“Don’t dismiss that idea lightly. That may well be, and, in your case, is likely accurate. There’s no question it can be an enhancement to creative, imaginative thought, as it embraces the fantastical. Fantasizers make for terrific artists, if they have the capacity to be organized and motivated. But many suffer from depression. Fortunately, you show no signs of bipolarity or depression.”
“So how bad is my case?”
“That’s the best news. The fMRI scans indicate your gray-matter loss is not extensive compared to that of patients with full-blown schizophrenia. You’re not an advanced case. Perhaps it’s the reason you’ve been able to be so productive, driven, and professionally successful.”
“And so do I have an enhanced mind? Or a problem?”
“Both. Your artwork speaks for itself. Accelerated brain loss brings a rainbow of potential afflictions and disorders as well as other influences beyond the biological. Environment is a considerable factor in schizophrenia and its cousins.”
Given all this fresh medical intel, imagery, and verbiage, I had a run of creative ideas for painting and poetry.
“But with proper treatment, the condition can be controlled and, in some cases, reversed,” Dr. Wincott continued. “There are antipsychotic medications that suppress dopamine receptor activity and antibiotics that target the gene that regulates synaptic plasticity. These have been successful. There are others, too, risperidone and the like.
“Lastly, Rodrigo, I strongly urge you to stop any further recreational or prescription drug intake unrelated to your affliction. Amphetamines and cocaine can result in psychosis, and can bring on episodes and worsen symptoms. It’s like fueling the fire.”
Then the doctor told me I should remain in the hospital for a few more days. I lobbied for two weeks to give me more time to work, but he could grant me only one.
“If you feel you’ve hurt anyone, try to make amends. You’ve been under extreme pressures and coping with a lot. I’m sure they would understand.”
And that’s what I would do. Make amends. Eventually. But first I had a few more Hospital collages to complete.
43
SOHO 2.0
I took the meds Dr. Wincott prescribed for my condition on a trial basis, to see how I would react and to assess their effectiveness. I did not want to be dumbed down or lobotomized. But the intake brought welcome results. I noticed I was less manic and hyperactive but just as focused. I considered that positive. My sleep was consistent and regular. Though I felt a fairly constant overall sadness, my moods were solid and did not show regression; I did not fall into snarky or sarcastic or bitter or caustic chasms, which was the type of negative mind-set I was trapped in when I left New York. I stayed optimistic and my creative juices were flowing, but they were more under control. I continued to write my poetry, which served as a novel, fresh outlet. Words meant more to me now, and I chose them carefully, whether written or spoken.
I was pretty much blockaded from the unified universe, however. I wasn’t inviting dialogues from other dimensions. And whether my otherworldly interactions had been sleeping dreams or waking fantasies, now they were not coming through at all, at any time. And that meant one thing. I missed Carlotta. Immensely.
I invited my New York colleagues to see me individually. One by one. I spoke to Rafaela first. I was pretty sure Julia had informed her what I had said about her in Madrid, though I didn’t know for sure; I didn’t ask. But Rafaela was cool, she had taken everything in stride. It appeared she had a new boyfriend, which I considered a plus. She wouldn’t have to monitor me as she had in the past; I needed to handle things on my own, and I was definitely getting better at it.
I saw Jean Paul, too. I apologized to him for my unprofessional behavior. Naturally, he inquired about my new works, but I was at best noncommittal. He had seen some digital images snapped and sent by Julia before she spotted me passed out beside my “poet-tree” in the grass. Jean Paul was pretty keen on the works—rather ecstatic—likening them to Francisco Goya during his dark period. He still had the show lined up in Paris that he had been pressing me about around the time of Art Basel—if I cared to be involved. The show was to be at the Centre Georges Pompidou, no less. But my contract with Jean Paul as my exclusive representative and dealer had run out—a fact he seemed to have forgotten—which meant that I didn’t need to report to him on any new stuff. I was free. I didn’t bring that up, however.
I also met with Alan Steinberg, my attorney. He was gentlemanly but no less strategic. I authorized him to cover any damages to the house in Ronda. I kept him on board. Legal was a necessary part of one’s life and commerce (if there was to be any) in any metropolis, as lamentable a notion as it was.
ALMOST THREE WEEKS TO THE day after I was admitted to the hospital, I returned to my apartment. The first move to my new hands-on approach was organizing the delivery of The Unified Universe series from the Brooklyn warehouse to my studio in SoHo, and I oversaw its arrival and took inventory. As I X-Acto–knifed away the bubble wrap, I was proud of what I saw. Some of the canvases I’d even forgotten, as I had painted them while on a twenty-four-hour tear. Others I could never forget, nor the experiences that accompanied them.
If the truth be known, The Universe did talk to me. The individual portraits, the wheres and whens; I could hear the conversations as if they’d been yesterday. I wondered what Akira was up to. And how Heriberto was doing. And Desideria. And Ana Paola. And Dr. Abreu. And Sebastian and Salvatore and Giuliana. You see, I still believed in them. Whether friends, figments, phantoms, or fantasies—they lived. Perhaps in their own space and time. But definitely inside me. And they would forever. In this way, I was a believer.
