Being Grateful
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Being Grateful

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BEING GRATEFUL

This morning was the Thanksgiving assembly at my little daughter’s school. She came in holding hands with a partner, lines of Kindergarten girls walking two by two up the center aisle. They wore orange-red-and-brown headdresses in the spirit of the season and tried not to skip and giggle, but to conduct themselves with dignity.

 

Once in her appointed place, my little one spotted me, and promptly made gestures at me, waving her mischievous hands around her head. She told me later that she was trying to ask me via sign language if I was wearing my Spock ears. I have a pair that I have been known to wear around the house… But no, I informed her, pinching her nose playfully. I just had my hair tucked behind my ears and it made my ears look pointy. I was not wearing my rubber Spock ears.

 

The girls, K through 3rd grade, sang a few songs of gratitude, a tradition going past 100 years at this school. The sweetness of their tuneful voices uplifted me, set me to ruminating on the blessings and joys of life. We ended with “America the Beautiful,” and I am grateful to live here, even if the TSA gropes me next time I board a flight.

 

And I am grateful for my sweet little one with her Spock questions and dancing eyes. My unruly 16 year old who breaks my heart half the time and then the other half makes me laugh until I cry–she’s a gift. A bittersweet gift, but a treasured one. My step-daughter is loving, sweet, and considerate. I’m lucky to have her. My friend Gerda is one of the world’s great fonts of spiritual wisdom, UFOlogists, and lovers of chocolate: I am happy she’s in my life. Geoffrey, Debra, Lori, Marcia, gorgeous Sarah N. and even cranky Paul: individuals I’m fortunate to know and enjoy. Thomasananda, I wish I saw more of you, but still, its always a joy to connect with you. Dani, Komilla, Rachel: you’re great!

 

Right now, I’m also grateful for and to my husband. He spoiled me with a luxurious purse as an anniversary gift, the kind of gorgeous accoutrement that I’d considered out of reach just now. It’s beautiful! And generous of him. Most generous of all, he recently admitted to me that he hasn’t always treated me the way he wants to. He said he’s aiming to be a better husband. That kind of honesty and vulnerability take courage. It takes a great soul to openly claim that. I am grateful for him, and for his presence in my life.
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First Wives Always Know, and other inconvenient truths

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Novelist Rick Moody thinks authors shouldn’t blog. Maybe he’s right. What do I know, other than when I was at grad school at Columbia, scuttlebutt had him putting rips in his own jeans to give himself credibility, because we all knew he came from a rich family?

