Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 1:15 p.m. I was lying on a white leather couch watching Pride and Prejudice with the director's commentary on. Joe Wright was saying something about walking in or out of frame from the right or left. I think most people step into my frame from the left, but I register them with the right side of my head.
At the exact same moment Director Wright was talking about frame, she took this shot of the Queens College campus.
I am on the couch.
She is standing in the shade, on the other side of the continental United States.
Wednesday, October 13 at 1:15 p.m. on Long Island it was a "beautiful crisp day."
The white leather was cool against my over-worked calf muscles and over-stretched external obliques.
I wanted to take a picture of it. I had framed it in my mind and then shimmering light distracted me. Poof! Just like that it was 1:16 p.m.
My hands look different. My veins are more pronounced, my skin appears thinner, and cross-hatching is visible. I have also noticed fine lines developing under my eyes and that my face shape seems to be changing, rounding a bit, though I've lost some weight in the last few months. I am going to die one day.
When I was in late elementary and early middle school, I was so certain of my purpose, I was going to be a fantastic story-teller. I had had some success as a spinner of tales. Our first house growing up was about seven miles outside of town and the bus service had to cover children that lived as far outside of town as fifteen miles. Depending on the year, we were picked-up toward the beginning of the route or toward the end. The wholesome children on our route were exposed to the trailer park kids - hoodlums who had been to roadside taverns, ate tv dinners on weeknights, and had witnessed violence. They weren't even the scariest kids on the bus. The toughest, meanest kids on the bus were two brothers and a sister who lived above a bar off Highway 51 called Rose's Cantina, a favorite bar of the motorcyclists, possibly Hell's Angels, who rode through town every year. It was legendary in our town because someone had been murdered at the bar.
The oldest brother had bloodshot eyes and we'd call him Satan's spawn behind his back. The middle son had big blue eyes and a mean right hook. Their little sister was ruddy colored and foul-mouthed. They were all foul-mouthed and I was terrified of them. Everyone was terrified of them because Satan's spawn was rumored to keep a knife inside his jacket and the middle son - messenger boy - hit someone almost every day. Messenger boy and I struck up a deal of sorts. The bus was full and the only free spot was next to him, my older brother was fortunately riding the bus (the only time all year) and demanded that Messenger boy move over and let me in.
"You gonna make me?" Messenger boy looked like a lightweight ready to strike.
"I will, if I have to," my brother replied, standing fully 6'2", his hands in fists. The back of the bus was silent, breathless.
Messenger boy wasn't going to mess with a star jock and he moved aside and let me sit on the edge. It was a glorious day on the bus for me. My big brother had saved the day! The next day, I found a seat but it wasn't too far from Messenger boy. I kept my head down but he saw me. He asked me to come sit with him. I did. And over the rest of the school year, we would talk and I would tell him stories that went on for weeks. It was coolest to sit in the very back of the bus, furthest away from the driver. Satan's spawn sat in one of those seats, but when we stopped at Rose's Cantina, Messenger boy made it clear to everyone that if I wanted to sit there, it was my seat. Later that year, there was a fire that burned Rose's Cantina to the ground and I never saw those kids again. I tried the same tactic with two other older boys who lived in Eggleston's Woods, a neighborhood where everyone had an in-ground pool, but they weren't going to get me the back seat, they could only offer me their seats.
I am experiencing a growing urgency to live my life as if I have a clear purpose, which I do not. There are only immediate objectives: go to work for pay; take care of your dog; be good to those around you. When there are visible reminders that life is short, you respond. My life has not changed, I still have to struggle to get to the gym and dread work most days, but there is a stir within.
I do not know what day I was born. There is no record. I came into the world one of tens of thousands of girls, with a fifty-fifty chance of never finding a home and receiving the opportunities that I have had. The coin toss was in my favor.
Growing-up I cannot recall my mother or father ever asking for gratitude, not even a hint of it. When I would be overcome by my good fortune and I would ask them why me? They would say, because they loved me from the moment they saw my photo (I look like a space alien in that photo) and it was G*d's plan that I would become their daughter. Perhaps, when they meant that it was G*d's plan that I should feel safe in the truth that nothing happens without his blessing. I am significant, cradled in His omniscience.
Yesterday, they called me from the Pancake House to sing Happy Birthday. It has become a tradition and it brought tears to my eyes. I was overwhelmed by the thought that my life is forever tied to these two people singing into a cell phone in a semi-crowded restaurant at 12:30 pm. Though it may seem like a strange place to think of calling your daughter to wish her well on her birthday, it is in fact, a perfect place because it's essentially their Cheers. Everyone knows them and they have adopted all the young people who wait tables and make the heavenly dutch apple baby. I kinda wished I was there with them.
Yesterday, I went to the Whitney to see Georgia O'Keefe's early abstract charcoals and oil works. The museum worker at the ticket counter asked me if I was a student or under 25. I said thank you and gave her my id.
I am glad now that I went alone. I began to see that O'Keefe was a master of color and shape - what shapes! The exhibit followed her life from her first solo show '291' in 1917 through to her final move to New Mexico in the 40s. And I loved that even in her darkest works she seemed to apply the pastel or oil with a kind of wonder and awe, like she was waiting for the color to sing her a sad, low-down melody or a sea shanty or a love song. Given how much her palette seemed like a concert work to my eyes, her paintings dealing with music as a subject were not nearly as alive as her works from Lake George and her time in New York City.
As I discovered Georgia O'Keefe for the first time, I so wanted to reach out to Princess and tell him what I thought. But if I had gone with him would I have been much more concerned with his observations than my own? Which brings me to another realization, that I never really understood his artistic process or what he meant in his first email of his "fundamental hostility toward artists and art that drives his artistic production."
Throughout the day I heard from friends and members of my family. My birthday did not pass without notice and I was not alone, although I felt the absence of his presence all day long. Thankfully, my birthday was not spoiled by those wistful moments and I will give myself some of the credit for that but the rest of the credit goes, in particular, to three friends who shared a meal with me and made a true celebration possible.