And, of course, Carlotta.
Through my numerous sessions and interactions with Dr. Wincott and his team, it had been ingrained in me to let thoughts of this alternative nature pass, because they might not be healthy. Inviting the so-called otherworldly paracosm to inhabit my consciousness could be at the risk of my health. I didn’t know if that was the case, but clearly, I didn’t have all the answers. I had never been able to explain or validate my unified universe. It was like astrology, or religion, or ESP, or UFOs, or the paranormal: some inexplicable ethereal design from the cosmos that could not be scientifically proved. So I let those meditations come and go like memories from childhood. I gave them glances and half-smiles, and then I moved on. Because life for me was in the here and now, and I was operating in one gear—forward.
As for Carlotta, I couldn’t not think about her, because my freshly reformed mind-set and overhauled psychologies—philosophical orientation; spiritual enlightenment; choosing to live with dignity, nobility, integrity, and generosity of spirit—had all been adopted and honed in partnership with her. Whatever she was. Wherever she was. Though there may not have been any scientific proof, there was proof for me. I was my own proof. I had positively and unequivocally evolved. I was a better person due in no small measure to her.
But the mood swings were absent, as were the dream-world fantasies and hallucinations, recreational-intake binges, and other self-destructive habits.
And what did I replace this paracosm with?
My imagination. Which always was a constant in these two worlds, but was now refreshed and perhaps improved. And alone in my studio, I continued to charge hard.
As I unwrapped and upturned the last box from the warehouse, a curious thing took place. Something slipped from the box and onto the floor. It was a piece of white cloth. With a sheen. I lifted and inspected it. On the reverse side, I discovered the two fiery red lipstick smacks stacked one over the other. I spun the napkin a quarter-turn to arrange the stamps vertically. And then I saw the butterfly.
I decided against collaging the napkin into the Butterfly Triptych and quickly stuffed it back in the box. It was late, and I wouldn’t let my wandering mind play unhealthy tricks on my refurbished, innocent, and wide-eyed new imagination.
But the episode was still on my mind the next
day. So I called Dr. Wincott. He explained to me that I had without a doubt received the napkin somehow in my travels and fantasized about it, introducing and imposing it upon the detailed image systems of my paracosm while at the same time misconstruing its true origin. That seemed palatable to me. And that is pretty much how I related to all of those memories that had given birth to The Unified Universe: I had invented a world to create a world, and it had resulted in perhaps the greatest works of my career. Not even perhaps. They were the finest representations of what I could accomplish with paint and canvas. I had no outlet for them; I still wasn’t putting them up for sale. I didn’t need to. I remained content doing things for myself without any thought of a marketplace. That redrawn attitude had been liberating, and it had contributed to the enhanced qualitative aspects of my new life.
My personal renaissance wasn’t all about the work. The creative rebirth was fulfilling, but it was more about making me a more aware, more evolved being. Therefore, I had no regrets about the messy, chaotic nature of how I’d undergone the reformation, but I considered it all a part of my evolution. Because this was the kind of psychological overhaul I’d needed.
My soul had been crying out for change, and I had listened to it at the biological, molecular level. Given my affliction, this was how my survivalist mind had made it happen for me, with fantasy and invented worlds, and poignant, life-altering dream-world interactions. This was my journey, and it had been necessary for me to get to the next level of understanding. I was proud of myself for having endured such a challenging albeit enlightening period, and coming out the other end relatively unscathed and undamaged. I saw my fresh orientation as a solid foundation upon which I could build. And for the first time in a very long time, I liked who I was once more.
44
THE NEW MASTER OF ARTS AND LETTERS
I developed a new routine in the studio. Not only did I continue to produce works from my refreshed and enlightened perspective, but I also kept a journal and continued to write poetry. In addition, I became somewhat of an academic. I began to read texts of all sorts, scientific as well as spiritual. I read Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams. I read Dr. Wincott’s medical papers and those of other leading doctors in the field of neuroscience, not just on my disorder but on all related afflictions. I read the Bible and studied the tenets of other religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Native American beliefs. I became a student of science and religion in my own self-designed master’s program. With the advice and written recommendation of Dr. Wincott, I was allowed to attend—without a grade or class credit—three courses in Columbia University’s General Studies program: one in psychology, one in philosophy, and another in religion. I enjoyed going to school again immensely. I was determined to become a maestro of arts and letters, which would then complement and inspire my painting.
One afternoon after class, I slipped into the men’s room and used the facilities in the bathroom stall. I was amazed by all the intellectual graffiti scrawled on the walls. Most of it was vulgar, but funny-vulgar, as there were some great brains uptown who interpreted life from an expressively tangential, evocative, at times existential angle; and though predominantly racy in nature, the attitudes explored had their own intimately sophisticated albeit crude element. But there was one quote I read that stood out, that was purely philosophical and unrelated to the erudite bathroom humor. And it had a profound effect on me. It was written in pencil, and it said:
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
With my own hand, I sketched a flower on either side of the quote as I conceived of a new Bathroom Stall Walls graffiti-art series. I noted, however, the prized quotation in my journal and learned later that Chardin was a Christian mystic of sorts. This led me to read books on contemporary spirituality, and that brought me to an independent study of those philosophers who preceded the moderns and had given rise to their teachings.