He’s a decent writer. Being loaded and coming from the Upper Middle Class doesn’t preclude talent. I acknowledge his competence, though I am not interested in his work. I personally think cynicism is the easy way out. It’s what spoiled, entitled folk give themselves instead of the more difficult dignity of faith and hope. They seem to mistakenly think that the “sophistication” of such negativity is faith and hope. Whatever. If people like his work, they’ll buy it.
I am an author, and I blog. I think voraciously, I am evolving, I am exploring, and I blog. What I think now might not be what I think in a year, or ten. I am engaged in this inscrutable question of life as a human being in this vale of tears. I am learning and growing.
Hence this blog, the title for today’s posting having been suggested by Al Gore’s movie. I like Al Gore. He would have made a fine president. I don’t care that he’s divorcing Tipper and that he fell in love with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Gore is still a smart, decent man. I have that feeling about him.
Besides, what do I know about global warming? I’m not sure I believe in it. From what I can tell from my own research, and yes, I’ve done some, the Earth goes through long periods of complicated climate change and weather instability. It may be a neat ‘n’ easy package to blame the military-industrial-pharmaceutical-biotech complex for causing greenhouse gasses. But can we really be sure? I mean, I want to blame and hate industry. I fork over the extra $$ for organic veggies, after all. I am heart-broken over the rending images of our beautiful Mother Earth in disarray. I’m just not sure that in this case–and I pretty much see Monsanto as the face of the 666 Anti-Christ and herald of the Apocalypse–I’m not 100% convinced that it’s all so tidily laid at one ugly, fungus-riven, toenail-shrivelled foot.
It goes this way: people think anything natural, in the wild, is wonderful and clean, etc. But there are plenty of rivers in Colorado you can’t drink from because the beavers are crapping, tainting the water. And there are plenty of natural substances I don’t want to ingest, like cobra venom.
This may get me scorned by a lot of other card-carrying registered Democrats, of whom I am one. But one thing, in an insecure world, is for sure: no one is more vicious than an angry liberal whose set-in-stone, holier-than-thou truths have been questioned. Those people are out for blood. Notice how much vitriol they spew when Obama is questioned–the same people who called Bush 1 and Bush 2 anything but a human being.
I wasn’t crazy about the Bushes, either. Marie Antoinette, anyone? Which leaves me wondering, where the hell are the moderates? The socially-liberal, fiscally moderate folks who aren’t trying to shatter our Constitution and turn our country into a replica of socialist France? I am pro-gay marriage. I am pro-life and pro-choice, both at the same time. I am hawkishly pro Israel. I am pro having an entire government comprised of people of color. I just don’t want a big, paternalistic government who takes money away from the middle class: are you listening, President Obama? Give scholarship money back to the middle class. Stop “going beyond the Constitution.” Stop it right now. I like the Constitution.
I don’t care if people worship Adonai, Jesus, Buddha, or Zeus: I surely don’t want a mosque on the World Trade Center site. I was in NYC on 9/11, standing on the roof of my husband’s parents’ building, watching the towers fall in a viscous cloud of soot and poison. I am always up for a slanted perspective on things, but I think those people are CRAZY NUTSO CUCKOO who claim it was the US government or Israel who caused the collapse.
So I like Senator Joe Lieberman, who seems to share many of my values. But if he teams up with Sarah Palin, who is a first class idiot, I will have to send him a strongly worded letter expressing my dismay.
Enough of politics, a topic which came out of my riffing on truth. We all know that politics and truth are incompatible bedfellows. I meant to say this: first wives are always right about their husbands. They just are. This said, a second wife can know something else about the same rasty man–and so get better results out of him. I’ve seen that a lot, too. Men can learn. Women can learn. People do change, if they want to. If they’re willing to work REALLY hard on themselves.
And teenagers are always up to something. There are two kinds of parents in the world: those who accept this truth, and those who are delusional. The parents who are the MOST sure that their baby boy would never use such vile language, or that their precious daughter would never act like a slut, are exactly the parents who son is widely known to be the most foul-mouthed kid to walk the high school halls in twenty years, and whose daughter was surfing internet porn at age 10 and sending cell phone pix of her bare boobs to boys when she was 13. This is fact. Watch the parents. The more controlling they are, the more they try to regulate who their kids see, the more judgmental they are about other parents: the farther out on a limb their teens are going. Some kids have good parent-management skills and hide it well, that’s all.
Having teenagers is a lesson in humility and, if you can keep your sense of humor intact, ruefulness. It’s a divine comedy. I was just emailed this by a psychologist who knows my intelligent, talented, precocious, beautiful, wild teenage daughters all too well: “Don’t feel stupid. My advice going forward is not to ask ‘are you?’ But to say ‘how much are you?’ to whatever question you are asking.”
When parents go to a kindergarten party, they can take a page from my book of life: realize that half these adorable kids will be dealing drugs before they get out of 11th grade.
What else? I don’t know, I’m still in a process of discovery. Was this worth sharing? Can’t say for sure. Moody may have a point.
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Bittersweet: About Karma

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Earl: “Look! Shampoo that’s not tested on animals. I feel bad for those lab animals running around with dirty hair, but if it’s better for the environment, that’s the sacrifice they have to make.” Jason Lee as Earl Hickey, MY NAME IS EARL Karma is a funny thing

 
There are some humorless men in my life. A few months ago I sent an email to two of them. It was pretty funny: UFO’s, aliens, subliminal programming with muzak, ex-CIA agents who can be hired to forcibly waterboard someone, without their consent, and beating my rascally middle daughter with a stick in Riverside Park were all mentioned. Admittedly, my sense of humor is offbeat and irreverent. Still, this email was juicy. But did they respond to it AT ALL? Oh, nooooooooooo. They just pretended it didn’t exist.
 
This current husband of mine read the missive before I sent it. “Don’t send that,” he said, with a flat expression. Hmph. My third husband will have a rich sense of humor. He will be able to laugh with me. At me, okay, that’s gonna happen, alas. Even I spend plenty of time laughing at me. (Definition of ‘rueful,’ anyone?) But, definitely, also, with me.
 
Over the last few years I’ve been working with Buddhist concepts and with the Bhagavad Gita. In the spirit of “what goes around comes around,” I have to wonder, when did I not laugh at people that has reached fruition with this overabundance of humorless men in my life?
 
Should I rack what’s left of the gray matter rattling around my cranium to recall anyone whose joke I did not get, then make a list, seek them out, and make restitution by letting them tell me their favorite jokes, which culminates in my laughing uproariously? Will that plant new seeds for me, seeds that will sprout into men with some sparkle to their personality?
 
Maybe it’s a past life thing. I was an uptight guy in the 17th century who inflicted lethal self-seriousness on the long-suffering women in my life. Now I’m reaping my just rewards, and there’s no going back to pull the poker out of my former derriere. Karma’s a complicated thing, and hard to navigate exactly. Those of us like me who aren’t enlightened can’t parse it.
 
It’s easier to see the working of karma in other people’s lives. I tread carefully here, being mindful of Rabbi Jesus’ words, “Why worry about the mote in your brother’s eye when there’s a beam in your own?”
 
