My Own Little Flood, Finale

We thank you for your patience.  There is, it seems -- and this is something of a surprise, especially to me -- a method to my... madness, would you call it?  Let's see...

Let's look.  For three days, I've been sitting here, typing away madly, trying my best to capture, somehow, the admittedly minor, yet terrifically upending impact of one month of my life, when every day, there was a little pool of water, two inches deep, covering my basement floor.

Let's imagine.  Let's look back and try to see each and every one of those hundreds of words I've piled up.  How many do you think there are?  Class?  And now let's imagine that each one of those words I've been piling up, has been transformed, through some malign magic, into a box, or a bag, a crate or a bucket, a pile or an armful... of... something.  A stack of drawing books.  A collection of metal refrigerator shelves.  A surprisingly heavy manilla envelope of old x-rays.  A bag of small clear cast-off bottles from a recycling plant.  The list goes on.

Let's pretend.  Let's make an effort to see every one of these little verbal proxies wrenched out of order, pried from its syntactical place.  Shifted, and toted, and moved, carried up and down a little flight of stairs.  Sorted here, and rearranged there.  Out of doors, and in, and maybe back again.  The process continuing, through no particular fault of the author/collector, literally for weeks and months.

Now let's watch, mostly from the perspective of a second floor bathroom, looking out a small sash window facing South.  (We may be brushing our teeth in the meantime.  Hope you don't mind)  We will see, over the course of one entire year, it shames me profoundly to say, those heaped up words (and I chose them carefully -- there are names in there, precious to me, little turns and twists and even entire phrases that, if I do say so myself, I find rather charming), draped with that expanse of blue plastic tarp, as rain pours down, and snow piles up, or the wind (you knew it would) finds a hundred devious ways to peel those 'protective' coverings back, as though Aeolus and his pals can't resist investigating for themselves, just what this suburban lunatic is hiding out here.

So.  Now we'll put that metaphor aside (Honestly?  I woke up, about an hour ago, thinking about this, and, pathetic to say, crying just a little.  I'm such a wuss), and let's shift instead to... insurance adjustor mode.  To the extent, that is, that I understand same.  In general terms, we have:

* 60 cans of latex paint, which (because I actually lost track of them, stacked so neatly on shelves in the garage) frozen into uselessness.
* Dozens of drawing pads and notebooks, dampened into pulp.
* Various tools and small electrical devices -- one wonderful rotozip saw is a particularly painful example -- rusted into near- or actual uselessness, because the water-proof bins in which they'd been so carefully stored proved less -proof and more -retentive.  Little swirling pools of rusty water.  (I did learn, however, that iron oxide indelibly stains some plastics, which could come in handy...)
* Twine, yarn, hanks of horsehair, and other fibrous materials, converted into clever little havens for any amount of, and a wide variety of, molds and mosses and fungi.  It's doubtful that bleach will do much, by way of rescue and rehabilitation, but one braces oneself for the effort.
* Sections of actual art works, sheltered as well as conditions and my own flagging physical strength and ability to plan would allow, undergoing a different, more honest kind of distressing than the type to which I typically subject them -- instead of layers of paint and shellac, to imply exposure and neglect, these spindly structures are getting a taste of the real thing.

And this is but a tithe, this little whiny litany, of the actual accumulation, and the variety thereof.  In my own feeble defense, I have moved some of these blue-draped piles, from what we used to think of as the patio, across the soggy yard, and onto fully one-third of our asphalt driveway.  In my feeble defense, I make, from time to time, an actual effort to shift, yet again, some of this collective mound of sorry jetsam to... someplace else?  But where to put, for instance, the sectional oak work table that is now warped and unusable, even by me -- our recycling depot won't accept it, and it won't fit in with the household trash.  So it leans, in dense chunks, against a neighbor's chain link fence.

(My sad justification for this violation of neighborliness?  Said neighbor's chain link fence supports one of the most luxuriant, radiantly healthy and exuberantly invasive stands of poison ivy I have ever had to watch, helplessly, as it tries to take over Essex County.  Plus, they've got that really loud, really nasty little orange dust mop of  dog that always barks at me, non stop, when they let it out for its daily exercise.  I'm hoping one of the hungrier red-shouldered hawks in the area decides to drop in for lunch... hmmm... may we suggest the Pomeranian today?  It's petite, yet frisky)

And now, for the finale part.  A two-section rumination.

