One rainy Saturday, many years ago, I was eight years old and engaged in my favorite activity: rifling through my mother’s belongings. Silk scarves, old photo albums, two-dollar bills, cook books, perfume, hair curlers, and necklaces made her dresser drawers a knick-knack lover’s delight. I was happily burrowing through a pile of hippie beads when I stopped in my tracks. A photo lay on the table, a photo of me when I was probably around four. I sat down on the bed. I started rocking back and forth, and singing to the picture. And I started crying. Mom came up the stairs. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” “Oh,” I buried my face in her lap. “I want to be young again!” I remember how her stomach bounced as she laughed her head off.
Two points: 1) I’m a born discontent; 2) despite those tears some 22 years ago, my youth has managed to stretch this far, and I don’t see a good reason for it to end anytime soon…
Nearly 10 years ago, another rainy afternoon, and I am standing in a cement basement, once again in tears. (I guess that’s my leitmotif!) This particular basement is in Vienna, the home of Klimt’s masterpiece, the Beethoven Frieze. It remains the only piece of fine art that has moved me to tears. The work illustrates Wagner’s programmatic interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth: humanity’s journey from hostile forces, to poetry, then to music, and finally to happiness, celebrated as an embracing couple surrounded by a choir of angels: dieser Kuss der ganzen Welt. From beginning until resolution, waifish genies float above each frame, eyes closed, arms outstretched. They represent humanity’s yearning for happiness: die Sehnsucht nach dem Glück.
Sehnsucht is a beautiful German word (yes, such a thing exists). The sehn means to yearn and is also related to ‘ardent’ or ‘passionate.’ Sucht means addiction, and also comes from suchen, ‘to seek.’ So much in two syllables! Since that musty day in the Viennese basement, I have kept an image of a Sehnsucht genie posted on my wall by my bed next to my pillow, letting me contemplate my own Sehnsucht before I fall asleep. She reminds me to focus on my goals and dreams, but I suppose her presence is also a bit sad. Yearning for happiness implies the present lack of happiness. As these pages reveal, I know how to find many things in life to complain about. Yet, turning the corner around this decade, I somehow have less inclination to whine, and more Lust to look ahead, and remember all the good things along the way (like a trip to Vienna).
Not long ago a friend remarked that a “transformation” happens in one’s early 30’s. He didn’t elaborate, and I’m not sure what to expect, but it’s a beautiful thought. It might be psychosomatic, but I’ve been feeling on the verge of something lately.
Schicksal is another fine German word. It means ‘destiny,’ but the root suggests it comes from the verb schicken, ‘to send,’ as if destiny not only guided but physically sent you along your path. Earlier this month, destiny sent me to read a magazine article by Milan Kundera, discussing, among other things, Flaubert’s shedding of his lyricism (and romantic prose) at the age of 30, when he sat down to write Madame Bovary. I don’t pretend that greatness is around the corner for me, I’m just curious to see how it all turns out. Ten years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that my life would look the way it does right now. Ten years from now, I will be doing things, living somewhere, meeting people, and being a person I can’t begin to imagine now. Only one way to find out what it will be.
Yonder.
No comments:
Post a Comment