FROM YONKERS TO THE BRONX: A CRISIS OF MEANING AND AESTHETICS

Which Came First, the Addict or the Artist?

As we all know there is a stereotype of the "mad artist." The cliche abounds; there's a fine line between genius and creativity. But does this also hold true for the addict and the artist? If someone were to do a study, assuming no one already has, would he or she find that a disproportionate number of addicts are also artists, and vice versa?

This is of interest to me, vis a vis my own life. I knew I was artistic at a young age. Had it not been for my mother's homophobia, and possibly artist-phobia, I might have been a visual artist. At age nine, I had "the girl collection," a collection of drawings of girls' faces that was growing weekly as I would take it out each Saturday and entertain myself by drawing a new girl. One day, my mother took it from me, saying, "Enough of that," ripped it up, and threw it in the garbage.

Despite my aborted career as a visual artist, I identified myself as a writer from even before age nine. I loved to read, and I knew that that was what I wanted to be: a writer.

But then, Life intervened and by early adolescence, I was already showing some typical signs of an addict, perhaps the most obvious being that I couldn't wait to get high. This is really no great surprise, considering both my parents drank, as did many of the WWII generation, but my parents were addicts.

One thing I also enjoyed as a young child, which my mother did not put a stop to, was sipping the cool, watered down Scotch that remained at the bottom of my father's drinks. It was a treat! As we waited together for my mother to get dressed on a Saturday evening, before Dad picked up the baby sitter, we sat together watching "People Are Funny" and "Candid Camera" and sipped at Scotch on the rocks. So yes, I developed a taste for it and the warm, fuzzy feeling it induced.

A life-long love/hate affair with substances followed. Ironically, it wasn't until after many years of therapy, that I began to have an explanation for certain aspects of my personality. Often, I thought it was that I was an artist. Then, one day, I knew it was because I was an addict. So that was it... that was what made me into the loner that I tend to be. That's what caused me to have the need to escape rather than face emotional pain head on. That's what made it difficult for me to have fun without chemical intervention.

For a while I was convinced that being an addict was "what was wrong with me." But then, I'd get confused, thinking that these are also the qualities of many artists. So which came first, the addict or the artist? And, does it matter? Yes, if only because when I do things like "isolate," which twelve-step programs say is a big No-No for addicts, I also believe that isolating is typical for the archetypal artist. So how I define my behavior determines how I feel about it. Addict = unacceptable; artist = acceptable.

These days, the bottom line is, yes I am an artist and yes I am an addict; the order is arbitrary. What matters is whether or not I am producing art. One thing I know for sure is that if I'm engaged in addictive behavior I'm usually not producing art. So the bottom line once again lies in a cliche: actions speak louder than words. I can be an addict, and I can be an artist, as long as the former describes something I am, and the latter describes something I do. Read more!

Meaningful Aging and Creativity

Nineteen years ago, when I first started working as a psychiatric social worker for the New York State Office of Mental Health, the longest I had held a job was for three years. Imagine my shock and chagrine, when I found that so many of my new co-workers were lifers. Many had been there since barely out of their teens and would spend their entire adult lives there. It was these workers, whether they had been there twenty eight years or eight, who seemed to be living for when they would retire. And there I was, just settling into my new career at the ripe old age of thirty eight, having decided that I needed to earn my living in a "meaningful" way. Spending my days writing, and earning my money in a meaningless way, seemed like too much time going to nowhere and nothing. I needed at least some guarantee that something I would do during the day would have a positive impact on the world around me. Certainly, there was nothing like that happening with writing. Sure, I felt gratified while writing, but then the fact that little of it was seeing the light of day left me feeling empty and without purpose.

Thus, began my career as a social worker and gadfly: I was appalled witnessing the workings of the quintessential bureaucracy, as well as the effect said bureaucracy had on its employees. No matter what age they were, they were all looking forward to one thing: Retirement. "But you are wishing your life away," I would argue. "Don't you see? When you are able to retire, you'll be old."

"Uh, yeah," they said. but ultimately, who cared about getting old. What mattered was not having to work anymore at that damn job. They even crossed days off the calendar. How can you do that!? I exclaimed. It's like wishing your life away.

Now, it's nineteen years later, and I am one of those counting the years, months and days until I can retire. Among my co-workers, many of whom are in a similar position of having anywhere from one to ten years until that blessed day, it is the most frequently discussed topic. Like prisoners getting paroled: how long do you have? And then, what will you do? Last week, I must have heard from at least three different people, "Oh, I imagine you'll do something more creative, Denise. You've got that artistic leaning." I just nod my head and say, "Oh, yes, definitely."

