for half an hour or do yoga. Read on the couch, or begin writing a new novel. Vacuum the house or go for a walk. Make a pot of soup or catch up on emails. What amazes me is that even though, for the most part, my choices are between one good thing and another, the fact that I have to choose makes me so anxious that I assume I must choose them all!!
This is a character defect that I am choosing to observe this year and hopefully let go of. Not only because this guilt-driven demand to do everything and do it now, and quickly, makes me breathless and joyless, but also, horror of horrors, makes me judge anyone in my orbit who doesn’t do it my way.
Growing up with staid English parents, my boundless, creative energy must have been terrifying to them. Among the daily admonishments from my mother was this beauty: “Slow down, one of these days you’re going to break your neck.” Don’t you hate it when your mother is right? It took me a few decades, but sure enough, just when my life was the best it had ever been…I broke my neck.
But how much, really, can we regulate our native energy? Even the seasons can’t regulate themselves. Here, in Tuscany, the farmers are very concerned about the recent mild winters. Insects and bacteria, which need to die off in freezing temperatures in order not to destroy crops, are having a field day…pardon the pun. In the garden just now I saw flies and a couple of bumble bees and damn it, a line of ants heading toward the strawberry plant in the greenhouse. A plant, I might add, which produced a steady crop of berries last summer, not one of which we got to eat because the ants always got there first!
We were in Florence this past week for a couple of days with our friends Sharon and Paul. Florence, the seat of the Italian Renaissance, is struggling to be born again. Decades of tourists and consumerism, much like a mild winter, seemed enjoyable and beneficial at first. It took a while to realize that in fact they were killing off that which was of beauty and value. However, what we’ve experienced on our last few trips to this city, is that the younger generation is rising up and reinventing itself. They know there is no going back, but they also know it is possible to take these ancient artisanal skills and apply them to today’s needs and aesthetics; whether it be repurposing old materials, or creating a yoga studio in an medieval shop, or selecting old objects with an eye to their anima and displaying them in a way that allows a visitor to see anew.
All our lives we are adapting to change; from crib to bed, from play to school, from college to work, single to married, thin to rotund, curly headed to bald, able-bodied to infirm, acne to wrinkles, partnered to divorced or widowed. We change homes, countries, names, religions, jobs, cars, beliefs…always trying to get ‘it’ right in the absurd belief that there is such a thing as the perfect recipe. The trick, it seems to me, is knowing when it is time to adapt or when it is time to remain true to some inner core of wisdom.
As many of you know, I recently published a novel. Sales got off to a good start partly because of Christmas and partly because of the mass emails I sent out, begging everyone I’d ever met to please buy a copy. And all the while, everyone was telling me “social media, social media, social media!” Twice I signed up for Facebook and Twitter and each time felt out of my depth and, let me be honest, judgmental of the load of crap to be found out there. Which made it easy for me to view myself as superior rather than having the courage to find my way into it; a way that would be organic, arising from who I am and not whom I think I should be.
It’s typical of me to say an immediate 'no' to any sort of change that doesn’t come easily. Yet, in fact, I am basically an adventurous, yes person; I just have to say no before I say yes. That way I can appear morally decisive while quietly struggling with my sense of inadequacy. So thank goodness for all the angels in this world who quietly, patiently pass us from one to another until we arrive at an angel who knows just how to help us adapt. All this to say thank you to my web designer who has found a way for me to be comfortably engaged in social media and to my husband with whom I share evening conversations that help me see new possibilities.
All of us, now, are faced with global situations to which we must either adapt or succumb; whether it is terrorism or a struggling economy or climate change. We need to have perspective in the face of change. We need to remember past centuries of enormous suffering: plagues, famine, flood, hundred-years wars, to name but a few. If necessity is the mother of invention, what can each of us do to embrace opportunity?
Nothing will stop the insect population from increasing, so maybe we need to do what the Africans did and cover them in chocolate; ants being a very high source of protein, they would also go really well with those strawberries they won’t get to eat!