Section one -- to which I have already alluded, as it happens:  while I've had my own pathetic little struggles -- compounded, perhaps, by the fact that I insist on doing artwork in my basement, instead of using it like normal people, to store canned goods and as a place to do laundry -- I have watched, in something like gut-freezing horror, as TV news footage shows us, in Rhode Island homes, basements completely submerged, with the water lapping at the kitchen door; volunteer workers doing the back-wrenching labor of stacking sand bags along a river bank in Iowa, all the while suspecting that their best efforts will hold back exactly nothing; the countless splinters and shards and tatters, with perhaps the typical stuffed toy or family photo thrown it, now composing the complete account of what used to be a family home, until that tornado bore down upon it...  We all know the list goes on.  And, of course, I have two separate reactions.

Less important of the two, is my finding it of interest, or curious, or maybe strange and thoughtless even, that I seem to see this news footage over and over again. Usually it's of the drama of preparation, or the horror of actual destruction and devastation.  But I rarely, if ever, see an accounting of... what happens next?  What happened to that homeowner, whose house had essentially become a two-story aquarium?  Or the folks who are, I'm sure, as shattered inside, as are their former homes, lying in shreds all over the place -- how do these people cope?  What's their plan?  How do they eat a meal, or decide what to wear, or...

Because, of course, (and thinking only of myself) I'm in the same boat -- granted, only a tiny boat, I know, and I do feel a strange gratitude, that it wasn't worse -- but forgive me for saying this: even having had the comparative good fortune within bad luck,  I nevertheless think it's a little like feeling relief because you only lost the one leg. 

And now, the second section of what I promise you is, truly, the wrap up of this aquatic adventure:

This section is about death.

It's quite a sad thing, really -- or, if you have an anthropological or psychological turn of mind, an interesting ritualization, or defense, or coping mechanism -- and I truly didn't see it, until I found myself in charge of (and providing the labor for) what was essentially a kind of migration -- the flight of an entire personal civilization, my own little diaspora (!!!!! extra points!!!!).  I discovered that,  threaded invisibly into every roll of fine drawing paper, through each note book, wrapped around all the metal oddments and scraps of plastic, there is a feeble, pathetic, ultimately futile hope that, because each of these items represents a possible sculpture project, or set of drawings, or massive, intricate installation, I will not die.  The work's not done?  You don't die.  It's as simple as that.  Isn't it?

But I'm sixty-five years old now -- the age at which, with a typical Prussian skepticism, Otto von Bismark & Co. decided that workers could finally retire.  Because by then (as contemporary actuarial tables pointed out) instead of settling into a comfortable, state-supported gold age, the vast majority of said exhausted workers would be dead.  (And thus taking the pressure off, to get the pension payments out on time)  Bismark aside, my own father died, one year after retiring, at the age of 66.  (Yes, he and I have led radically different lives, and I haven't drunk nearly as much beer, nor smoked anything like that number of cigarettes.  But for me, in matters like these, the emotion trumps the rational every time, I'm afraid)  And yes, of course, there's The Pile, all that stuff, that potential, all those ideas and inspirations and possibilities.  Materials I've gathered -- really -- for a purpose, and with a specific end in mind.  Projects I can see so clearly, in my mind's eye.

(One of the worst moments, I regret to report, happened while that stubborn accumulation of water still had the upper hand.  I'd been moving things around -- what else is new -- and wondering inwardly about the irony: here I felt that, in the last few months, I'd stumbled upon some of the most exciting art work I'd ever made, and now this seeping roadblock had been thrown up in my path.  I was exhausted with physical strain, and also the shame of having all my innards, as it were, dragged out into open air.  I think I would have preferred my midsection be replaced with a piece of plexiglass, so anyone who was interested could watch my digestive process, as wholesome food was transformed, inside my body, into noxious waste.

I brought a little set of German-made tempera paints up from the basement.  It's in a neat plastic box, and the colors themselves are set into individual plastic trays, that snap in and out, if you need to replace your turquoise or ocher.  I stumbled at the top of the stairs.  I lost hold of the box, and it fell, scattering colors in the hall.  I gathered them up, and went into the kitchen, to the sink, to put them back into place.  Prussian blue.  Scarlet.

Why did this set me off?  Why did this open some awful gate, and let the woe out?  I started to cry, and I could not stop. I dropped the paints into the sink.  I was literally frozen, crying.  I couldn't even stand up straight.  I thought I would vomit, the heaving was so intense -- but all that came up was more grief, and more tears.  It came from so deep, and there was so much of it.

