Imagination, Intimacy, Impatience

I have an active imagination. It is like an unruly animal that races around, dragging my emotions and hopes along with it, sometimes taking them on a wild fantasy ride, other times pulling them into a deep pit of despair. A recent episode showed me just how out of whack with reality my imagination can be.

Earlier in the week I received an e-mail from a synagogue announcing that Friday, March 13, was Shabbat Across Boulder County - people could sign up to host others or to be invited. Imagining that I might find myself at an enthusiastic and joyful Shabbat dinner with many other people, I asked the synagogue to find me a space in someone's home. Almost instantly, the organizer e-mailed me some information about my hosts and how they were wonderful people; he wrote that he'd leave it to them to send me details about the time.

I waited a day, and heard nothing. By Thursday evening, I was getting a bit concerned, so I sent the hosts an e-mail, asking for more information. By Friday morning, I still had not received a response, and my imagination started to spin sad stories about how their dinner was actually full, there had been a miscommunication between them and the synagogue, and they were too embarrassed to tell me so they were just ignoring me. And then, my imagination tamer showed up and said, "Well, maybe their e-mail is down, let's give them a call." So I called and left a message.

An hour later I received a call back from the wife. She sounded a bit breathless and disorganized, explaining that she had not checked her e-mail because she's busy mothering her 2 year old son. She told me that the other Shabbat guests had canceled, and it would just be me, her and her husband, her child, mother-in-law and her three dogs.

"Did I still want to come?" she asked.

"Sure," I said, even though that meant puncturing the fantasy balloon of a large Shabbat dinner. I did not have a backup plan and it was too late to make other arrangements.

"Well, all we do for Shabbat is say a few blessings," she added. I imagined that their minimalist ritual was due to the fact that they lacked a traditional Jewish background; perhaps they had returned to religion to raise a child but otherwise had no deep connection.

"That's OK with me," I replied. So this would not only not be a large dinner, it might not even be very Shabbat-like.

"And I'm not much of a housekeeper," she said. "Even though I'm sure I'll like you I'm not going to clean the house for you."

The last time someone from this congregation made that remark to me they had not been exaggerating. So I imagined that her home was covered with dog fur, strewn with toys, unwashed dishes piled in the sink and crumbs everywhere. Perhaps she was overwhelmed with motherhood and had let her house go to pot; in fact, my imagination went wild, conjuring images of a trailer park, with old tires and cars in the front yard.

I suppose this was the moment when I could have changed my mind. But something told me to go anyway.

"Not a problem," I said.

"Great. Is there anything that you don't or can't eat?" she asked.

"I don't eat pork," I said, figuring that I should not make any assumptions about how Jewish this family was.

"Oh, well! I was going to serve pork chops with a bacon reduction sauce," she quipped.

I burst out laughing.

"Well," I said, "you never know these days, what people will or won't eat. I hope I did not offend you."

"Not at all," she added. "I just wanted to be sure you weren't a vegan or had a gluten-free diet."

"Thanks for checking, I appreciate it."

"Do you eat sweets?" she asked.

"Absolutely!" I enthused.

"Do you like chocolate? Or would you prefer a fruit tart?" This woman was serious about dessert.

"Chocolate works for me," I said, thinking that would be end of it.

"Now, do you prefer chocolate mousse or something more solid, like chocolate cake?"

While pondering this very important question, I realized that it had been a long time since anyone had inquired so specifically about what I prefer. This stranger had been able to create some intimacy with me over our shared fondness for chocolate. For an instant, I felt a rush of love.

"Chocolate cake," I replied. "Thank you so much for asking."

We agreed that I would arrive between 6 and 7pm. And I thought that was the end of our phone calling.

In the late afternoon she called back to let me know to come closer to 7pm.

"Sure," I said, preparing not to speak to her again until arriving at her house.

Shortly after 6pm, while I was on the phone with a friend, she called again.

"What the...?" I wondered, feeling impatient at this interruption.

I took her call.

"Hi," I said, trying to disguise my annoyance. "What's up?"

"Do you eat cheese?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Great!" she replied. And I said I'd see her soon.

Within five minutes, she called again, interrupting my conversation once more. My blood was starting to boil.

"I just want to let you know," she exhaled, "that we are very casual for Shabbat. We don't dress up. We wear really comfortable clothes - like sweats or pajamas. So, I hope you are not dressed up."

At this point I was imagining this family sitting cross-legged in their sweatpants in a circle on the floor, the dogs running around, barking and stealing food from our plates, the Shabbat candles dripping wax onto the unvacuumed carpet, as if they belonged to some sloppy hippie commune. Not knowing what to expect, I had put on some of my favorite clothes that morning - not fancy, but not pj's either.

"Well, I am not planning to change before coming to your house," I said, trying to conceal my growing annoyance. "I am comfortable with what I am wearing and I hope you'll be comfortable, too."

That had to be the last of it, I thought, switching back to my other conversation.

But then minutes later she called AGAIN. I was starting to go ballistic.

"Yes?" I asked, a bit fearful of what she might say next. My imagination had already conjured the Shabbat from hell, yet at this point I could not easily back out.

"If you haven't left your studio yet, could you bring a piece of your art to show us?" she wondered.

"I'd be happy to bring you one of my business cards," I said, suppressing a growl. "I really don't wish to be doing show and tell on Shabbat. I am sure we'll have plenty to talk about."

The drive to their house was 40 minutes which gave me enough time to cool down and try to be present for whatever reality I'd be confronting when I'd ring their doorbell.

