What I Think

  I take pictures.  You take pictures.  We all take pictures.  And more pictures.  The subjects of these pictures?  Our faces.  Our bodies.  The way we look when we feel most feminine.

My collection of self-portraits on flickr.com approaches the grand number of two hundred, at which point I'm informed by flickr administrators that I will have to begin paying in order to keep posting.  Will this stop me?  Why do I need this exercise in vanity?    

I reflected on this question in an earlier blog on 360 and had some interesting and insightful responses.  We do it for self-validation, or in order to commemorate special moments, or as a way to see what in our efforts at transformation works and what doesn't, or we are captured by our image--captivated might be the better word--and want to keep it as a reminder of a dream come, however briefly, true.  

All these ideas hit at the truth, but this last one, so eloquently formulated by Keri Renault, appeals the most to me:  the glimpse of an image of oneself so powerful that we want it never to go away.  At such moments, I know or seem to know who I am at last and what I mean.  I feel connected to sun and earth, moon and night, as eternal as dust and vital as light and air.  And, yes, I want to keep that feeling, stay in this good place, in this visible, tangible, dreamy self.  Who wouldn't.  

In my youth I had a consuming interest in mysticism.  The concept of a profoundly selfless state intrigued me, and the very word "nirvana" made me tremble with excitement and hope.  It did not occur to me that the self I wanted to obliterate was my male self and that this self might be displaced by a female one.  I wanted no self at all, not just a new self.  At the same time, I was practicing, with intense secrecy, sometimes in imagination, sometimes in reality, the art of being a woman, pursuing a life that I knew I could never wholly attain, a life imagined, a virtual life.

And now I think there might be a connection, that when we master the body, so to speak, by making it the replica of our dream selves, we do indeed come close to that mystical union with the divine so desired by seekers after Truth and Enlightenment.  The saving of the image is a human gesture; it mimicks actual memory and thereby builds a life that, like all lives, never quite catches the spirit of itself.  And being human, that gesture of constant image-making no doubt partakes of our failings--vanity chief among them--as well as of our triumphs.  Life, after all, in spiritual terms, can never be more than virtual,  and, in grim actuality, is usually a lot less.

So I will probably keep on keeping those fleeting images. In my womanly face, God help me, I see glimmerings of eternal light.  The payment to flickr.com, for such glory, is a small price to pay.

I don't know what it is--a thistle of some kind. It grows and grows at the edge of our garden, has reached a height of almost five feet, but as yet hasn't put out a blossom. It looks tropical, so lush and flamboyant, though of course it's put down roots far from any tropical clime. Unlike the lovely lilies and irises we've planted, it requires no nurturing in order to thrive. Even marauding deer leave it alone.

I considered chopping it down, but my dear companion said no, let's watch it grow. You'll see, she said, it will flower beautifully. So far it hasn't. By all appearances, it will grow blossomless far up into the sky, like Jack's beanstock, at which point shall I climb it? Seems doubtful.

Shall I compare my own condition to that of the thistle? Resist though I might, I'm not beyond indulging in metaphysical conceits. Now, I'm no wild weed in the garden of my wife's (or anyone else's) life, though it's true that I often feel like that. A plant surely never feels out of place, however, especially a weed, whose being is validated simply by being itself. Let other forms of life deal with it. It will make its way.

Watch a weed grow, and see your own life taking shape? Nope. My life remains a mystery, even with so much of it apparently consumed by circumstance and the maw of time. How deep do my roots lie hidden, and in what manner of soil. How high will my arms--branches--reach? I am a woman today. Tomorrow I'm a man. One day I am without desire; the next, consumed by it. The sun shines. Clouds come. Rain falls. The sun shines. The earth makes room. The sun shines.

Bless, therefore, the inscrutable thistle, neither a thing of beauty nor of utility, perfectly useless, hopelessly constant, vulnerable and powerful, resistant to metaphor, to meaning itself--at least for the time being, all for the time being.

Lost Lady

An article in a recent New Yorker features a digital photographer who specializes in touching up the images of models or movie stars.  He would not use the phrase "touching up," however, because what he does is at once more subtle and transformative.  He smooths curves, or plumpens them, modifies noses, lifts cheekbones, trims chins, recolors or reshapes hair, even changes the model's clothes or transports her from one country to another. 

It's an art of seeing, of course, like all visual art, and, just as important, an art of representing one's vision.  It's an art that challenges the notion of reality.  Maybe all art does that.  It probably does.  But here the concept of "virtual" takes on intensified meaning.  "I look at life as retouching," this artist says.  "Makeup, clothes are just a transformation of what you want to look like."  Amen, brother!

As for settings, consider this:  two glamorously dressed models are shown "in the middle of a dark city street . . . the blurry lights of New York in the rain."  But the artist, apparently considering New York's blurry lights not enough, supplements them with a restaurant sign from Shanghai and a "white storefront from Amsterdam."

And so, inspired, I've contrived the above image of me in a foggy forest.  I'm fond of the image, and I've walked in that forest in just such fog, though not quite dressed as I am in the picture.  The fog, that old stuff of strangeness, is of course long gone, burned off by the sun.  The shawl, wrapping me in mystery, leading me to a beautiful disorientation, can be taken up again at any time. In the meantime, there I stand, revised, touched up, neither here nor there, as if awaiting something, something perfect and perfecting, something not of this world at all.

I used to think if only I had all the time in the world, I'd live as a woman and then be really alive.  Now that I'm happily retired, with plenty of time for what I want to do, I find that most of the time I'm quite content to slouch around in male guise, and often I go for several days without even shaving. 

Is it just laziness that keeps me from living full-time as a woman?  After all, it's a nuisance to shave every day--twice a day, if I consider going out evenings--and it takes time to apply makeup skillfully and decide what to wear.  Can't afford laser treatments, never mind surgery.  If I save any money, I generally spend it on a new dress, or strings for my violin, yarn to knit with. 

Am I among the walking dead, those souls dear Henry Thoreau once described as living lives of quiet desperation?

Naw.  I'm alive and kicking, even when I'm passing as a slovenly guy.  I respond just as readily to a blue sky, the sudden flash of a cardinal in the branches of a tree, the feel of a mild breeze on my cheeks, the sight of a big old orange moon rising over the trees--even certain birds at the feeder on our deck can make me shiver with delight, or the sudden sound of rustling leaves that means deer rushing up the ridge above the creek. 

Just now the sun is setting.  Wind shakes the tops of the pines.  I'm inside, seeing this glowing, trembling world through my window pane.  In the darkening house, I am at peace with myself, even as I know that soon enough, all too soon, I'll feel the old urges, the familiar longings that will, sure as hell, lead me to my closetful of skirts and dresses, where once again I'll practice transformation and savor every moment of it.  In the meantime, though, there's no hurry. The sky glows, the pines seem almost to dance.  I could step out the back door and be nothing, be myself, be breath, be the beautiful darkness that is certain to come.  Lovely, lovely, this life.

I'm not even sure who gets to read this journal.  Gets to?  Well, not sure who can read it.  I posted three pictures in a new gallery, entitled "Self Portraits" (surprise!).  But I guess that,unlike with flickr, no one can comment on the pictures?

I like reading Helen Boyd's posts here.  For a while, I regularly tuned into the en/gender forum and enjoyed reading entries, even posting a few myself, but lately I've neglected this fine and worthy site.  So, thanks, Helen, for posting on Live Journal.