Entry - 6.27.20

This entry will be different. It's not going to be about Art, as nearly all of my entries are. It will be about a simple lantern.

In late May, one of my sons was returning from a trip to the Midwest, and, anticipating a drive of over a dozen hours, he would not reach our home until nearly midnight. All of the family waited up for his arrival, knowing that he would have some interesting stories to tell of his travels. But we had a problem. My son had been out in the big world, eating at restaurants, stopping at rest areas and mixing with a fair number of people. It was possible that he had been exposed to COVID-19, and, at our home, we had been following strictly the suggested guidelines for stopping the spread of the virus since late March. He would have to be isolated. My wife and I set up a living space for him, providing a bed and a few pieces of furniture and preparing a work area where he could write, use his computer and eat his meals. I purchased a large tarp and hung it across the entrance way to his new quarters, and I placed a tiny 5 inch tall Baby Yoda that my wife had crocheted on the desk to keep him company. But we still hadn't resolved the problem of how the family would gather with him upon his arrival.

Baby Yoda

It seemed to me that the only safe way for us to share a common space would be if we met outdoors in our yard and practiced social distancing. Being May, the nights were still pretty cool, but a sweatshirt and a pair of long pants would be sufficient to ward off the cold. I pulled six chairs out of the garage and organized them so no one would be closer than six feet from our sequestered traveler. Turns out it was a moonless night, making it nearly impossible for me to see what I was doing out in the garage. I was stumbling over garden hoses, paint cans, a few discarded two by four studs, bags of potting soil, chicken wire fencing and a remote control vehicle – a vestige of our children's early years. I should mention that our garage is situated at the top of our property, separated from our home by about fifty yards, and has no electricity. The night was so dark that I thought it would be a good idea to provide some kind of lighting – just to make sure we didn't break our necks. My first thought was to bring out a couple of candles from the house, but the night was too breezy; they wouldn't stay lit ten minutes. Then I remembered an old lantern that would be perfect for shielding a candle from the wind – if only I could find it. I returned to the house and, to my surprise, after just a few minutes searching, found the desired item. I grabbed a stub of a candle left over from some family gathering and headed back up the property. Once the candle was lit, everything was set for my son's arrival. My wife joined me in the yard to have a beer while we waited. According to our estimations, my son was expected home within the hour, and we wanted to be sure to intercept him in our driveway before he might inadvertently rush into the house thereby potentially contaminating our living space.

These are strange times indeed.

Petrus van Schendel

As we quietly talked, I glanced over at the lantern sitting on our picnic table about ten feet away. I had left its small doorway open to provide more light, and the candle's flame danced in the wind's gentle currents. Surprised at how much light a single candle could provide, I focused on the flame, then examined the intricate patterning that had been cut into the lantern's shell. It occurred to me that this dusty, old lantern and I shared a history going back about forty years, and, as I often do these days, I started to reminisce.

My Aunt Lillian, my father's sister, was 30 years old when I was born, which meant that she was about a decade younger than my parents and most of my aunts and uncles. She was different than they were. They had grown up during the Depression. The men had fought in World War II. And by 1959, the year I was born, the men were solidly settled in careers and the women, even those with careers of their own, had already given birth to most, if not all, of the children they would have. My parents and my aunts and uncles were “adults”. I guess at some point in the distant past they had sown their wild oats but by that time had matured, put on a few pounds, accepted the routine and responsibility that comes with having a family and didn't have a lot of interest in frivolous things. But, like I have said, Aunt Lillian was different.

Aunt Lillian was contemporary. She dressed stylishly. Her wardrobe was colorful and patterned a wee bit dynamically as was the mode in the 1960's. On occasion, she even wore jeans – something still controversial for adult women at that time. She was slim and youthful. She wore her hair in a tasteful, impeccably maintained bouffant, which was covered in a fashionable headscarf when outdoors. She was chic in an Audrey Hepburn – Breakfast at Tiffany's sort of way.

Aunt Lillian with me and my sister

Aunt Lillian never married, so she would often visit with her siblings' families whenever the opportunity arose. She would stay with us for the entire weekend, and, long after my father had gone to bed on a Saturday night, my mother and aunt would stay up smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and having private conversations that we children were not privy to. During one of her visits, she brought my brothers, sister and me to the beach, and we pulled her fully dressed into the surf. She just laughed. Because she was freer than most of the adults I knew, she was able to travel, making multiple trips to Europe and elsewhere over the years. I recall that once she flew to Ireland to visit family there and spent a number of days sightseeing in the countryside in a gypsy caravan. In her bedroom, there was a dish that held all kinds of exotic coinage, loose change collected over years of travel; at our home, only the occasional maple leaf emblazoned Canadian penny cropped up. Aunt Lillian introduced me to fondue, caviar and good wines, and she listened to classical music. She took my sister with her to see Doctor Zhivago at our local movie theater. Aunt Lillian was different.

