Does art mimic life, or does life mimic art? Early in life, I developed a love for art. At home, I drew, sketched, painted, carved, and sculpted. In school, I was inundated by a college prep curriculum driven by the race for space. Focused primarily on mathematics and science, it left no room for art. I was expected to become a scientist or an engineer. To the adults in my life then, artists were the beatniks, hippies, and the otherwise undisciplined dregs of society. There was no future in becoming a starving artist. According to everyone else, I was destined for much better. Then came the Vietnam era draft. I will spare you and only share the short version.
I went to college, majored in physics, and was drafted into the military during my second semester. My life was placed on hold. In the military, I earned an Associate of Applied Science degree in Engineering Technology. After twenty years of service, I went on to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in General Studies with an emphasis in physics and engineering technology. Better late than never, I was back on track toward attaining my original goals before Uncle Sam interrupted me.
Married with five sons, I entered a master’s degree program in telecommunications technology management. At the beginning of the second class of my first semester, I had an epiphany. I had enough of all this science and technology crap. I stood up, collected my things, and walked out of class. I felt in my heart that there had to be something more personally satisfying to pursue. After all, I had traveled the world, cheated death on numerous occasions, had been there and done that. I wanted to write about it. I wanted to become a starving writer.
A schism formed within the marriage, and we divorced. I headed to the end of the world (Key West) to find myself, to find my voice, to live for the first time simply as “me,” or a proximity thereof. This new sense of freedom was exhilarating and explosive. No more role playing. I was alive for the first time. I passed time writing or not writing. While writing or not writing, I painted in acrylics or did not paint. I did whatever I damn well pleased, whenever I damn well pleased. I became a social creature, keeping a safe distance from, but admiring the crazies in Key West. I enjoyed getting close to them for what I could glean, but not so close that I might become contaminated by their ways. I cannot honestly say that I was totally successful at that end. A local slogan I came to appreciate the longer I lived in the Conch Republic was, “We’re all here, because we’re not all there.”
I enjoy returning home to Long Island. I always have. Like I’ve said, it provides me with physical and mental cleansing. It allows me to detox. And it tethers me back to earth, so I don’t completely lose whatever sanity I have left. Does it appear to be working?