A Portrait of the Artist as a 42 year-old man in Brooklyn

3/29/13

My journey began with a dream about an apple.  I’m not sure if I was eating the apple or if it was simply half eaten on the floor somewhere in a room where more significant events occurred, but for some reason it was the first thing that I remembered when I woke.  Nevertheless, my first thoughts as I jumped out of bed had something to do with technology being a metaphor for life, creating this artificial narrative that continues to develop out of the ether causing needs where none existed before.   The rest I admit is a bit murky.  I’m finding it hard to recall all of it. But such is the nature of dreams. 

One thing that I do remember is the urgency I felt immediately after I awoke to get it all down.  I’m pretty sure that the details of the dream do not concern me.  I’m more concerned with the epiphany that I received from the experience.  It seems to be gone now but something else lies remaining in its wake.  Along my journey I notice some things. I guess I could call them obstacles, but as my periphery reveals a half full glass of water next to my laptop I’ve decided to instead call them guideposts.  I remember back pain, a smelly garbage bin, a piece of misplaced mail, a crazy singing lady and a long overdue trip to the bathroom. To give these obscure items context, I have to reference the movie The Matrix.  There is a scene when Morpheus informs Neo that all inhabitants of the matrix were programmed to be his enemy and would do any thing to protect the program.  The primary protectors of this artificial reality were the agents who would kill anyone who did not belong.  My writing process is kind of like this; a process filled with obstacles both internal and external, which threaten my ability to put thoughts on paper.  I assume that every writer has his or her own unique version of this; today mine started with a pain in my back. 

It was only one of a series of aches that I have been experiencing since the beginning of the week when I discovered I was sick…again.  For some reason, my immune system has been compromised this winter and I have been getting sick quite frequently.  The frustrating thing about it all is that of all the times that my body could have shut down it chose to do so during my week’s vacation from my very stressful teaching job.  The same job that I have constantly complained is the number one distraction to my writing process.  So, my first waking moment after my apple dream was a reminder that even though I am feeling much better than I did in the beginning of the week, I’m still not quite over this bug.   That realization was kind of like a moment in a video game when the hero takes some enemy fire and his energy level gets reduced from a hundred percent down to ninety.  But even with ninety percent inspiration left I was still determined to sit at my computer and write about my dream and the fading epiphany it left me. 

Guidepost number two revealed itself in the form of a full garbage bin.  On my way to my laptop, which will serve as the Holy Grail in this Knight’s tale, I smelled the foul stench of garbage coming from my kitchen.  And since I am the only male in the house capable of taking out the garbage and since garbage day is today, it is of course my responsibility to gather and bag all of the garbage and recycling in the house and make sure that it is promptly placed on the corner before the garbage men come to collect it.  The alternative of course would be waiting until Monday, which of course is unacceptable.  This seemingly minor distraction might not be a big deal to most, but to a guy like me who sometimes lives in his head it is a major shift in the delicate balance of the universe.  I sometimes resort to silly self-absorbed practices like thinking back to the days when I had nothing but time to sit and contemplate both my navel and my next great literary work.  Household responsibilities in my mind become nothing more than obstacles created by the ongoing conspiracy to suppress free thought and dampen creativity.  Damn that infernal garbage!  Energy level now at eighty percent. 

Once I decided to man up and take out the trash I noticed another looming responsibility in my periphery.  It was a piece of misplaced mail.  We have recently been assigned a new mailman who has acquired the remarkable skill of dropping off a piece of misplaced mail in our box every single day since we became a part of his route.  The package in question had been sitting by the door for about a week and it looked important.  And since the inner boy scout in me could not bare to look at this important looking package any longer, I dropped off the garbage and did the mail man’s job.  This particular guidepost has to do with my O.C.D. tendency tie up loose ends and reset the universe when it seems to be going off balance. The only down side is that this obsession sometimes distracts me from balancing my own universe.  I realize this and the effect is almost paralyzing.  Energy level: sixty-five percent. 

At this point of my journey, writing began to feel pointless.  The Advil I took had not yet taken effect, and as I trudged forward to the stranger’s apartment to deliver her mail I was tempted with thoughts of going back to bed and sleeping until noon until my thoughts were abruptly interrupted by some peculiar singing. Normally I wouldn’t have paid it any attention especially since Brooklyn is filled with atonal crooners who I’m sure sound good in their own minds. But the strange thing about this woman’s song was that it was a single word repeated over and over, a word that sounded oddly like my wife’s name Devasha.  “Vasha Vashaaaa…Vasha Vashaaaaa” Coincidence? Probably. But I could also attribute it to my subconscious and the little matrix agents at work creating more barriers to my creative process.  One of the hardest things that any struggling writer or artist can admit is that the ones we love can sometimes unwittingly distract us the most.  It is not their fault of course.  They just want our attention. They also remind us that we play a major role in handling the daily minutia of taking out garbage and making sure that the neighbors a block away receive their mail. The constant awareness of this paradox that suggests that in order to be a responsible man I must give up what makes me a person is constantly looming.  Even since I have started writing these observations my wife has already interrupted me three times with news about mechanic estimates on her car and other house and family related things, some of which do not fall under the category of minutia.  Soon, my children will be awake and the last of my energy will be spent getting cereal for my son as he asks me repeatedly to turn on The Power Rangers and my daughter asks for my help on her English homework.  And there is a fifty/fifty chance whether or not I will do any writing for the remainder of the day.  But again, they’re my children and it’s not their fault.  Energy level: twenty-five percent.

I finally reached my epiphany during the last slightly vulgar but much needed interruption of my journey to the grail.  Let’s just say that before I took my seat at my desk I required some place else to sit.  I mention this inappropriate subject because many parents are aware that the bathroom is often the only place of refuge to momentarily escape the pressures of this sacred duty.  I wouldn’t be surprised if many of our greatest conundrums of parenting and life in general were solved there.  It is also the place that marks the end of illnesses like colds and flu.  On this day it was the last destination that I visited before I realized that the epiphany I was looking for from my apple dream was that I was just full of shit. All of the obstacles that seemed to be getting in the way of my process were just constipated thought. Ironically, it was the one place on my road to the page where I became focused enough and healthy enough to write this narrative created out of the ether on m Apple laptop.  Thanks to Steve Jobs for giving the expression "an apple a day" a whole new meaning.