Flowers Are the Plants' Bad Habits

The hope is that if I could just trim back my addictions--which is to say, 85% of my personality and hours--something new and green might sprout from the stump of my bad habits. More bad habits presumably. But, if I kept chopping them back, day after day, if became very good at being uncomfortable and doing nothing about it, who knows, I might even burst into flower--

but who knows, perhaps flowers are the plants' bad habits? Put your ear to the ground and you can hear the green leaves apologizing, blushing clear to their roots, I am so sorry--I just couldn't help myself, I don't know what it is, something about me no doubt, every year I swear I won't and then--May comes, the sun, all those cute bees--I can't control myself, I send up shoots, I bud and--even though this time I swore I wouldn't--I bloom.

Just try acting innocent when you're covered in petals!

Disgusting, isn't it? Making a spectacle of myself, so much energy for a few days of frippery and the hangover lasts the rest of the year. Just think what I could accomplish if I put all that energy into greenery, christ, I'd cover hectares! Instead I bloom, as I have bloomed for thirty million years. Oh, the vanity, the vanity! When am I ever going to evolve?

Maddalena penitente (The Penitent Magdalene)

(second draft)

For the last five weeks here in Florence, I’ve studied Art History at the British Institute, attending lectures and visiting churches among the fresh blooms of upper-class British womanhood, faultlessly gorgeous, designer-clad, twenty year olds adding Florence, adding art, to their pedigrees. This rite of passage has changed little since EM Forster was here: Miss Lucy Honeychurch now shows her navel.

Among such flowers I feel hairy, middle-aged, and depraved. Obviously some miscalculation has been made, as if I went out to the local leather bar -- for Bondage Night -- but wound up here instead, at The Museum of the Works of the Duomo.

This was where we toured yesterday, admiring the work of Arnolfo diCambio, the Cathedral’s first architect, as well as Ghiberti’s Doors of Paradise and Michelangelo’s last sculpture, which he tried to destroy with a hammer.

The lecturers at the British Institute are admirably serious. Even if they suspect we might be better served by tips on glossy hair and strong nails, they persist in untangling the Medici family tree, and explaining the lost wax technique, and why Vasari matters, and exactly what Mannerism is.

Over the last month I have not been educated so much as converted. For the Renaissance I now display frightening zeal. Previously at the Uffizi I was only interested in determining which naked Jesus was the hottest. Now even the countless Virgin altar pieces are compelling and I always want to see another church, another fresco, another sculpture Michelangelo didn’t finish, another sketch Leonardo didn’t paint even though he got paid for it.

That said, it was possible that, by Week Five, I’d become somewhat inured to masterpieces. After all, you can’t by a quart of milk without seeing one, and you’re likely to see half a dozen or more as you frantically search out a toilet you don’t have to pay for. Even an old Cimabue is easier to find than a decent pizza in Florence, this city of masterpieces, over which has been superimposed a god-awful tourist trap.

Our tour leader explained that the Museum was a particularly fine place to see the work of Donatello. Now, I have a soft spot for Donatello, who was apparently half-mad and hopelessly disorganized, and who sculpted male nudes with entirely more enthusiasm than the 15th century was really ready for. Dutifully, I admired some lovely works in marble; I admit I was only half paying attention -- my legs hurt, I thought it must be time for beer -- as I was lead into another room and the tour leader said, “There’s lots of Donatello here but this seems to be the one people remember.”

At the center of the room was a statue made of wood: a gaunt Magdalene with her hands joined in front of her, fingertips just touching. She looked like hell. Like a crack whore with sunken cheeks, like a junky with filthy matted hair. I have seen many Magdalenes, but this one was appallingly familiar: she could have been one of my hustling friends, whispering to the john -- twenty bucks, you can do anything -- one of my friends on meth or almost dead of AIDS.
For this five weeks of marble and gold had not prepared me. I found myself crying in a crowd of rich daughters, lucky girls who were not for sale, who washed their hair every day. Decorous young women, they looked away; they hurried on to the reliquaries.