She attended birthday parties, baptism, communion and confirmation celebrations, graduation ceremonies, showers and weddings. When I had a solo art show at SUNY Stony Brook, she drove from Rye, NY to my school, a considerable journey, especially after a full day's work, to attend the opening. But Aunt Lillian had a unique role to play. Being unmarried and childless, all of her nieces and nephews were her children too, and she did her damnedest to support us in all our multifarious endeavors. In later years, Aunt Lillian, a free spirit during my early childhood, didn't adjust easily to the changes that were occurring in American society in the late 60's and 70's. They were radical times in our nation's history with countless “movements” continuously cropping up that challenged our perceptions and values. Our society was fracturing, not into a multitude of narcissistic fragments but into two camps: the old and the young, and that breach was achieved in a riotous, contentious upheaval. If you were the parent of children coming of age during this period, you were forced to evolve, to some degree, with them. You would be introduced to new ideas and ethics. You would be indoctrinated into the new code of informality. My parents, like most during those days, made the transition in a herky-jerky fashion, sticking to many of their core values while accepting that society was changing and recognizing that, if they were going to maintain a functioning relationship with their children, they had to tolerate our distasteful customs and attitudes. By the time I started college, my parents had been “worn down” from countless, minor insurrections and a fairly congenial truce had been effected. Aunt Lillian didn't have children to usher her into this new era, and she retained many of her beliefs and habits in spite of the changes that were going on around her. She appeared a bit reactionary, somewhat Victorian. We would have silly arguments about the environment, the sexual revolution, the new openness. Occasionally, she would critique us children, evaluating our activities or choices from a perspective that seemed absolutely antediluvian. I recall her informing me when I referred to my mother as “she” that “she” was the cat's mother. I was bewildered. “But Aunt Lillian,” I protested, “it's just a pronoun.”

Aunt Lillian (l.) and Aunt Mary

But, in truth, we negotiated those days without an inordinate number of collisions and clashes, and, even during my college years, I would accompany my family on visits to Aunt Lillian's apartment in Rye. It was during one of those visits that I noticed as we were preparing to head home two lanterns sitting atop opposite ends of the shelving that spanned one wall of her apartment. They were simple lanterns constructed of panels of blackened tin pierced in patterns of dots and dashes. The cone of each lantern was capped with a circular grip, and a hinged doorway permitted access to its interior. They looked primitive and excited my interest, which was particularly strong at that time, in everything “old”. (I carved Viking styled figures and patterning in wooden beams, brewed homemade mead in my mother's kitchen and made paintings and drawings paying homage to Woden and Llyr. My area of focus for my English degree was Middle English Literature, and I ravenously read Chaucer, Viking sagas and Middle English lays, lyrics and romances. Jethro Tull's Songs from the Wood was my favorite album in those days.) So I stopped to admire the lanterns. Aunt Lillian explained that she had purchased the lanterns from one of my cousins who was selling them as part of a fundraising effort for some worthy institution. If I recall correctly, she said my cousin had actually participated in the construction of them. I guess I raved about them a little too enthusiastically because Aunt Lillian reached up, removed one of the lanterns from the shelf and handed it to me. I was mortified. “No, Aunt Lillian,” I argued, “I didn't mean to...I don't want to take your lantern. I mean I appreciate it, but I can't.” She just laughed and said, “One lantern is enough for me. Really. Hope you enjoy it.”

And that's how I came into possession of the lantern that I went in search of the night my son was returning from his journey.

The Actual Lantern

Immediately, the lantern found a critical function. The house I grew up in was a rather compact ranch with kitchen, living room and dining room clustered tightly around a central stairway that led to the basement. There was absolutely nowhere private to congregate if my friends stopped by to visit. We would gather at our kitchen table, the sound of the blasting television howling in the room and, every so often, my father angrily demanding from the living room sofa that we “keep it down out there!” So if the weather was in any way tolerable, we would retreat to the yard to share a couple of beers and shoot the bull. There was an outdoor light installed above our backdoor, but we would prefer to sit in darkness rather than be vexed by its blinding glare. Once I got the lantern, it became our regular companion during our gatherings. In the midst of my thoroughly suburban neighborhood, I enjoyed seeing my friends' faces lustrous in the golden glow of a flickering candle and imagining, however feebly, that we were creatures of a different age – simpler, more primitive and more essential.

