Peter Sekaer: Fire Escapes and Shadows (c. 1935 - 1938)

"I suppose I never had."

Our trip to San Francisco got my internal dialogue (iAlogue) generator humming. I remembered, fondly and otherwise, past lives, proximity reminding me with flashes of both brilliance and darkness. I can't help but conclude that I was probably clinically insane between the ages of forty and fifty, the period of my life when I set about to reinvent myself. Instead of ever getting away with anything, I became more emphatic examples of myself. Still, I managed to maintain a different enough lifestyle that even I struggled to describe what I was trying to achieve. I divorced and remarried twice. I created my seminal works and watched them struggle to gain acceptance. I'd escaped what I'd imagined as a great trap only to discover myself trapped at different logical levels. I might have enjoyed frequent-flier upgrades but lost the charm of unengaged Tuesday evenings. I became an EscapeArtist who ultimately never got away with anything.

I became familiar with a dozen different local rhythms, priding myself on my ability to find a decent bakery and acceptable coffee within about an hour of landing anywhere. It became second and then first nature to behave like a chameleon. I could almost always recognize and match the local customs to become invisible. I learned how to become from somewhere else and never of anywhere near. I reveled in that mystery. Intimacy often hid from me. I spoke of building community without feeling very much a part of one. I had the theory down, though, and could unselfconsciously describe differences I'd never mastered. I might have been widely recognized as an outside expert, but I mostly just felt outside. I never learned to successfully hide that truth. I was somebody else, even to myself.

I didn't know my neighbors. How could I? I was the guy who disappeared early every Monday morning and rarely returned before well after nightfall Friday. They might notice me mowing on Saturday or smell me barbequing on a weekend evening, but I was always occupied or working inside. Some wondered what I did, but most never bothered to ask. I certainly never found the opportunity to connect, for I was still too busy building communities I could never become a member of. I was known as one of those who generated insights, and clients appreciated that talent. They were grateful before returning back to their well-established lives where their work was hardly more than a diverting sideline. They had families to care for and neighbors.

The rhythm of those days became completely consuming. I could have wandered through my weeks blindfolded and probably did. The predawn departure. The rental car acquisition and the frantic drive to the client site. The set-up and the performances, the teardowns, and the repercussions. I never once forgot to refill the rental car before returning it. I rarely missed a flight, and even then, the replacement usually proved to be an improvement over the originally planned. I had been to San Francisco so many times before I could not properly remember when. A few flashes of disembodied experiences: a proposal made and accepted, a memorable walk to the middle of The Golden Gate Bridge while an aircraft carrier came into port beneath us with the crew standing at awkward-angled attention into the wind. Walks through fog-shrouded streets beneath a cloak of best intentions.

I caught the barest glimpses of that distant self while The Muse and I feigned vacation. We no longer seek respite when we travel for too many ghosts of altogether too many Christmases Past haunt us. We welcome them with shriveled arms. In the past, when our delusions seemed so much more powerful, we could believably claim to be consultants, writers, teachers, and speakers. I faintly remember that presentation where I stepped to one side of the presenter's table to reveal to a startled audience that I was wearing tighty-whitey underpants on the outside of my corduroys, making my metaphorical point more powerful. That was pure intuition in action, probably the product of the temporary insanities EscapeArtists try to get away with. I would ask my therapist if I was crazy yet, and she would always insist that I would need to try harder to succeed at that. I suppose I never had.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #iAlogue , #PureSchmaltz