It's not even as if today's realization was all that new...
For instance, years ago (never mind the number), when I still lived in the fourth-floor walk-up in Hoboken, I belonged to the local YMCA, which was just a few blocks down the street from me. I had begun to do some weight-lifting -- this in spite of my father's having confided in me, while I was in college, that he'd tried it once, in the Air Force, and 'it didn't work' -- and I usually tried to fit in an exercise session before catching the bus into New York for my day job. Even though the job required no especially heavy lifting, it still called for all the strength I had. Having more couldn't hurt.
And by 'fit in an exercise session', I mean squeeze in. With not a second to spare, from the time I hit the front door on the way in, until I had repacked my bag and was running for the bus. And as a rule, I wasn't successful in catching the bus I needed to take. And I would be late, again for work, and be treated to another round of the scathing comments always at the ready on the end of my boss's sharp tongue.
But one day, for some reason, I decided that I would go to the gym early. I just couldn't think of anything else I had to do.
So I took the little walk, and found a locker, changed into my workout gear, and went into the empty weight room, with plenty of time to spare, to go through my whole routine, and maybe even read the paper while I waited for the bus. This should be great, right?
But, to my complete surprise and irritation, I was awash with an unmistakable feeling of sadness. It made no sense. There wasn't anything wrong -- I was doing what I wanted to do, and I didn't have to worry about being raked over the coals today -- what could be wrong? But this blanket of sadness would not budge, and I had to negotiate it, even to move the benches into place and put the weights together. It was bad enough that, because there was no one else around, I felt free to talk directly to this emotional state.
'What do you want?' I asked, at first quietly, and then more loudly, until I was shouting. (The weight room was in the basement of an old brick-and-mortar building; it was unlikely my ruckus would call attention to itself. 'What do you want??'
And then -- this is so very very strange -- an image floated up in my mind's eye. I saw, quite distinctly, the Northeast corner of 57th St. and 5th Ave., in New York, and specifically the legendary shop on the first floor of that building -- A La Vieille Russie, it's called. You might call it a jewelry store, but that completely misrepresents what's inside. This establishment, as the name implies, specializes in the physical remains of Imperial Russia -- cases of cuff links, or rows of pearls, or cigarette cases and fountain pens. Big urns carved from a single piece of malachite. State portraits on the walls. And in the air, a positive aching for that which has been irretrievably lost.
I have no idea, really, how I knew about this place, but I did. And what I realized was that whatever this... sadness was, it had been revealed only because for once, I wasn't squashing it with time-focused anxiety. And what I realized was that whatever this was, it was asking to go to this strange and, in some ways, awful place.
I looked at the clock on the basement wall -- there was enough time for me to finish my workout and get into town on time, but not enough time to get to the corner of W. 57th. and 5th., even if I left right away. I promised myself -- out loud, I'm pretty sure, as though I were talking with maybe an eight-year-old boy, who wouldn't be fooled, that the very next day that there was time for a visit to this place, I would take him there. (It really did feel that... otherworldly, or disembodied) As soon as I made that vow, the sadness lifted, and I was free to complete my work, shower and dress, and get to town with time to spare. My boss had to swallow that day's bile.
I did go, not long after, to La Vieille Russie (I somehow love even typing the name), and was allowed to spend at least an hour there, much to my surprise. It's not as though one needs a reservation, or anything like that, but I sense that not everyone would be made to feel comfortable, and welcomed to look at the shards of an empire. I'm sure that I was badly dressed, as was usually the case then. I remember one older woman behind a counter, and her look, first, of a glimmer of hope, which disappeared almost as quickly as it had revealed itself. And I suspected that every morning, when she was dressing for her long day of standing behind a glass-topped display case, she was also going over a hidden mental list of who might, after all, make his or her way into the shop, and claim what had been rightfully theirs, all those years ago.
I was obviously a peasant.
But one of the salesclerks (really, they were more like museum attendants) was quite charming, even though it must have been apparent that someone like me couldn't afford even the least expensive item in their collection. Maybe he took pity on me, because I reluctantly admitted that I was an artist. He took me upstairs at the back of the show room, and told me about different items in another set of cases, and then pointed out a portrait of Catherine the Great, supposedly painted from life. It was larger than life, and showed a robust, substantial woman looking directly at the viewer with a calm, level gaze. The face and bosom, arms and hands, were handled in a very soft, romanticizing fashion, almost reminiscent of Rubens, but with a paler palette. What struck me most was the stark difference between the depiction of flesh, and the painter's approach to the dress itself, and great variety of jewels on display, either as necklaces and bracelets, but also as badges of honor, and insignia of rank. These things had a sharpness and factuality that I found fascinating. I don't recall having seen such a stark difference of stylistic methods of representation in a painting before. I was allowed to look to my heart's content. Then I thanked my host, and took my humble leave.