Jan Steen

It was about this time that my friend Tom suggested that we attend a lecture on Transcendental Meditation that was to be given at our local library. I had known Tom since we met in Junior High School. He was in most of my classes and was part of the regular crew who occupied the same table in the lunchroom each day. Though we remained friends in High School, we didn't see quite as much of each other because there were now two “accelerated” classes and they were essentially divided between band and non-band members. My musical career had ended with my graduation from elementary school; Tom played bass guitar and was in the school band. All the same our paths still crossed several times each day, and, of course, we regularly got together with a core group of friends outside of school. I thought moving on to college would mean the end of our relationship, more or less, but I was shocked to run into Tom at my orientation session at SUNY Stony Brook in the summer of 1977. He was never in any of my classes, but we met up for lunch most days and ran into each other on campus fairly often. It was fantastic to have a close friend around, especially during my first year of college when I was adjusting to this new environment and new responsibilities. Tom was studying journalism, and I was striving to secure two degrees in English and Studio Art. Tom was very open-minded and curious, driven to meet new people and explore new situations. I was a cynic, suspicious of people's motives and resistant to new ideas. I considered myself a realist. In fact, another friend and I were engaged in a series of conversations, sparked by our reading of Tolstoy, in which we concluded that only through cool, dispassionate, intellectual evaluation could one hope to come to a full understanding of anything. Tom jumped into things full throttle, while I cautiously dipped my toe in to test the waters.

Sketch of Tom - c1980

So when Tom proposed that we should attend this lecture on Transcendental Meditation at the library, I was less than enthusiastic. “It's just going to be a sales pitch,” I objected. “But it should be interesting,” he responded. “I really doubt it,” I replied. “Come on! What can it hurt?” “Aw!” I moaned. I ended up attending the lecture with Tom more out of friendship than scholarly curiosity.

The lecture had yielded what I thought was a pretty good turnout of local residents willing to devote an evening to learning about a relatively new discipline brought to the US from India. The speaker took the podium and addressed the audience. I felt his talk was very pragmatic, not the murky mysticism I was expecting. He explained that Transcendental Meditation was simply a means of dispelling distractions, achieving a thoroughly relaxed state and attaining an enhanced ability to concentrate. Two short sessions of TM per day offered a multitude of benefits. Practitioners would feel better rested and more energetic while requiring fewer hours of sleep each night. In addition, TM could induce a greater sense of contentment and inspire creativity. He also talked about health benefits, in particular the potential to ameliorate the symptoms of hypertension. And, as a college student, I was especially excited by the claim that, by acquiring the ability to block out distractions and improve focus, my studies would be made easier and I would absorb material more readily. He explained that if one continued with the program he or she would be assigned a mantra, a personal Sanskrit word or phrase, that would be silently repeated by the practitioner to assist in emptying the mind of all thought and bring on a state of utter relaxation. The mantra was unique to the individual and should never be revealed to anyone else. Of course, the thrust of the lecture was to sign up participants for a multi-step program which involved a fee structure that far exceeded the means of a financially strapped college student, but I wasn't turned off by the presentation. On the contrary, it actually intrigued me. The speaker ended his lecture by teaching us an exercise that we could all easily perform without further instruction, which involved staring at the flame of a candle until its image became established on our retinas. We were to close our eyes, then attempt to retain and stabilize the afterimage of the flame for as long as possible. With practice, our ability to control the afterimage would strengthen, and, hopefully, in the process, we would actually initiate our first experiences of meditation.

Returning home that night, I thought I would give the flame experiment a try. I was living in my parents' basement at the time, so I could explore this technique in privacy and without disturbing anyone else. I placed the tin lantern on the table beside my bed, lit its candle and turned off all the lights. After focusing on the flame for quite a while, I closed my eyes and, sure enough, its afterimage appeared quite distinctly on my retina. The flame drifted slowly to the right, and when I attempted to bring it back to center, it darted about wildly, veering out of my field of vision entirely. I managed to recapture the image of the flame only to watch it fade rapidly into the darkness. “No problem,” I thought, “The instructor said that this skill would take some time to master. Rome wasn't built in a day.” I performed this experiment several more times that night achieving similar results before pulling up my blankets and going to sleep.

Georges de La Tour

The flame experiment became part of my nightly ritual. After my reading, I would light the candle in the lantern, shut off the lights and practice my rudimentary TM technique. I might perform this exercise three or four times each night. The routine wasn't difficult or unpleasant, so committing to this activity didn't represent a hardship. But despite many months of performing this exercise, I must admit that I saw absolutely no progress. I was neither more successful at controlling the movement of the afterimage nor better able to retain the image longer. I chalked this failure up to my own deficiencies, my dependence on a Western way of addressing perception that advocated logic and analytical discourse as the best means to achieving enlightenment. My mind was unable to relinquish active thought. Recognizing this, I called an end to the flame experiment and chose instead to listen to classical music as I fell asleep.