But I am a careful observer of people, both because people are a novelist’s raw material, and because I’m fascinated with human beings, those conscious and inconsistent creatures. While not positing myself as a perfect person, I can discern. I can learn from others.
 
There’s a man I know who’s recently had many business reversals. He’s brilliant, educated, competent, personable. Indeed, he exudes a charm that many people can’t see through. I’ve watched with breathless awe as he’s snowed them totally. It’s a virtuoso act.
 
Unfortunately, the charm obscures a negative side. He’s acted from that negative side over the last several years, threatening me and others with litigation, co-opting tactics of bullying and intimidation, twisting reality to suit the ends of malice, never using a kind word when hostility will make the point for him. And there seems to be no one in his life who will call him on his stuff. His family has always lent him blind entitlement, and his close friends only affirm his better points, of which there are many.
 
I suppose this is when I am grateful that my close friends hold me to a high level of personal accountability. “So Traci,” my friend Gerda will say, in her patient voice, “are you acting out of negative intent? Are you acting out of fear or out of love?”
 
Or even my friend Marcia will ask, “Yes, but is that about your self-esteem? Can you phrase that in a way that’s less ambiguous?” Rachel usually foists a zinger, with less concern for my vulnerability and more concern for the bull’s eye of painful truth.
 
But I don’t think the benighted man in question, may all the gods bless him, has anyone speaking this way to him. Nor does there seem to be anyone reminding him about the Law of Return, that whatever you give out inevitably comes back to you. So it is no surprise to me that, despite his many talents, he is suffering business losses that cause him personal anguish.
 
Not that he would or could ever see the relationship between his abusive actions and the unfoldment of his life. It’s hard for all of us. There is the real cause of things and the apparent cause. What is apparent is the economy, the paternalistic government, the state of the world, etc. But in this view that seeks to go deeper than appearances–and even the Talmud talks about “measure for measure” and “As one does, so they do to him”–we are all guided toward spiritual forces of cause and effect.
 
Which leads me back to the lab animals with dirty hair, making sacrifices for the environment. I can only hope they transmigrate species, and reincarnate as higher beings. Perhaps humorless men.
 
BODY PARTS
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BODY PARTS

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BODY PARTS

There’s something wonderful about that moment of enchantment that shocks us out of our normal ways of seeing things and lands us in a fresh way of looking. Travel to a new city, a great poem or painting, a moment of communion during prayer or meditation, even a child’s shout of laughter can be the catalyst. It’s not necessarily a higher way of perceiving, it’s usually a lateral jump. But it gives a rebirth into the moment, an unexpected and palpable sense of the mysterious now.

I live with a classical figurative sculptor whose mind processes the world so differently than mine that those little jolts occur regularly, in our communication. If what passes between us can rightly be called communication. Because I think in words and paragraphs, in flashes of energy and leaps of feeling and intuition. Sabin thinks in concrete visual images, in form and color and volume. Sometimes I think he has to translate his thoughts into a language that I can understand, and I still have to reverse-engineer his words into my own dialect, to finally grasp what he’s trying to convey.

Which kind of works out between us, because he’s normally a quiet-spoken man of few words, and I can fill the space between us with my own loquacity. And I don’t even mind when his eyes glaze over because I figure he’s going to the happy place in his mind–best I can figure, that’s the Medici tombs in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence, with Michelangelo’s breathtaking funereal monuments.

But sometimes Sabin gets a word in edgewise, and there it is, that little frisson, the world cracking to reveal itself anew. The other day he said, “The babysitter’s head is a near perfect sphere. Do you think she would model for me?”

Now, I know he’s planning to do a set of twice-life-sized heads, male and female, with an eye to the hotel and grand lobby market, when he finishes the Apollo (see the pix above). Those heads would look beautiful outdoors in gardens and near pools, also. It’s a good idea because he’s not just thinking about art but also about selling art, and, you know, artists have to eat and pay their kids’ school tuition, too.

But I had never noticed that our babysitter had an especially round head. I had seen her to be lovely, and better still from my point of view, kind to our mischievous 4 year old daughter. So I went back to look at her again, next time she was working for us. Sure enough, part of what makes her so pretty is that elegantly-shaped head.

“Sabin says your head is beautifully round,” I told her. “Would you be interested in modeling for him?”

“I’ve always been self-conscious about my head being so round,” she confessed. “I’d be honored! I can’t believe he would ask me.”

“Don’t be honored,” I warned. “As a boss, working on his sculpture, Sabin makes Attila the Hun look like a sweetie pie.” I know this because he’s working on a bust of me. I’ve experienced his exacting demands for myself.

“The forms on your face are defined and highly symmetrical,” he told me, when we started the project. It’s probably the only compliment he’s ever given me, and boy oh boy, does high symmetry make a woman’s heart palpitate. But I did check myself out in the mirror, when he grudgingly gave me permission to pee. I’m not sure I saw what he did. All I could think was that I’d better give botox a try.