Later that week, I embarked on a series of color Xerox prints, using at the start some rhinestone pins I'd collected, for no discernible reason. I liked the way the Xerox machine saw these things much as that Russian artist had.
So. A visit to a strange and wonderful and sad place, prompted, I think, by a brief period of much less anxiety than usual. (You may be sure, I quickly reverted to form, with the rushing and the sweating and the reprimands....)
I mention all of this because today, I had at least the beginnings of a similar experience, in that I've been remarkably anxiety-free all day. And I have, sadly, to report that this isn't at all pleasant.
Oddly enough, the gym was involved again -- I had more than enough time to get all my things together, and was actually kind of killing time, waiting until 12:30 pm to begin the half-hour drive to Summit. I had what has become a standard workout, with only a mild feeling of queasiness just before I was getting on the treadmill. But I didn't throw up, and I didn't seem to have any other flu-like symptoms, so I finished as usual, and got ready to take care of a little bit of grocery shopping on the way home.
No blanket of sadness this time. But I was aware of the lack of anxiety -- how disoriented I felt, how unmoored. I was reminded, as I went through this set of grunting movements or that, of the week John and I spent in Claremont CA, earlier this year, for his mother's memorial service. We'd arrived on a Friday, and the service was the following day, and after that, I really had nothing in particular to do, until we flew back home. Much of the time I spent in his cousins' house, a beautiful Arts and Crafts building with big front windows and warm wooden floors the color of caramel. The paterfamilias was in and out; his wife Nancy also has a flexible schedule; their kids, Megan and Ryan, are both in school, but were present for enough of the time for me to notice that, here too, there was something... missing. All four of these family members could be in the same room, and there was something... odd. I finally grasped the fact that, if there was any anxiety here at all, it was operating at a very low level, and could mostly be attributed to bubbling teen hormones. But mostly, I felt that I was inhabiting a space of what was for me an unusual smoothness and ease.
I did feel dangerous, for a few moments, striding across the parking lot at Trader Joe's. I had on my cheap fake shearling coat that looks far more fabulous than it should, and a bright red scarf, black jeans and my paint-stained black steel-toed boots. I was striding toward the store's front door with great -- perhaps unnecessary -- purpose, and enjoyed the swing of my legs and the weight of the boots, and the swagger that that cheap coat affords me. It's not as though I would have done anything to anybody -- except to offer my shopping basket, because it was the last one available -- but still, I was savoring this sense of seeming to be someone to be reckoned with. For a few yards, anyway.
But mostly, today, it's been that faintly queasy feeling, the disorientation that I've been talking about for a while. And honestly, I think this might give me an insight (if this isn't too cheeky -- forgive me my trespasses) into addiction. I feel safe in anxiety. I feel grounded, when I'm anxious. The hyper-alterness that anxiety calls for, the vague sense of impending harm, the recurring cataloguing of what I'll need, how I'll move, where I'll go -- this, I realize, is how I've lived for the greater part of my life. And I honestly didn't know it, any more than a goldfish realizes that it's swimming in something called water.
This doubtless explains my voluminous coffee consumption -- I know that, sometimes, I'll be operating on sufficient anxiety, but will deliberately compound that achiness with still more caffeine, to the point that often I can't tell whether I'm feeling sick or hungry.
And yet, even as I write this, and can taste in my mouth the very strong coffee to which I treat myself after a workout, I know that there's no anxiety under the slight ache in my midsection. Unfortunately, this time there's no revelatory blanket of sadness of which I can ask 'What do you want?' Instead, for the time being at least, I think I might be feeling when a big cat has found that its cage door has been accidentally left unlocked and slightly open. I feel a kind of calculating curiosity -- what might be this way? What might lie over there? With no sense of immediate threat or danger, I can take my time to look around, assess the situation, figure out the lie of the land.
I might be recaptured. I'm not sure how much of a fight I would put up. The familiar cage is at least safe. But, if I can keep myself calm, and keep just putting one foot in front of the other, and following my nose, who knows what I might discover? Where, ultimately, might I go?
(Of course, there is the Ultra Anxiety, the Uber Angst, the Big Lebowski of All Human Concerns, the great Wet Blanket of Life, hovering over all of us. For today, inexplicably, I don't seem to care)
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