Copy after(?) Maurice-Quentin de La Tour:
Self-Portrait (18th Century)

Except For Occasional Reappearances
I took myself to lunch today, the busiest day of my week after the carpenters finally showed up this morning to begin installing our new porch deck. They'd hauled away the gold-plated deck boards—clear, verticle grain Douglas Fir tongue and groove three-inchers—a few weeks ago to sand and finish them in a heated shed. The boards returned transformed! We'd discussed the final details as light snow fell, and I left exhausted. I decided to take myself to lunch to purchase some respite. I went to the Sub Shop to order some of their chicken rice soup, which isn't soup so much as a thick goup, perfect for a chilling Thursday lunch. I ordered the soup and a half of a tuna sub. As she dished up my goop, the checker said she'd bring out my sandwich when it was finished.

I retired to a table in the back and enjoyed my goop, but my sandwich never came. I returned to the counter, and the checker reacted as if she'd never seen me. I responded to her asking how she could help by saying I was back for that half sandwich she'd said she'd deliver to my table. She looked astonished! "I wouldn't have said that," she replied, "because I don't deliver sandwiches to tables." She went on to ask what I'd ordered as if she were speaking to someone who had recently returned from the Twilight Zone. She turned to dish up the goop, and I stopped her, saying I'd already eaten my goop and just wanted the sandwich. She asked me what I wanted as if I had yet to order and pay for what I wanted just a few short minutes before. She took my order and passed it on to the sandwich maker, who had witnessed my earlier interaction. A minute or two later, she handed me the tuna in a to-go bag, though I'd ordered it for there, and, curiously, didn't charge me again for the sandwich she'd not acknowledged I'd earlier ordered and paid for. She'd even thrown a chocolate chip cookie into the bag. I retired to my table to swallow that sandwich, wondering.

The Muse has been out of town this week, so I've been lacking one of my usual verification mechanisms to confirm I'm present. Due, probably, to some Heisenberg factor, I might not actually exist unless observed by someone who knows me. My cats often perform this service, but in that sub shop, I was missing my verification medium and, therefore, experienced what it might be like without me being present. This episode perfectly encapsulated my Exiled experiences. You might recall the episode where I was feeding feral cats with a four-year-old. We named one of those cats The Cats Who's Never There. I got to experience how that cat must have felt. My certainty that he probably didn't exist and that raccoons were eating the food we left collapsed his existence wave, but only for me. For lunch today, I had a dish best never served, the sense that I might not actually exist and that I might have been permanently Exiled to someplace else, except for those occasional reappearances.

——

Weekly Writing Summary
This Exiled Story finds me Reappearing in the places from which I was Exiled, sparking questions of recognition. Had we returned home? Not ever. Not yet.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn: The Incredulity of Thomas ["Christ Appearing to the Apostles"] (1656)
"Home seems less where the heart grows fonder than where one's pasts live …"
—
This Exiled Story confides the hardest-won lesson in my whole saga. Exiles sure seem like problems, though they might be Untreatable by any means. They inform rather than redefine.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes: Of what ill will he die?, plate 40 from Los Caprichos(1797–98, published 1799)
" … the lesson that seems to need to be relearned anew every time."
—
This Exiled Story recounts the time early in my Exile when I wallowed in the sudden *Impermanence of my existence. The first casualty of my Exile seemed to have been my tomorrow. (This was the most popular posting of the week!)

Lee Russell: Migratory berry pickers in temporary home near Ponchatoula, Louisiana (1939) [United States. Farm Security Administration]
"My sense of Impermanence gratefully proved impermanent itself."
—
This Exiled Story, Arrogance, features the poisonous attitude with which I first greeted my Exile. I was a genuine son-of-a-bitch for a while, Arrogant and defensive until I started my climb back up and out of the pit.

Hieronymus Wierix: Val van de mens [The Fall of Man] (1578) — Allegorie op de ondergang van de mens.
" … an infantile worldview and a wound that could never heal."
—
This Exiled Story finds me noticing FellowTravelers, others who were once Exiled and were forever changed by the experience.

Jean Charles Cazin: Tobias and the Angel (1878)
" … mirror images playing before us."
—
This Exiled Story speaks of coping with Being Exiled. As a veteran, I heartily recommend the presence of a couple of ConstantCompanions to ease an Exile's practice and integration period.

Possibly after Ignatius van Logteren: Young Bacchus and Companions (not dated- Early Eighteenth Century)
"He serves as a continuing inspiration."
—
This writing week felt like the start of the tidying-up phase of this series. With only another week's writing left before the solstice, just seven more installments remain to finally make the point of this series. Of the nineteen series I've finished so far in this effort, this one felt the most like therapy, for I was dredging up recent history to resolve lingering but previously undefined "issues." I do not admit to actually "having" issues. If any haunt me, they have me more than I have them. I'm more comfortable in my previously ill-fitting skin after considering my Exile experiences here.

Before I began laying down this series, I sensed that I might have missed a few of the finer points of my Exile excursion. That's nothing even a tiny bit exceptional. We live life forward and come to understand it in reflection. Exiles are definitely no exception for me. It did me some good to explicitly remember how it was for me to be Reappearing while still Exiled. In retrospect, I was never wholly gone or here. The condition for which I was self-prescribing was, I learned, essentially Untreatable, but only because it wasn't problem but feature. The Impermanence of the Exiled state made it difficult for me to sink my crampons into it to gain traction. It was by nature, I came to accept, Impermanence. I admitted to the Arrogance I exhibited as I faced settling into and for places that honestly seemed well beneath me. Is it possible to elevate oneself by settling into Beneath Yourself situations? I left a nod to the FellowTravelers who will forever be connected to The Muse and I due to our shared experiences. Everyone who was ever Exiled seems like a sibling to me. I ended my writing week appreciating my cats, who were and remain my ConstantCompanions whether Exiled or home. Thank you for following along!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz