The Lost-And-Found–Never Rummage Through The Past For Old Girlfriends

Leonard Barnum had led what seemed an ordinary life.  Married in his early thirties, successful career, two children, a home in one of the best neighborhoods of the city.  All in all it was a life to be respected if not envied.  He and his wife were invited to dinner parties not because they had something unusual to offer, but because they did not; because they sat well, mixed well, and spoke well. 

Dinner parties were as light and uncomplicated as around town where marriages were off limits and personal private lives left alone, as gated and shuttered as the homes of the Vances, Lincolns, and Pomeroys. Everyone knew about or suspected particular infidelities, but this was not the venue to conclude who, with whom, and where.   Saturday evenings were once-a-week respites from  boredom, fidelity, and ordinariness.  Sex was off limits, potentially disruptive and slightly antisocial;  but Barnum couldn’t resist Helen Bailey’s eyes – dark like a Turk’s, outlined and shadowed, young, and soft.

 

Like many men of late middle age who realize that the deal they had struck with their partner was unfavorable; that the price of marital stability and good sense was far higher than they ever expected; and that picking, sorting through and rearranging the pieces of a long marriage to try to assemble something more remarkable than ever was, often turn to the past for satisfaction.  The present is too risky at best, and a sad affair for any man in his mid-sixties among young women whose attention is to attracting a mate, not maturity.  The future depends only on personality and perspective, not fact.  

The optimist hopes that one’s life might still be reordered; that one’s routines might be reversible; and that physical intimacy might still be in the cards.  The pessimist assumes that one’s lackluster,
predictable, and unexceptional life will continue ad infinitum.  The cynic cares for neither, knows that he has been billiard-balled on smooth felt since he was born, and romance has and will never exist.

It is the past that rules such men’s lives.  No man has reached his thirties without falling for someone, his forties without refreshing his marriage with other women,  his fifties a more insistent search for that combination of beauty, allure, intelligence, and wit that never could even have existed, and his sixties endless reminiscing about his twenties.  The past is the only validating period of our lives, said Nabokov, a self-described memorist who trained himself to remember the smallest detail of particularly happy experiences of childhood and beyond.  The present is fractional and meaningless; the future speculative and subjective; and only the past has substance and reality even though itself might be composed of half-memories, fill-ins, and suggestions.



So it was that Leonard Barnum began the search for Lucia Stafford.  He knew that even if he could find her, she would have certainly changed.  No one can live forty years without insult and some injury; and at best one’s bits of might have come through unchanged; but who is to say which bits?  He had always assumed that personality and character do not change regardless of circumstances.  We are how we react, and Lucia had always reacted – and acted – well.  There was no reason that the good bits would have been lost or damaged beyond repair.

Leonard was never sure why he had so quickly been taken by her.  It was not her looks, a bit of the library and the upper stacks about her; nor her allure. She had not the slightest notion of come-hither; gave off no bee-to-flower scent; and was absorbed, serious, and  very, very singular.  It was just one of those things – unexpected, unplanned, and arising out of some weird combination of family genes, his mother’s own quietly seductive ways, the lighting, his disaffection with the first days at university.

Lucia was at first uninterested and diffident.  If she was to look up from her Kant, it would be for confidence and pursuit, not queer hesitancy and uncertainty.  Barnum was nice enough, respectful, and interested; but frankly not male enough, never a mate, possibly a friend, but never a lover.   They had coffees and drinks over a few months but then she disappeared back to her books or someone more suitable; but the damage has been done.  The friendship had not lasted long enough to make an impression on anyone even slightly more sexually or socially aware for that matter.  It would have been passed off as a cheap losing ticket, nothing to think twice about, easy to forget, and in a few months lost without a trace.

For Barnum, however, the impression lasted for decades – a first love complicated by sexual bumbling and immaturity – and it was therefore both because he had something to prove and because the image of the girl would simply not disappear, that he had decided to find her.

It took him a year to find her.  She was happily divorced, no children, near retirement and living not far from him in a close-in, wealthy suburb of the same city.  She had left no easy trail – no social media, no publications, no awards or no record – but when he did finally connect, it took her over a month to answer.  She was too polite to tell him in their first meeting that she had no idea at first who he was and only after a few weeks did she remember their brief friendship only recalled because of a random mnemonic connection between him, her chemistry assignment, and a cold lunch in Harvard Yard. 