But it was a new way of seeing even myself, and that’s something I seek out, too. I wanted to discuss modes of perception when I sat back down to continue modeling. Though, do you believe, he doesn’t like me to talk while he’s sculpting me? Claims it’s distracting. We put the bust on hold until I’ve finished what I have to say. It may be a few decades.

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The reality show of my life, part 1: Boob Model

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Personally, I think that reality TV shows herald, and probably contribute to, the demise of civilization. Reality shows are spawned when interest in story wanes; interest in story wanes when values do not grip people. When people stop believing in sin and redemption. When the mental vacuity of moral relativism numbs us to the fact that we define ourselves by our actions, and every action matters.

(I only sound Republican. I’m a registered Democrat.)

But if they’re going to make reality TV shows, why not one of my life? From the point of view of sad, absurdist comedy, it’s pretty rich. Start with an author married to a Renaissance-obsessed sculptor, four kids from three different marriages, a melange of religions, one communist daughter attending Amherst and one studious pre-med doctor-in-training-daughter at Johns Hopkins, my wild middle child whose first rule of conduct is “No restraining orders!” and a 4 year old imp who talks and reasons like a 7 year old.

The show could debut with the time my husband decided to advertise on Craig’s List for a boob model. Now, this was not a sketchy activity; Sabin is a classical figurative sculptor (think Michelangelo) and he was hard at work on a life size Aphrodite. He’d used several women already, one for gesture, a dancer for the uplifted arms, a tango teacher for the legs, an aikido master for the goddess’ core, all in their 20’s. But he didn’t like any of their busts.

I’m pretty sure he spent a few hours one evening evaluating my humble decolletage, such as it is after nursing three children. He was squinting down my shirt with a crease between his brows, in too clinical a manner for it to be foreplay. But there was no mention of my posing topless for the goddess. My husband was smart enough to hold his tongue. The rejection came and went unsaid.

Ecco, Craig’s List. “Wanted: breast model for a life size figurative sculpture. Professional classical sculptor pays same rate as art schools. See my website www.sabinhoward.com before contacting me.”

There were thousands of responses. Dutifully Sabin opened every single one. About 90% of the emails came from… Heather in New Jersey, who thought a shot of herself hanging upside down off a pole best showed her watermelon-sized endowments. Also exposed her nether parts in a way that only gynecologists, and not fine art sculptors, would find professionally interesting. Or there was Lindyloo in Queens, clad only in sequins, who charged not by the hour, but by the act. She listed a whole menu. I’m a writer and I know a lot of words, but there were things I’d never heard of. I thought about emailing back for elucidation. Maybe then my husband would look down my shirt in a less detached manner.

Sabin was not amused. Not by my chortles and not by the women who could read the words “breast model” but not the words “professional classical sculptor.” He wasn’t titillated, either. This is his work and his work is his God. Sabin was looking for a specific physical attribute and he might as well have been looking at elbows or knees.

He eventually auditioned a few women and chose someone whom I thought was too small for Aphrodite. She is the Goddess of Love, after all, shouldn’t she have a really great set of knockers, full Double-D’s that knock people over?

But of course, he of the exquisite taste was right. Aphrodite was finished and she’s gorgeous, modest bust and all. So maybe there is something elegantly appealing about the less-endowed chest, after all….

fragment-of-aphrodite-hires

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The Art of Life: How and Why to Look at Sculpture by Traci L. Slatton & Sabin Howard

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The Art of Life: How and Why to Look at Sculpture

by Traci L. Slatton & Sabin Howard

My husband Sabin Howard (www.sabinhoward.com) and I are writing a book about sculpture together. He is a working classical figurative sculptor–think Michelangelo–and I am NOT a PhD.

I want to write this book precisely because I am not a PhD. I want to write it for the purest reason: because I love sculpture and it enhances life and I want to share this passion, and its uplifting effect, with everyone. Sculpture is too beautiful, too innately healing, too richly resonant of what it actually means to be human, to be monopolized by a few people with advanced degrees.

I stand for the democratization of art. This is precisely why I have such a strong aversion to post-modern art, which, with its emphasis on ugliness and alienation, has begged to be rejected by the ordinary person and embraced by the few who either 1, make money off it, or 2, get a PhD out of it.

I am here to tell you: art is not dead. Neither is God, for that matter. There’s a burdgeoning movement that is rediscovering both. Beauty, too.

Why do I call this book ‘The art of life’? Simple: when you pause and breathe and take in a sculpture, it brings you back into alignment with your deepest core self. It renews your Self. It deepens your experience of this moment now, of the presence, and Presence, in this perfectly imperfect moment of space-time. And isn’t that the practice of the art of life? It is for me.