Back in the age of blizzards, I stopped to chat with a neighbor who was shoveling his driveway. His eyes danced. His smile was like a child’s. He told me his story of a business gone bad, of lost retirement, but he radiated laughter, joy and wonder. I asked him if I could take his picture, saying that perhaps I would paint him one day. He laughed and stood with his shovel while I fished out my phone. (image has been blurred to protect my neighbor’s privacy)
I couldn’t get him out of my mind. After a bit, I did a charcoal sketch.
Many people thought he looked a bit creepy, which surprised me. That wasn’t what I saw. That got me to thinking who he really was, who any of us are, really. My neighbor became ShovelMan. I decided to paint a few of his past lives.
Perhaps Guillaume ‘Billy’ LaFleur played bass in the 1920’s with Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith’s new joint at 62 Rue Pigalle, when jazz was seeping into everybody’s veins. Truth be told, Billy fell head over heels for Ada and her red hair. But Ada, being the featured singer, had too many other admirers and lovers to even notice Guillaume.
Or perhaps Ondine lived a rather lonely life in a rather dark house, with many animal friends. She seldom had visitors, but when they came, she would show them the magic she had been working on. The grand house (which she had inherited from an eccentric aunt) stood on a stately hill and was demolished after her death. Ondine moved on to other lives, as did the rabbits.
Or perhaps, ShovelMan lived with the nomadic Bedouin people on the Arabian Peninsula. He was born into a clan that named him Mehedi, followed by the names of his father, grandfather and the tribe. Mehedi Mohammed Saleh al Heuwaitat. As you can see, Mehedi was a bit of a cut-up, but the family did not (and would never) throw him out of the tent.
Who are any of us, really? Who have we been? Have we been anywhere? Where are going?
I once participated in an exercise to search for previous existences. In a very large and crowded hotel ballroom, the man at the podium told us he would lead us to discover our past selves through a guided mediation. We were told to make ourselves comfortable. I found a spot to lie down on the patterned hotel carpeting. The gentleman told us to close our eyes and then began to lull us into a meditative state with a gentle narrative. I would love now to know what words he used, what images. He then asked us to look down at our feet. “What do you see?” he asked. When I looked down, I saw white loose-fitting pants and sandaled feet, descending a flight of stone steps into a cellar. I knew that I was a Greek man from another age. Very real, very strange. Perhaps too strange, and yet…it made me think, Who am I? What is my essence? Where did that image come from?
I suppose our main goal here in this life, after all the strivings and joy and pain and pretendings and triumphs and losses, is to figure out who we are, who we have been, who we are in the process of becoming.
Invigorating to truly look at ourselves, to slough off old assumptions, open ourselves up to new truths. Every time we notice our likes, dislikes, impulses, repulses, we learn about our deep selves. What gifts have we received? What revelations will we pass along? What misconceptions and embarassments will we bury?
Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958), the Nobel prize-winning Spanish poet, wondered about it all in his poem, Yo no soy yo.
I am not I I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
the one who remains silent while I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when I die.
I’ll end with a walk backwards through a life. Ever since I came across it, I have been captivated by the idea that Alzheimer’s patients are sometimes known to walk out of their houses, in one direction, through fields, over fences, continuing in that direction, in search of … something…even if it means heading straight into danger.
WALKING BACKWARDS is a mash-up of past projects. First, a poem I wrote recently, accompanied by line drawings I created for another a project in the Andover Schools, topped off by a recording of ‘John’s Waltz’, a song by guitarist John Tavano, accompanied by Roger Kimball on bass and me on guitar.
By the way, I never quite know where I’m going when I write these posts. I just start on the road to somewhere. So, keep walking. In any direction you like.
I love your wanderings...lovely piece with the famous Roger Kimball, also a dear friend of ours.
Neat reflection on imagining what the "ordinary" people we meet have stashed away in their histories.