Recently I attended a lunch for my favorite professor from undergrad. I hadn't seen either him or his wife since graduation day, literally decades ago, but I've kept in touch with each of them over the years via e-mail and Christmas cards. They've both been phenomenally supportive of me an all of my career choices. As a kid, I looked up to both of them as models of how to live life and as I've grown older my view has not changed. I was specifically invited, singled out from the mass e-mailing that announced their arrival in Chicago, and I couldn't refuse to see them.
But it was the mass e-mail part that made me a little itchy.
I'm not the only one who feels this way about this professor and his wife. In fact, almost all the students he taught in more than twenty years of being a professor feel this way. We all feel that these two people were instrumental in shaping us into the people we've become and we all feel grateful.
But we don't all feel that way about one another.
Although I knew that there was no way to get out of the lunch, and I absolutely wanted to see these two people, I have to admit to being sort of cowardly and responded to my individual invitation with "um...so who else do you think will be there?" The response rattled off at least a dozen names I recognized, three of which were people I need never see again. I spent a couple of days stewing about what to do and how to handle the meeting. I'm not nearly as successful as I would like if and when I ever meet these people again. Although I've not been ravaged by the sands and winds of time, I no longer look nineteen. I wasn't even sure I'd have clean clothes.
Then I realized that the people I was dreading seeing again no longer exist. At best, these people are distorted memories in my head. I'm not the same person I was as a theater major. Why would I expect that they would be? I decided I was being silly and so I went.
And do you know what? None of the people I dreaded seeing showed up. Instead, I spent a lovely afternoon reconnecting with people I hadn't thought about in years. It was a nice little stroll down memory lane. There were so many people there that it was impossible to get much time with my professor and his wife. But that was OK. There was a lot of laughter. A lot of hugs and promises to keep in touch. And then it was done. It was a lot like what I imagine heaven must be like.
When I left, I had a very strange feeling, like I'd just returned from a magical time journey. I was at once nineteen and forty five. The feeling stayed with me for days. And then it was done. When the day sort of receded into my memory, so did a lot of those undergrad days. It was like tidying up that room that has been cluttered for far too long, putting away the things of value and tossing the things that are useless. That luncheon did that for me. But it has helped me put a lot of things away. Since that luncheon different pages from my past seem to be cropping up and demanding that they be put into their proper place, either in a scrap book or the waste basket. My childhood home, a friends altered blog page, a nemesis's career successes, have all brought up old feelings that I recognize as old. Not relevant to who I am today or what I'm doing.
Somewhere along the way, when I wasn't really paying attention, I might just have grown up.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The House
While my mother moved around quite a bit while I was growing up, my father was very stationary. After their divorce, he moved in with his mother and took over the house when she died. All through my rather unstable childhood that house was literally a port in a storm.
It was small, with two bedrooms. After my grandmother died, Dad converted her bedroom into a room for my sister. I took over the unfinished basement. I loved it. Cinder block walls and a big furnace that had originally burned coal and at some point had been converted to gas. It was swathed in asbestos and no doubt I'll develop lung cancer. I don't care. That cave was my safe haven for at least ten of the eighteen years before I made my escape to college.
When my father died, I was only twenty-two. I'd just graduated college and moved to Chicago. There was no way that I could take on a mortgage and try to be an actor. I chose being an actor and after nearly a year of trying to hold on to the house, had to let it go. I won't go into all of the gory details now, but suffice it to say that my sister and I were taken advantage of and walked away with nothing.
In the time since we left that house, there have been major renovations. Fences were pulled out, trees were cut down. It was painted brown. Five years ago I drove past it for the first time in years and barely recognized it. I was happy that it was being cared for and didn't give it a second thought.
Until this week when my mother sent me a telephone listing.
My cousin bought the house.
I felt like I'd been harpooned. For years I've felt guilty for losing the house. Now, it is not only back in the family, but it was bought by a cousin who is from the branch of the family that virtually disowned my father when he married my mother. It was a rift that was never healed.
I spent about an hour feeling bad. Then I realized that house is in that small town. While I might have made more money in the sale, if I'd tried to hold on to that house, I'd have had to move back to that same small town to do it.
If I'd done that, I'd be dead.
I made this realization while I biked along Lake Michigan to my job and made plans for my exotic photo shoots. I decided that I don't think I'd trade my life today for all the little houses in that little town. My cousin is welcome to it.
It was small, with two bedrooms. After my grandmother died, Dad converted her bedroom into a room for my sister. I took over the unfinished basement. I loved it. Cinder block walls and a big furnace that had originally burned coal and at some point had been converted to gas. It was swathed in asbestos and no doubt I'll develop lung cancer. I don't care. That cave was my safe haven for at least ten of the eighteen years before I made my escape to college.
When my father died, I was only twenty-two. I'd just graduated college and moved to Chicago. There was no way that I could take on a mortgage and try to be an actor. I chose being an actor and after nearly a year of trying to hold on to the house, had to let it go. I won't go into all of the gory details now, but suffice it to say that my sister and I were taken advantage of and walked away with nothing.
In the time since we left that house, there have been major renovations. Fences were pulled out, trees were cut down. It was painted brown. Five years ago I drove past it for the first time in years and barely recognized it. I was happy that it was being cared for and didn't give it a second thought.
Until this week when my mother sent me a telephone listing.
My cousin bought the house.
I felt like I'd been harpooned. For years I've felt guilty for losing the house. Now, it is not only back in the family, but it was bought by a cousin who is from the branch of the family that virtually disowned my father when he married my mother. It was a rift that was never healed.