But in my head I'm thinking it's much more complicated than that. For example, they don't know the daily struggle I've gone through every day of every year I've been there, with regard to writing. At least at this stage of the game I've learned how to write creatively every day and go to work too. But in terms of retiring, when I no longer have to dedicate eight plus hours every day to the job, what does doing something more creative mean exactly? Assuming I'll still have to earn some money, even if on a part time basis, I tend to think I'd like to work in an aesthetically pleasing environment, if only just to counteract the many years of the opposite. Selling jewelry or clothing, bookstores, antique shops, botanical gardens: these are the environments I think of. For in addition to meaning, I crave beauty.

I actually think I've got the meaning thing licked. Writing and serving needy people: together it's the magic formula. Perhaps I'll continue that formula when I retire from my job, and just not have to deal with the trappings of the bureaucracy and the nasty aesthetics. Whatever I decide, I have to admit, all those state workers over the years were right: thinking about retiring does make aging a whole lot better. But I promise you one thing, I will never, I mean NEVER, cross days off a calendar. Uh, maybe I'd better not promise.
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FROM YONKERS TO THE BRONX: A CRISIS OF MEANING AND AESTHETICS

Denise Beck-Clark

Sunday evening of a day that I couldn't help but think of as "a great beach day." But, when I thought that this morning, as I sat writing at my computer, I had to remind myself, as I have on so many recent days, that I haven't really gone to the beach in years. Going to the beach is something I did in my youth, and yet I still have the knee-jerk reaction, during the summer, to think of days as good beach days or not.

Another revelation I had recently is that now, at the ripe age of fifty seven, I'm no longer so sure summer is my favorite season. Don't get me wrong: I Love Summer! But it also brings along with it a certain melancholy, a sadness, that I can't (or don't?) take advantage of it. While I am creating meaning for myself by helping people with psychiatric problems, and by writing my books, stories, and poems, other people are out doing what I think I should be doing: swimming, sailing, hiking, sightseeing, traveling, and just in general enjoying the warm weather.

It seems as though the meaning of summer as I knew it as a child is etched in my brain, as it's taking me so long to rid myself of it. To rid myself of the sense that I'm missing something, that I'm somehow not doing what I should be doing, while I am doing all the things I really should be doing, as mentioned above, in the form of my day job and my early morning, night and wee hour jobs. Is it possible to really do everything? One has to have a super sense of time management to be able to manage that. This is something I have to admit I lack. As it is, the bags under my eyes give away the precious lack of sleep that I choose to live with. How else to have meaning in my life when there are only twenty four hours in a day? When I made the life decisions to have a child, to be a social worker, and, followed the life calling of being a writer, I also made the decision that I'd give up things like jumping up on a balmy July Sunday, and instead of going out and having a great day (as the TV meteorologists nauseatingly insist!) I stay inside and do what needs to be done, and occasionally, in small doses, enjoy something less meaningful, like the weather.

So in the end, opting for meaning wins. But there's always a small, and often not-so-small, ache in my heart, that I'm missing so much aesthetically. Fortunately, outside my window where I write are trees, and as I am now, I can watch them blow in the hot summer wind, and I can watch how the summer sun lights up some of the branches, and if there's a thunderstorm and the sky turns dark I can watch that too. And even great good fortune is having a terrace, from which I can feel the July air, and at night, I can watch the moon in all its phases, and even see some stars.

Meaning, aesthetics? What's more important? To me, the answer is both, but meaning is the cake and aesthetics is the icing. Thus, tomorrow, though it may be a perfect day for the beach, I'll go the Bronx, and sit in my noisy office under the el, watch the cinderblock building being constructed across the street, and park my car in a urine-soaked garage. But before I go I will write, and while I'm there I'll improve some people's day, if even just a little. I'll derive my meaning for the day, even as semi-consciously I'll mourn that I'm not sitting in white sand, inhaling salt air, and swimming in the sea.

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Denise Beck-Clark has lived five plus decades in and around the New York City metropolitan area. She is a struggling, published writer, and a dabbler in photography and drawing, who derives meaning from her art, as well as from her work with the mentally ill. The struggle these days is about having it all: meaning, as well as an aesthetically rich life. Denise can be reached at Sisyphus199@aol.com.
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