I eyed the guard slumped in the corner. I wanted his job. I wanted to sit, as long as I lived, a vigil with Magdalene, and make sure no harm ever came to her. The guide had said that the statue was terribly fragile, and had been badly damaged by the Flood of 1966 when it was buried in mud and shit. Very well, I thought, let me stay here with Magdalene.

Someone else would look after Michelangelo’s musclebound David. Someone else would protect the over-powering Jesus on the ceiling of the Baptistery and Gianbologna’s fine bronze birds nesting upstairs at the Bargello. I would stay here, in a side room at the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. I would look after the Penitent Magdalene. This was an image I’d looked for all my life. Now, we recognized each other.

In my early twenties, I lived in Denver, Colorado, on Colfax Avenue, where the great basilica sits amid pawn shops and payday loans and terminal bars. I am not a Christian but I used to drop by the basilica to pray to the Mother whenever I was off to do something exceptionally foolhardy, whether because I was adventurous or just needed the money.

Outside the basilica in Denver is a bronze statue of Mary ascending to Heaven. She looks to be about 15, a perfect doll. She looks like she could star in a musical. The benches around Mary were always occupied by sleeping homeless people. I always thought, how much more useful it would be, if Mary were shown ascending into Heaven as a grief-stricken ravaged hag, a woman who’d attended the murder of her son. How were all of us, so profoundly damaged, ever supposed to relate to a woman who got off scot-free?

And here was Mary Magdalene, the greatest sinner, our guide reminded us, usually shown fleshy and beautifully dressed. Now she was almost a skeleton, covered either by a camel skin or by her own hair grown long in the desert. And Magdalene had been redeemed -- the guide emphasized this. This Magdalene was meant to be the object of praise and veneration, not a chronicle of failure, not a pious warning. This was Magdalene set free.

I would be standing there still, except I was afraid of making a scene and haven’t figured out yet how to get a job upstairs at the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. For starters, my Italian’s gonna have to get a lot better. And probably I’d fail the background check, as would Magdalene herself, so she’d better hope that no one checks.

In the meantime, I see her here on the streets of Florence, as Donatello must have seen her, Magdalene among the junkies who huddle at the end of Borgo Pinti, or the sex addicts at the Florence Baths, in all of us buried in ravenous hungers and the steep price paid for them. Magdalene, among us.

On Trying to Make Less Noise

Recently I’ve been experimenting. I imagine that every thought makes a sound. Rehearsed conversation is like rain on a tin roof and self-justification like a squeaky old cassette. Lustful crotch-watching makes a snuffling sound. Resentment, of course, is loud. Fury toward oblivious waddling tourists here in the narrow streets of Florence produces barking.

And I say to myself, “Now, dear guttersnipe, on your way to the library, try to be as quiet as you can.”

I aim to see how gentle and unobtrusive I can be, so that the cobblestones will receive no injury from my feet, so that I may pass unnoticed. I aim to be instantly forgotten. I try to walk so as to make no sound and leave no trace.

I am lucky, of course, that my thoughts do not make sound. Otherwise I would be immediately arrested for lewd lascivious irritating enervating disruptive dangerous conduct.

Actually I would throw myself into the arms of the police. I am all the time longing to do so. Have you seen the police here in Florence? Ohmigod. It is impossible for them to actually do anything because lithe young female tourists are constantly asking them to pose for photos. I am jealous of this. The only way I can get their attention is by getting myself arrested. Yes and I would beg, “Please, officer, don’t use too much force. But a little force is okay! No handcuffs, please. Just hold me.”

A moment, please, whilst I regain my composure.

As I was saying, it’s a good thing my thoughts do not make noise. My mind is that of a drug dealer who smuggles a stolen subwoofer into a stolen ambulance and uses both bass and siren to make his rounds. Yes, my mind is at the same time both Boom Boom and Woo Woo.

There is something very strange about the sirens of ambulances here in Italy: their tune is unmistakably victorious, like the bells that ring as coins pour from the machine in Vegas. These are good Catholic ambulances, firmly of the opinion that the next world is better than this one.

“This is my day!” these ambulances seem to say, as if in hope that the mind will be silenced with death and there won’t be this nonstop deafening cacophonic hubbub, all the time barking and snuffling, muttering and shouting, all day and all night blaring both Boom Boom and Woo Woo.