I'm grateful that John was there -- I fail to mention that he, too, wielded the wet-vac hose, and carried things, and had his own sad adventure -- and he held me some.  And from this exhausting, overpowering state of impossible sadness, I could only squeeze out two coherent thoughts:

This hurts too much.

I feel like a disease.

Because, really, it does, and really, I do.  When I'm at my very best, doing what I believe I should be doing, I am in fact infesting the world with still more... stuff.  I feel like art pollution. However powerful or exciting or 'different' any piece may be -- where will it go?  How is it that, in whatever narrow sense that I can be considered successful, this very success exacts such a dismal toll?  I'm so afraid that I don't create -- I metastasize) 

But now back to all these clearly-imagined projects I was mentioning.  However convincing and aesthetically adventurous, how important and life-altering they may seem to be, in the creative sense, they are all still unalterably set up against one hypnotic certainty that seems, lately, to be the only thing I think about.

D.  E.  A.  T.  H.

Three score and ten, the Bible says (Psalm 90, verse 10; you could look it up), which gives me, what -- five more Christmases?  A recent ad on TV, for some nostrum or other, actually specifies how many 'extra' days their product can offer, after the magic number of 65 has been reached (and you can legitimately demand reduced train far); I think they've got you down for something like 1600.  I see this, and get a feeling of piercing cold in my stomach, and forget what I was doing.  Have I already bought my last tube of toothpaste?  Will I ever need to pick up another tin of shoe polish?  Do I need another box of salt, or the bigger bottle of Worcestershire sauce?  Like the pitiful, desperate thread of hope I didn't realize I was weaving through each tube of paint I bought, or each sheet of French printing paper, the far weightier, more durable and inescapable motif of my death now shows itself, just beneath the surface of virtually everything I see.  This luscious fried egg?  Death winds through it.  It's exhausting.  (And by the way, I'm on medication!  Can you imagine..?)

Cold, clear water (with, it must be said, some sewage, at first.  Let us never speak of it again) seeps up through a cement floor.  A seemingly precarious and random, but actually highly organized system of working is thrown off-balance, dispersed, re-arranged, exposed, neglected.  Feeble, well-intentioned but ultimately unsuccessful rescue attempts occur, when, from time to time, a redemptive idea flickers up, and flares, and goes out.  A weary man stands at his bathroom window, perhaps ungratefully forgetful of the gifts he has received (how many art exhibits were there, again?  How much actual work achieved, in spite of the intrusions and interruptions?), and stares at that stupid blue mound -- why couldn't he have bought the brown tarps, for God's sake? -- and, it's sad to report, feels just a little weaker, a little more stupid and self-deluding. 

Why are dead people so cold?  Are they stored in a refrigerated locker, when the viewing hours are over?  I've been meaning to ask.

So, frankly, my dearest one, I just don't know what to do.  I look at the news, and there's someone like, oh, Henry Kissinger, who must be three thousand years old, and I wonder -- how does he get out of bed in the morning?  Doesn't he know that he's way out on the end of the limb?  How do I begin new work -- which is, frankly, all I really want to do, and not because I think my art is all that notable or significant, but because the working itself dulls the pain -- when (a) I'm just adding to the sort of enormous art-tumor I've created, and (b) Death.

Maybe this... impasse?  Emotional traffic jam?... will soften, or get moving again.  Maybe I'll buy another tube of toothpaste.  Or maybe I will just stop eating (it only takes about 20 days, I've learned.  Longer if you keep drinking the coffee), out of sheer peevishness, and a desperate need to have some say in the matter -- if I can't stave it off, at least I get to pick the departure date.  It's such a quandary, and I feel so extremely wimpy and stupid, being stuck here.

The truly clever thing to do, of course, would be to use Death the same way I've learned to use my own past -- as a kind of toxic nuclear fuel, to power yet more work, even if I do have to wear protective gear.  But channeling my own inescapable demise?  I don't think any cleverness, however elastic, can stretch that far.  Marcel Proust supplies some thin vindication, from his cork-lined room:  "Dying is easy; people do it every day.  Thinking about death is impossible"

A votre sante, Marcel.  I wish you had managed to escape the inevitable.  We could have cookies and tea, and you could tell me your secret.


© 2011  Walter Zimmerman