Grace and Gratitude

In the play CLOSER by Patrick Marber there is a bit of dialogue that does not exist in the film. In a profound moment--and it really is just a moment--Dan asks Alice what she wants in life and she replies: "to be loved"

"That simple?" he responds.

"It's a big want."

I am sure that anyone who reads, with any regularity, any of my public ramblings is aware of my ongoing obsession with the work that is CLOSER; my obsession with the play, my obsession with the film, my obsession with the characters and the events of their lives, my obsession with Plain Jane Jones. I suppose, though, that I have been obsessed with love for most of my life, certainly for much longer than the period of time during which I have been aware of Mr Marber's literary and theatrical work and the characters and situations therein. Hell, I write about love or some consequence thereof all of the time. It is what preoccupies most of the world most of the time. Love, sex, money and power--these are our preoccupations.

I don't have money. I certainly don't have power. I have dealt with sex. To quote the great Andie McDowall (oh yes, she is, don't you dare argue with me) in the great Four Weddings And A Funeral, in a great bit of dialogue written by the great Richard Curtis (IMDB him and you will see the vastness of his greatness): "Less than Madonna but more than Princess Diana...". And then there is love. There is motherly love, brotherly love, the love between friends and the love between best friends. There is romantic love and passionate love, intellectual and platonic love, there is love of art, love of life and love of self. It just seems to be what guides us. Some, it drives with a force stronger than a hurricane, while for others it appears to be incidental.

I was watching the new television show DEXTER, starring Michael C. Hall of SIX FEET UNDER FAME. Sidebar: a delightful actor and so, so very handsome. The character he plays is a serial killer. He's either a psychopath or a sociopath or both but he is some kind of path..but not an empath. In his voiceover the other night he said something about being emotionally barren--I believe the exact words were something like "..if I felt anything inside, I would feel the most for my sister.." and it was one of those moments when I was taken outside of the storyline and placed back into reality. Sidebar: it's dangerous to write things in a piece that is so profound or thought provoking that it removes your audience from the storyline--what if they can't get back? I found myself wondering about the people who feel nothing. I have certainly felt a lot during my 42 years on this planet. It has, most assuredly, caused me to feel much emotional pain. There have been times when I wished I could feel nothing. It might make life a lot better, much easier. But the flip side is that without the pain, without the emotion, you run the risk of not being able to create art. Without the bad days you cannot appreciate the good ones. If not for the emotions, how could I pour passion into something I have written or some photo that I have created?

A close friend..one of my closest in fact..had a really rough week last week. She is someone who feels everything so deeply that the stakes are always, always high. The lows are as low as they can get and the highs are as high as they can get. She has had this situation in her life for a long time; I, personally, think that she needs some professional help with balancing things out a little so that she can begin to enjoy her life a little more. And I ain't just whistling dixie here: I HAVE been this person of extremity! It's exhausting!! It's much nicer to be able to live at an even keel and have very nice happy days and sort of acceptable bad days, rather than living a life that is like that ride at the amusement park that acts as a human pendulum. But here is the thing: she is also the greatest actress in my circle of friends. I'm not talking about my famous friends like Judi Dench or Donna Murphy; they are untouchable, iconic, legendary. I'm talking about, within the group of actors who walk among us every day, riding the subway, sitting on park benches, waiting in line to audition, she is the greatest actress I know. Now...if she were less moved by her emotions, if she felt things not quite so deeply, would she still be the great actress that she is? And what of the trade off? Her emotional fever pitch is part of her personality that makes her a great actress. Should she suffer in her personal life just so that her professional life should flourish? And if she should manage to achieve some calmness in her heart and her mind but lose some of her ability as an artist, is that fair?

Look at the artists as presented to us by the entertainment community. In AMADEUS Mozart loses his mind because he perceives himself to be a failure. In THE HOURS Virginia Woolf is shown to be what some might call certifiable and she winds up taking her life. In SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE Seurat loses everything in his personal life because he can focus on nothing but his work--none of which he sold during his lifetime. Great artists, every one; a writer, a painter, a composer all with this one thing in common. They must create art but are socially inept and suffer from varying degrees of emotional or mental instability (or both). Are they born crazy? Are they born with their unique brand of obsessive compulsiveness? Or does it breed within them? Mozart is shown to be eccentric; but he does not lose his mind until he is overwhlemed by a perception of failure. I have experienced that--NOT. FUN. Had the circumstance been different, would he have gone off the beam? If he had been the recipient of approval would he have lived a longer and happier life? And what is approval but love?

Why wasn't Leonard Woolf's love strong enough to save Virginia? It is made clear in both the novel and the film that she and Leonard were devoted to one another, that she recognized that devotion, that she felt that love. Yet, it wasn't enough to keep the voices in her head quiet. Was it schizophrenia? Paranoia? Some other chemical imbalance that made it so impossible for her to remain on this planet?

I cannot speak for these factual persons fictionalized by the artists of this era. I cannot, in fact, speak for my beautiful and brilliant girlfriend who seeks some deep inner strength. My perception and perspective is limited, only, to my experiences in this life. I have been very open and honest about the fact that I have suffered damage to my self esteem by my perceptions of failure as an artist and failure at the art of earning and deserving friendship and love. I have never glossed over the fact that during this life I have felt disapproved of, unloved and underappreciated. I can be open about these things because they have no power over me now. Well. They have little power over me, now. It is clear to me that I have some issues in my relationship with my father, who has found ways to make it clear to me, as recently as July 2006, that he does not approve of me, absolutely. I continue to struggle with emotional baggage left from the bigotry extended to me by children in the 70's decade and homosexuals in the 90's decade (even in the 2000's decade) for my status as a non-caucasian. Even last week I had to ask Pat to talk me out of the tree because I saw an article in a magazine about someone I knew, at one time, who is a succesful photographer now. He is more succesful than I -- and when I knew him he wasn't even interested in photography; he was a second rate actor who could not get a job. Sidebar: why do these people who keep failing at their own chosen professions decide that, since they cannot find work in their field, they should come over and steal work from people in my field? What if I suddenly decided to go back into acting and started auditioning and taking their jobs away from them. Go back where you came from, please! Please. Just get out of my talent pool.

All of these demons are a part of my daily existence. However, they are not what drives my daily existence. They are only moments of each day, they live only in a tiny pocket of my personality and though they manage to tiptoe out and leave a mark on any given day, they have no real power here. I have been saved. I am saved every day. I am reminded each day of the love and approval that I DO have. The most important is strong and powerful love from my spouse, naturally, but there is love shown in emails and IMs from dear friends; love in each time the phone rings and it is "..just Tom, calling to say hi.."; love in messages from people whom I have never met, writing to comment on a blog posting; love from clients who actually write lengthy passages in their blogs about what a great photo shoot they had with me. This love is, indeed, enough to (at least, for awhile) stay the demons in their pockets, thus allowing me to walk a little jauntier, smile a little sincerely and look up into the sky to say thank you to OB1, my God, my guide and friend. Also, though, there is a more important, a more valid love that saves me. It took awhile to find it. In fact, it was like pushing a piano through a transom. It has been found, though, and it is the buoy that bonds me to this planet, ready for whatever adventure or tragedy may befall me.

It is called love of self. And it is eternally graceful. It is a big want but a simple one. And for the Alice Ayers, for the Plain Jane Jones that lives in each of us; may everyone be so lucky as to find it.

I'm so grateful that I did.

please note: the photo above was shot (when I was seventeen) from a moving train as I traveled through the Swiss countryside. I had been napping on a rainy day and awoke to see the sun coming out. The sun always comes out...