I spent about an hour feeling bad. Then I realized that house is in that small town. While I might have made more money in the sale, if I'd tried to hold on to that house, I'd have had to move back to that same small town to do it.
If I'd done that, I'd be dead.
I made this realization while I biked along Lake Michigan to my job and made plans for my exotic photo shoots. I decided that I don't think I'd trade my life today for all the little houses in that little town. My cousin is welcome to it.
Passion
I have a new passion. I'm taking pictures. A lot of them. Right now I'm planning to start taking wedding photos, so I'm planning six shoots. I've bought wedding dresses and tuxes (God bless e-Bay) and I've started looking for models.
And that's where the addiction began.
I posted some of my pictures on a modeling website and then started inviting models to become my "friend." To date, I have seventy-three new very best friends! One of whom e-mailed me desperately needing new photos because his agent wanted to submit him for projects in Asia and his port, (portfolio for the uninitiated) was lacking and he needed me, ME to help him out.
There are some amazing photographs on the site. The shots I've done have been for actors. They're basic headshots. By comparison, I think my headshots are some of the best in the city. They're distinctive and the actors look good. But when it comes to doing model shots, they require more pizazz, more style, more actual photographic knowledge.
I've been challenged. We'll see what happens. I may just have to start wearing sunglasses and insist on everyone calling me Guido.
And that's where the addiction began.
I posted some of my pictures on a modeling website and then started inviting models to become my "friend." To date, I have seventy-three new very best friends! One of whom e-mailed me desperately needing new photos because his agent wanted to submit him for projects in Asia and his port, (portfolio for the uninitiated) was lacking and he needed me, ME to help him out.
There are some amazing photographs on the site. The shots I've done have been for actors. They're basic headshots. By comparison, I think my headshots are some of the best in the city. They're distinctive and the actors look good. But when it comes to doing model shots, they require more pizazz, more style, more actual photographic knowledge.
I've been challenged. We'll see what happens. I may just have to start wearing sunglasses and insist on everyone calling me Guido.
Monday, June 16, 2008
From the Gods
The muse has not visited in a while, so writing anything -- much less a blog post -- has been arduous. But this morning I received a sign that it was time to get back to work.
I live in Rogers Park, the northern-most neighborhood along the lakefront of Chicago. It's a neighborhood that has risen and fallen dramatically with the economic tides, and as such one of the last lakefront neighborhoods to experience the real estate renaissance. This means that businesses have not opened as quickly as one might like. Still, on the corner there is a precious little coffee shop, Charmer's, that I've adopted as my home away from home. When I was unemployed, much of my days were spent there swilling Diet Coke and pounding out short stories. I became one of the characters I had known when I'd run my own cafe. And over those months I grew to know most of the staff and some of the patrons. One of the patrons is Meredith, a wiry woman in her sixties who looks as if she's subsisted on nicotine and coffee since the Reagan administration. She's the wife of a retired English professor and aggressively gets to know anyone she's seen in the cafe more than once. We've discussed literature and politics and neighborhood gossip.
This morning as I was collecting my morning donuts for my train ride to work, she took notice of the book I was carrying. I'm reading McClellan's What Happened and she momentarily thought it was a novel she didn't recognize. We chatted for a moment and then she held up an anthology of works that had been published in The Paris Review. It was published on its fiftieth anniversary.
"Have you read anything in The Paris Review?
"Not in a few years," I said. The truth is that I've purchased a couple of copies, but that nothing I've ever read in them moved me to loyalty.
"Would you like this?"
The book was obviously unread. I flipped through the introduction from George Plimpton and the original foreword by William Styron. The language is both spare and luxurious. On the train, as I read those two brief pieces, I ached and felt ashamed at the length of time I've been away from my writing, focusing on my photography. Out of the blue, from an unexpected source, the inspiration returned.
I'm back.
I live in Rogers Park, the northern-most neighborhood along the lakefront of Chicago. It's a neighborhood that has risen and fallen dramatically with the economic tides, and as such one of the last lakefront neighborhoods to experience the real estate renaissance. This means that businesses have not opened as quickly as one might like. Still, on the corner there is a precious little coffee shop, Charmer's, that I've adopted as my home away from home. When I was unemployed, much of my days were spent there swilling Diet Coke and pounding out short stories. I became one of the characters I had known when I'd run my own cafe. And over those months I grew to know most of the staff and some of the patrons. One of the patrons is Meredith, a wiry woman in her sixties who looks as if she's subsisted on nicotine and coffee since the Reagan administration. She's the wife of a retired English professor and aggressively gets to know anyone she's seen in the cafe more than once. We've discussed literature and politics and neighborhood gossip.
This morning as I was collecting my morning donuts for my train ride to work, she took notice of the book I was carrying. I'm reading McClellan's What Happened and she momentarily thought it was a novel she didn't recognize. We chatted for a moment and then she held up an anthology of works that had been published in The Paris Review. It was published on its fiftieth anniversary.
"Have you read anything in The Paris Review?
"Not in a few years," I said. The truth is that I've purchased a couple of copies, but that nothing I've ever read in them moved me to loyalty.
"Would you like this?"
The book was obviously unread. I flipped through the introduction from George Plimpton and the original foreword by William Styron. The language is both spare and luxurious. On the train, as I read those two brief pieces, I ached and felt ashamed at the length of time I've been away from my writing, focusing on my photography. Out of the blue, from an unexpected source, the inspiration returned.
I'm back.
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