Carrying Capacity (Song)

Other people can hold a two-ton truck full of the world, or at least fill the back of their pick-up full. Many could astound a waitress, balancing six plates full of the world. Even those who are not so graceful can manage a backpack full, a basket. Me, I hold out my cupped hands and already I am overwhelmed, must rush back to my silent room. How it is I can hold so little and love so much?

Annual Genitals

As per your request, the instructions:

On January 1st you arrive in a new world with new genitals and a year to figure out what to do with them. (And what not to do, though this is less crucial.) Sometimes just finding your genitals is a hassle. And there it was, on your head, all along. What you mistook for an ear!

Other genitals must be strapped down, especially when driving. Or pruned vigorously.
Then you must find your partner’s genitals, also orifices, which may or may not be like your own, and find artful and absurd ways to jam them together.

Be mindful--a year is all you have. Expect ridiculous contortions. And taboos. Like the time you shook hands at an interview and were immediately arrested. Like having to wear a hat down there.

You may find in yourself a new sympathy for the fumbling of adolescents, for the jealousy of elms. You may be frustrated for months until the day you turn on the vacuum cleaner and are catapulted at once into ecstasy.

Sudden growths, sudden shrinkages. Odd liquids. I’m afraid there will be no further instructions, no helpful charts of the slots, tabs and protuberances. Remember, this is supposed to be fun.

Meanwhile, also, you’ve arrived in an entirely new world. But never mind--you have genitals to discover!

Y2K

One of my good friends (he doesn’t exist) is an expert on Y2K. He knows everything about the disaster which did not happen. He worries about it all the time. It might still happen. Which reminds me of my friends (real this time) who worry they might still seroconvert because of sex they had years ago. This is true 21st century luxury living--to take refuge in the disasters which did not happen and ignore those umpteen and imminent.

History Can Happen To You

Monica says, “You think it’s easy to live with so much history? When they removed the cobblestones of Piazza Signoria they found an entirely new city. For three years they blocked it off while they decided what to do. Finally they covered it up again. Too much trouble.

“But history is something that can happen to a person. My house was being built and I got a call: there was a problem. What now? I said. They’d found an Etruscan kiln beneath my house. Enormous thing. For three months I had men digging in my backyard with tiny spoons. They want to cover my backyard in plexiglass, light it up from beneath and give tours. I’d make a lot of money. Of course the government will never get around to it.

“Still, when I park my bicycle I like to think of what is under there. I’d like to be able to see it. I would have the most wonderful parties, looking down at the ancient times in my backyard.

“On the last day two hundred people came and sat in my back yard. I sat in my upstairs window watching them. Very nice, I thought. But give me back my house.

“Of course they made a book about it, the history I’m living with. Then they came and covered it back up with dirt. Now I get special tax breaks and in return I must plant no trees. Small plants only, nothing with roots.”

Honors

When I struggle with the gorgeous and disgruntled citizens of Firenze, I remind myself: these people are descendants of the people who drove out Dante! It is an honor to be here. I stand absolutely no chance.

Or So We Are Hoping:

“God chooses what human nature discards and human prudence neglects, out of which he works his wonders and reveals himself to all souls who believe that is where they will find him.”

Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade
Abandonment to Divine Providence

Finally I Had It All Worked Out

On the first day at the monastery in Taize, Brother Pedro explained the book of Genesis. He told us all about the irony of creation, about God’s irony, about our participation in that irony. Wow, I thought, maybe I can relate to Christianity after all. I have often thought that God must have a wicked sense of irony. Brother Pedro explained that we just needed to find our place in God’s irony. Sitting there on my folding metal chair, I thought I had a whole worldview pretty well worked out.

Then I realized that Brother Pedro was from Madrid and what he was saying was harmony. He was talking all about God’s harmony, of which there are not so many examples, it seems to me, as of God’s irony.

Thank You

For about an hour after talking to you, I am suspended in a very unusual cloud: a cumulonimbus of good choices. In that hour, I run around and try to make as many good choices as I can, tie things down, tape the windows, before the thunderheads move in, before the crazy people come back.