I still continued to use the tin lantern to light my nighttime gatherings, and it followed me to each of my three apartments in Brooklyn and then up to Dutchess County. When my kids were small, I was more likely than now to pull out the lantern to lend a little romantic ambiance to an evening's activities in the yard, but I've never abandoned it completely. Over the years, an amalgam of many different colored waxes has accumulated in its bottom and a coat of dust has collected on its shell. I tell myself from time to time that I should rehabilitate the old lantern, but never seem to get to it. It remains on display on the stone ledge that skirts the base of our living room's fireplace where it occasionally asserts its presence and its history on my consciousness.

And here's my point. If you're around long enough, it's more than likely that your home will inadvertently become a museum housing the detritus collected over decades and decades of living. Honestly, I can just quickly glance around in any room of our home and find a multitude of items that unearth a host of memories. On our bookshelf perches the small teddy bear, a little worse for wear, that was my companion when I was just a baby. The low, wide chair that my siblings and I bought for our grandmother many years ago sits in my living room, even its reupholstered epidermis now frayed after repeated onslaughts from our cats. (Incidentally, this low chair still proved insufficient to meet my grandmother's needs, and she was provided with a stool on which she could rest her feet when seated there.) Displayed above it is a flask I purchased in Germany thirty years ago so I could enjoy an occasional nip while hiking in the Bavarian Alps during a rather cool October. In my closet, hangs the corduroy jacket I bought for my first real job interview – I wonder if it still fits. As I type these words, a wooden rocking horse that my wife and I bought in Brooklyn as a Christmas gift for our oldest son peers out at me from our front door's vestibule. A decade later, I spent my evenings restoring this rocking horse, after years of abuse from three raucous boys, in expectation of the imminent arrival of our fourth child – who, by the way, is now eighteen years old. Truly, I could go on listing similar items endlessly. It's kind of reassuring to be surrounded by these things; they remind me that we're all part of a continuum, that our imprint on this planet is not completely ephemeral. However I also recognize that sometime soon after I'm gone these accumulated “souvenirs” will lose their magic and become simply objects once more.

Godfried Schalcken

I believe this entry must conclude with a few followups to some of the stories I touched upon within it.

My son remained asymptomatic throughout his isolation, and, after his two week quarantine, he rejoined the rest of the family living in our home. I was pleased to note that he handled his period of confinement with relative ease, maintaining for the most part an upbeat attitude while enduring his life behind a plastic tarp.

My fiend Tom married and moved to Maine where he and his wife raised their family. He did become a successful reporter and currently writes for an organization committed to preserving island and coastal life in Maine while promoting a healthy environment. It's hard for me to fathom, but Tom is now a grandfather.

When my wife and I bought our home north of the city, I immediately thought about inviting Aunt Lillian up to spend a weekend with us. The purchase had left us strapped for cash, and we were furnishing the house piecemeal, buying things here and there as our budget permitted. For instance, we ate at a folding table for what seemed an eternity before finally securing a dining room set. I didn't want to have my aunt up until we could entertain her... well not properly (that was definitely beyond our reach) but maybe passably. Unfortunately before we could get our act together, I received word that Aunt Lillian was seriously ill. She passed away at the age of sixty five a quarter century ago.

Though my foray into Transcendental Meditation didn't go well, I maintained a curiosity about Eastern doctrines. During my undergraduate studies, I enrolled in a course on Indian Philosophy in which we read selections from the Bhagavad Gītā, the Ŗg Veda and the Upanișads. The material proved to be too esoteric for me, and I really didn't get much out of the class. Later in Grad School, I took a course on Chinese and Japanese Art that sparked a lasting interest in Zen Buddhism. On my own, I began researching this philosophy which complimented my fixation at that time on the writings of Yasunarί Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. Though I remain steadfastly irreligious, Zen Buddhism appealed to me as the most practical and applicable of the world religions with which I've become familiar. The concept of Yin and Yang definitely contributed toward my artistic development, particularly my fascination with duality and contradiction. For the last thirty years, a jade Buddha pendant has hung from my neck not to proclaim my adherence to a religious doctrine but to express my dissatisfaction with all absolutes and emphasize my conviction that, regardless of how comforting it is to assess people and events in tones of black and white, any significant perception of experience must recognize that everything is painted in shades of gray.

As always, I encourage my readers to comment here, but, if anyone prefers to respond privately, I can be contacted at gerardwickham@gmail.com.