The home was, as far as I could tell, spotless. A carefully and beautifully arranged platter of cheeses, strawberries and blueberries was offered to me. The hosts wore jeans and while they were not dressed formally they were not slobs either. The dogs were well behaved and well-groomed. None of them seemed to shed a single hair. And over dinner, around a lovely table, it came up that the wife had attended yeshiva in her childhood - so, my imagination had been wrong about why they have a minimal Shabbat. And despite her flakiness on the telephone, I learned that the wife had had a successful career in finance.

While digging into the delicious chocolate cake, she and I discussed the series of phone calls we had had.

"You probably thought I was crazy," she said.

"Well, yes. And, based on what you told me, I imagined that your home was a disaster, and that is so far from the truth," I confessed. "You have a beautiful place." Later on she would show me her art collection, including a Warhol.

"I honor that you chose to come here tonight," she said, "I am not sure I would have made the same decision if I had been in your shoes."

Before long she and I were deeply immersed in a conversation about spirituality, personal growth, family dynamics, men and the choices we make. It turned out we had much more in common than a love of chocolate cake.

By this time her mother-in-law had left, her son was asleep and her husband had changed into his pajamas.

"Are you two going to be here when I get up in the morning?" he wondered, getting a drink from the kitchen.

It was after midnight when I finally left, my mind reeling from this newly forged connection. My imagination, chastened from having nearly led me astray with its fear-based stories, was curled up in the corner of my brain like a dog on its bed.

Incensed, Imitation, Immune, Integrity

Last summer when I first walked into the building where I’d soon be renting an art space, I was immediately struck by the camaraderie and welcoming attitude of the handful of artists I had met that day. These included a young woman who had her own line of hand painted pottery. She was very attractive in a conventional sense – svelte, blonde, blue eyed, with a bubbly personality and a dazzling smile. The product of a Southern upbringing, she was raised to be accommodating, non-confrontational and cheerful no matter what, maintaining a relentlessly positive view of each of her life’s circumstances and of other people’s behavior. She was all about fun – creating it, having it – and she did not seem to have room in her life for anything that would get in the way of a good time. She seemed immune to regrets, remorse or self-awareness of any kind. I have to admit that even I, a cynical, introspective and blunt-speaking Easterner was seduced by her charisma and upbeat persona. She was, in a sense, my Karmic opposite. Once I moved into the building, I often found myself wandering into her studio to chat about art, business and life and, perhaps, to have some of her unabated optimism and cheer rub off on me.

When she announced a few months ago that she’d be leaving to start another business in a new location, many in my building were crestfallen. “What will we do without her?” a few wondered out loud, anticipating the energetic void that she would leave behind.

All of the artists in the building strive to express themselves creatively, spending hours in their studios with paints, brushes, canvases and/or cameras, exploring new themes and subject matters or revisiting the same ones to create and deepen a body of work. And so many of us were wary and a bit disappointed when our soon-to-be departing studio mate revealed her new business: teaching groups of people how to reproduce particular paintings. Each session would focus on a different image – perhaps Monday nights one could sign up to paint apples, and Tuesdays one could sign up to paint a mountain scene, etc. And she was not shy about appropriating paintings she found online, tweaking them and using them as example paintings for her own prospective students/customers.

“What about copyright issues?” I asked her one day after popping into her studio where I saw her whipping up another painting for her new business.

“Oh, everyone does this,” she said blithely, as if appropriating another artist’s image was perfectly OK. As if to prove her point, she showed me four or five highly similar images online, created by different artists. It was hard to tell which was the original, which were derivative.

I returned to my studio feeling uncomfortable with her approach but knowing that it was really none of my business. Better to focus my attention on my own art. And taking a cue from her playbook, I tried to come up with a positive interpretation of what she was doing. Maybe her business, by having people copy art, would make the painting process accessible enough to encourage more people to do it for real.

And so I had left the matter rest gently, until she came by the other day with a postcard invitation for her grand opening. And one of the images on the card was, unmistakably, a reproduction of a painting created by one of the artists in our building, someone whose distinctive work is also hung in local galleries.

I could feel my inner prosecutor awakening from a long slumber, ready to argue, fists pumping in the air and spittle flying from her lips, in front of an imaginary judge that this woman, who stole an image from an established artist with whom she shared a cordial relationship for years, deserved nothing less than handing over all of her assets to the aggrieved party, public censure and being forced to close her business.

Yes, my inner prosecutor got a little worked up.

I shared my outrage with some others in my building and they pointed out that it was still none of my business. They said the only person who had a right to confront the Copycat was the artist whose work had been copied.

Even after the artist called the Copycat and asked her to remove that painting from her “portfolio”, which she agreed to do after explaining that she had made the painting out of admiration for the artist’s style, my inner prosecutor was still having a hard time dismissing this case. Considering she is a Southern Belle, the Copycat had a lot of chutzpah to, at times, refer to people in the building as family, say how hard it was going to be for her to leave all of us, and then "borrow" someone else’s art as she sashayed her mini-skirted butt out the door. And, ironically, as someone noted, the Copycat knocked off one of the few artists in the building who had the financial means and connections to pursue the matter legally if she had chosen that route.

What on earth had she been thinking?

Most likely she had not been.

I’ve been trying to shift into a softer position while identifying the source of my outrage. It is not simply that her lack of integrity offended me; she also symbolized some of what I detest in our culture, a culture that produces and rewards people who, like spiders, can spin a good story with flashing white smiles, flattering words and promises of fun or money.