Last summer, during my first Arc session, I was instructed to buy a film camera, so that I could capture moments of pleasure. “Stopping to take pictures will never be more or less embarrassing than it already is,” Kat said.
I despise Tumblr culture, and will die slowly before I ever post a “dump” on Instagram. But this was a different assignment. It was about consolidation, the Taurean artform. I would learn to mark moments as my own. They didn’t have to be posted, nor should they have any artistic significance. They were just mine. However they turned out, the pictures indicated that I was paying attention. Around the same time, I drank my first iced Americano. I was, as never before, experiencing delight.
In April, I met Lulu and Henry in Croatia, each of us armed with a film camera. As you know, I’ve not spent much time in “the world,” preferring the synthetic safety of the TV screen. Walking with Lulu and Henry changes all that. You notice and appreciate things: bad art, huge trees, fucked-up looking dogs. The world becomes ensouled and interesting, not in a twee way. It’s just there, and pretty to look at.
None of us had any associations with Croatia; I couldn’t point to it on a map, and my dad had words about the country’s conspicuous lack of Jews. When he told me I was on the Mediterranean, I tried to correct him: We’re on the Adriatic. “The Adriatic is part of the Mediterranean,” he laughed. The point is: there were no expectations. We could be ding dongs. Everything could be nothing, free to be imbued with meaning.
On the third day, we were led by an angel to a non-touristy beach, where we immediately gave ourselves away as graceless, gaudy Americans, too joyful to pass as regulars. From the grass, I opened my eyes to the whole scene: muscular Slavic men wrestling and crashing into the water, Henry and Lulu beached on the hot cement like iguanas, the hills and the rocks. The dissociative scrim had been ripped off and I was safe to witness it all. I understood that it was too much to take in, that it had to be framed and shaped. I needed my camera for this. Wait a minute. Do I get photography now?
Lulu and I talked a lot about reality, a constant, singular truth, like they talk about in Cloud Atlas; and perspective, known also as art, the lens through which each of us sees, and shares, the world.
Back home, the next week, I attended a Passover sex rave, at which the Prince of Egypt was projected at the entrances of the dark rooms. In a rare turn of events, I showed up feeling alive and connected to source. The G and K blended miraculously, dropping me deeper into myself. There are some paramours who only exist on the dancefloor, summoned through magic to make life cinematic. There’d been one I’d met at the Gaze Desert Rave in September. We reconnected, and spent the night hugging and smiling and kissing.
When we left, at 6:30am, the city was oddly grey, Soviet, dead. “Smalltown Boy” could be heard thumping out of the club in the distance. Morrissey would have loved it, the bleak silence. I couldn’t stop looking at it all. Lulu had trained me, and now, in this rare instance, I could do it on my own: I could see!
A few nights ago, I ended up on an impromptu mushroom walk. I returned home to watch A Room with a View, which Henry had recommended. “Helena Bonham Carter and Maggie Smith in Florence,” he texted me from a plane. “What more could you ask for?” In Croatia, Henry and I had talked about how E.M. Forster and James Ivory — all the people who conceived these lavish period pieces – they had to be faggots. Only we could see such decadence in ruin.
But this one wasn’t about decay. It was about life. The movie took me by hand, led me into the garden of Eden. I remembered that the director, James Ivory, wrote the screenplay for Call Me By Your Name, which I saw five times in theaters. They’re about the first gasps of resurrection, dipping into the sacred pond and embracing God.
I’ve always used language as my way in, or my way of keeping everyone out. I know that writing is a god-given gift. But my history with writing-as-art has often led to insobriety, to scribbling up new worlds through which I can bust out of this one.
But this is different, because it’s not just in my head. I spoke to my angels, who showed me the land lit to bursting, a living portrait. They said that the art to come must be here, and can only be painted in this reality. To will more beauty into being, to enhance creation, to be of life. Not an escape, but a return. I don’t know what this means, but I’m ready to say that I’m an artist.
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UPDATES:
My new reading series have arrived. You can read more here, book and reach out to my at adavidodyssey@gmail.com to talk payment plans and details. I’m excited to work together.
All my love,