“As for Dante, there is not a single fact of human experience, from the lowly to the sublime, that cannot find a place in his Comedy.” (xxvi, Esolen, Inferno)

Forest Ranger

A man in Cairo calls Tokyo for phone sex.

“Hey, is this Ben? We’re out deep in the forest, Ben.”

Way out in the woods. Miles from anyone.”

“Heavy underbrush, briars, just a narrow path tickling its way through.”

“There’s a stream we hear. And birds.”

“A little breeze but still too hot to wear a shirt.”

And so on from these civilized and stranded boys, who, before even imaginary fucks, must first resume the world, return the green, a stream where they can tug off their pants and swim. A whole forest, restored, before one can snarl,

“I’m the forest ranger and you, mister, have pitched a tent with no permit.”

T-Shirt

Some days I am supposed to be sturdy I find that there is almost nothing to me. Recognizably male but inexcusably flimsy, like the cheap undershirts my father used to wear until they were translucent, which one day tore like an omelet.

Other people, meanwhile, are so much there.

Owls

Have I mentioned someone is here with me? My husband.

Anyone who reads those words must necessarily feel a pang of sympathy for him. Poverino!

Certainly he is first-rate, has chosen me the way my brother used to rescue baby owls and attempt to nurse them back to health in a cardboard box.

A hopeless endeavor, but still admirable, don’t you think?

Loons

It is suspicious, I admit, the pleasure I felt when I broke the news to him that loons do not in fact mate for life. It’s true that the two same loons are often seen together but--DNA testing proves--that loyal bird is not the father. The loons have been sleeping around.

“Don’t think that proves anything,” he says. And so I sit loyally at home tonight, adopting the faithful guise of loons.

Comedy, Translated and Defined

On page 167 of his translation of Inferno, Anthony Esolen gives the following definition: “A comedy is a song written in the humble style wherein the main character begins in grief and trouble and ends in happiness.”

Wonderful, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t wish to be scooped up in such a Commedia?

But this Esolen, though he aims to be helpful, can be both pushy and pious. I had a boyfriend once just like him. This boyfriend used to get me in the car and start playing cassettes of motivational speakers. At certain points, he’d pause the tape and say, “See? See? That’s what you’re doing wrong.”

This is exactly how Esolen uses his commentaries on Dante. Everything Dante says he uses for some heavy-handed moral point he wants to make.

On the other hand, it seems very appropriate to argue over Dante, who was, after all, the world’s most artful picker of fights. Not once in the one hundred cantos of his Commedia does he say “Why can’t we just get along?”

There’s something to be said for an argumentative version. So I read Mandelbaum for beauty, Hollander for the notes, and Esolen for arguments.

Brain Surgery

Last night a man questioned me about the odd bald patches on back of my head. Very gently he asked, “Did you have some sort of operation?”

I told him the truth--what a missed opportunity! Henceforth, I will lie. I will quietly and matter-of-factly admit that I have had Major Invasive Brain Surgery. (How large should I say the tumor was? Enormous, undoubtedly. Biggest they ever saw!)

And, when I have stepped from the room, one person will say to another, “Now I understand completely.” “Me, too,” says the other. “Sure he’s odd, but give him a break. He’s had Major Invasive Brain Surgery!"

Everyone will be relieved. Especially me. At last I make total sense.

Beginning (Standard)

I wanted to write an advice column. But then I thought: there is nothing I do well.

I do dumb things. At dumb things I am quite good. You could even say I am a master. As far as foolishness goes.

And, as perhaps you have already discovered, sometimes foolishness can go very far indeed.

Beginning (Devotional)

Oh Bhagavan, oh beginning-less and endless Paramapujimapa. Many respectful pranams, candles, clouds of smoke, cookies in crinkly packages, piles of oranges, et cetera.

Gentle reader: on this path there is no error into which this devotee dog has not fallen, no ditch of iniquity unvisited, no spot of shine untarnished.

Nevertheless this worthless das, this miserable slave, has, by the abiding grace of the Mother In Charge of the Universe, been suffered to persist!

Therefore, oh earnest seeker, oh venerable sister, oh brother, I will speak as I can of the tangles and the briars on this path, that there might be fewer thorns to pierce your beautiful feet.