My academic pursuits added a new dimension to my life, and I found not only the educational value in them; I also found being aware of these treatises of science and religion to be fundamentally empowering. I had a much more enlightened but also functional grip on things, on the planet we inhabit, and I felt myself to be grounded like never before. Knowledge was power, and it was a tremendous epiphany. I was standing tall and erect, and my feet were planted on the earth, moving forward inch by inch, stride by stride, and I was consciously feeling like I was in step with, and part of, what most consider the universe, and ready for whatever it held in store for me—and I it.
I had held off from engaging socially since my release from the hospital. But given my fresh orientation to the planet, one day I realized that I should not be living such an isolated life. I had needed time to strengthen myself and fill the shoes of the new me, but now I felt equipped and fortified, mentally and physically. When Rafaela asked me if she could have an engagement party at my apartment with her boyfriend, Tomas, and a group of friends, I gave her the overwhelming okay. The party was scheduled for the following weekend.
It made me consider previous friendships, and I began to seek out former social acquaintances. I asked them to lunch individually. I’m speaking of Tex and The Raven and Rachel, my PR gal. I even tracked down Akira and met her out in Brooklyn. To each of them I apologized for my behavior and let them know of my journey as I saw it and where it had taken me. I knew they were on their own journeys and not necessarily even interested in mine. But I felt it my duty to at least let them know of someone in their lives who had taken such a path and was experiencing its rewards. I invited them all to Rafaela’s engagement party as well.
As with many Manhattan parties, and especially with someone of my previous reputation for revelry, about three times as many people attended the soiree as were invited. That was okay, as I felt it would be uplifting and more festive for Rafaela and Tomas. I had made life difficult for her in many ways for a very long time, and I hoped to be there for her now as she had been there for me.
As guests streamed in, I was greeted like a long-lost pal. To do my part, I tended bar, I took coats, I passed around hors d’oeuvres, and I dumped ashtrays. Not because I was cutting back on services but because I was finding delight in the codes of decorum. The simple pleasures were appealing to me, and I was all too happy to leave my celebrity status at the door. My own door. And I was allowing my dedicated Alfonso to enjoy himself more as a family member than a butler.
Though I’d given up habitual drinking, I enjoyed the occasional glass of champagne, and I shared one with the lovely Akira when she arrived. She was no longer working at the illicit subterranean den; nor was she still seeing its proprietor. She was hoping to create her own Asian-couture fashion line. I was trying to explain to her what I had been studying, and what I had learned about soulmates, and what I had found with Carlotta.
“Wouldn’t you like to find that, a real soul that matches yours, that you could be with forever? That you could find and re-find, perhaps every earthly life cycle? Many years from now, when your terrestrial body passes, your soul will remain. And it will seek out your chosen one again and again and again. It won’t be this same body; it will be housed in another, as your soulmate’s will be, too. I’ve come to believe that. Maybe this is too trippy or too much to take in. But wouldn’t we all like to find that type of millennial partner for eternity? A love that is transcendent. That transcends space and time and this very singular Planet Earth existence?”
Just then I peered into the dining room and saw about twenty people who were seated, laughing and carrying on. Most of them were wearing sunglasses. I saw The Raven and Tex, too, and when Tex spotted me angled their way, he piped, “Hey, Rodrigo! We’re having a glass-off!” and the throng belched raucously. They were competing as to who had the most stylish sunglasses.
Akira asked me if she could see the Asian Angel portraits I’d made o
f her, and after careful consideration, I saw no reason why not. As an engagement gift to Rafaela, I made the completely spontaneous decision to open the previously locked and off-limits studio doors to everyone.
The fact is, I wasn’t feeling exclusionary anymore. I no longer needed secrecy. I was listening to my inner voice again, and it was telling me to stop closing down, shutting off, even hiding; rather, it was telling me to move forward, open up, expand, and most important—share. Sharing was a form of love. In the same way I’d tried to extend love to Akira with our recent conversation, I hoped to extend it to others. Sharing my work was one way to do this; given the humblest of intentions, it was an act of generosity of spirit—and love.
The art reflected my character, too, as that of someone who had endured innumerable challenges and come through them, a survivor. And that effort alone should be acknowledged. Therefore, the series, whatever its artistic merits might be, should be considered a triumph—of the human spirit and will. No doubt my inner voice was an amalgam of the spiritual ideas I’d absorbed, from my Eagle and Carlotta’s Panther, to Desideria’s Butterfly and Ana Paola’s Hummingbird, right up to the recent academic studies and new teachings I’d been immersed in.
I contemplated my soulmate once again, as well as the process of leaping forth and embracing the unknown. Not because I was trying to engage in that other world but because the feelings were valid and significant—and they applied here. I was well aware that my inner voice reflected this fresh knowledge and awareness. And in that context, restriction, imperviousness, and restraint could no longer be tolerated.
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The Beautiful Dream of Life Page 23