Twenty years ago, I was summering in Amsterdam, NY, preparing to return to Boston for the fall, and in the midst of creating ‘A Man of Mode’ – the cover of which is seen here. It’s a harlequin by Pablo Picasso, and it inspired the new project, which largely marked the end of the third-person documentary-like form of most of my projects since 1993. Magnificently sick of myself, I would begin diving into character-driven studies, where I could inhabit the soul and posture of other mostly-made-up people, trying on various guises, a man of shifting modes and endless masquerades.
An artistic and creative outlet, my projects had always provided a means of analysis and self-introspection, but by 2000 I was looking for something more. I had just met Andy, and I could feel the realignment of priorities, the way love makes the world open up, lending a new kindness as well as a new danger. Turning 25, and having experienced a full quarter century of life, thinking I knew mostly everything, or at least more than most, I also had a deep understanding of the limits of my knowledge. Whenever I met someone slightly, or abundantly, older than me, I would invariably ask them the same thing: what do you know now that you wish you knew in your early twenties?
On the eve of turning 45, I think back to that almost-precocious query. How foolish I was to attribute wisdom to age, yet how rare for someone so young to seek out knowledge from the elders. The older I get the less I feel I know, and the more sure of that I get, the closer to wisdom I get as well. It’s one of the few tricks of the universe that is as pleasurable to discover as it is to practice, and the more you practice it, the more enjoyable life becomes.
In the year 2000, when this photo was taken, I wasn’t ready for the lesson, even if someone I had asked explained it as plainly as possible. I’m afraid I’m not even explaining it well, and that too leads into something greater. For so many years I would invest such import and drama into being right, and knowing everything, that I’d almost miss the jewels of life that were hidden right in front of me. Luckily, enough of them forced themselves into my bumbling way that it was somewhat clear which way to head. That path was the goal, and despite whatever else I didn’t know, from the time of my childhood I understood that simple, if cliched, adage.
These summer days of August, when the earth’s spot in its rotation around the sun enters the place where it was around my birth, I spin into a more contemplative space, this year perhaps a bit more-so than others, when we’ve all had a chance to be a little more quiet.