They spent an hour over drinks, pleasant enough for her with shared recollections of school and Cambridge; difficult and awkward for Barnum for whom not only had no bits survived the years; but the composite was totally unrecognizable – a puzzle whose pieces fit but made no sense together.  He never let on that he had been in love with her let alone admit his obsession. That one recognizable and unpleasant bit – her diffidence – had unfortunately survived and now as then, he bumbled and stumbled when he tried to speak of his feelings.

As importantly her face had changed. There should be at least one recognizably retained feature – like Helen Bailey’s eyes – even after decades.  Some feature, expression, gesture that at least would remind him of her.  He would have been happy enough with just a suggestion; but there was nothing in that old, jowly, implacable face that he recognized.  What was he thinking?

After Lucia had left him the first time, he claimed F. Scott Fitzgerald’s line – ‘There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice’ – as his own.  Of course Fitzgerald was a hopeless romantic whose short stories appealed only to adolescent boys of an earlier era and never read now; but the line was still his.  Even after lunching with the fleshy, patient, but uninterested Lucia Stafford, it made sense.  He had been in love with her young version, one that had nothing to do with what she had become.  They were two separate women; but the irony was that he still felt himself as young as he was then. It would be a matter of pure luck for personality to remain intact over forty years.  Most men who have been married for years no longer recognize their wives; and why should they?



So Barnum finally put aside his obsession and went back to business.  It doesn’t pay to rummage around the lost-and-found.  Memories are rarely one’s own but composites of the reflections and add-ons of others.  What we were as young adults bears little resemblance to what we are now.  The past is a jumble and at best should be taken only for the random combinations of genes and events that cause the present.  It is unlikely that we can find anything whole there, anything of integral value.  If only emotional lost-and-founds had antiques or old paintings in them – items of unquestionable desirability and worth.  No such luck.  Better to try a grab-bag.  At least that offers some promise.

Donald Trump, The White House, Congress, And Washington DC–Finally Looking Like America

Presidents are supposed to be presidential, or so it is said.  Only men of rectitude, honor, ability, courage and compassion belong in the Oval Office; and with few exceptions our presidents have fit the mold.  In some cases like that of FDR, JFK, and the Bushes, a patrician upbringing has assured a certain moral authority and noblesse oblige.  In others like Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton,  and Harry Truman, a difficult if not poor childhood gave a less complicated, less philosophical righteousness.  The values of hard work and belief in the American dream plus an innate ambition and confidence enabled them to rise to power. 

In a few cases – Nixon, Harding, Garfield, and Buchanan come to mind – presidents fell far short of the modest standards established by tradition.  Few Presidents have matched the intelligence, insight, and canniness of Jefferson and Adams and most of the Founding Fathers; but all in all they have been in consistent company.  They were not of the people but for the people.  No one expected an American president, a French one, or a British Prime Minister to be of the hoi-polloi.


The standards of American leadership were best expressed by Cato the Elder, educator of the Roman elite whose diptychs enunciated the principles which must guide those who were to lead the Empire.  Honesty, intelligence, courage, discipline, respect, compassion, and diligence were among the attributes deemed necessary for leadership. 

Thomas Jefferson, of all American presidents, was a Roman model.  He epitomized greatness in leadership.  Schooled in world history, philosophy, art, and science, Jefferson was the ideal person to configure a new nation.  He of course had his own particular political philosophy – democratic populism – and he necessarily ran up against conservative colleagues like Alexander Hamilton who was wary of popular rule; but Jefferson was always an uncompromised, legitimate, and respected leader.



These men – and even the slightly ragged and disreputable among them – represented the ruling class.  Even though they may have had more affinity with the poor and disadvantaged – like LBJ and FDR – and even though they may have risen from humble roots, they were of the elite.  By the time they had ascended to the Presidency, they had lost whatever they had in common with dust bowl farmers, oil riggers, or factory workers.  Their past may have inspired their political philosophy and provided an incentive for their policies and programs, but they were a world apart from their origins.

This was as it should be, according to popular and academic wisdom.  A leader must be aware of the nature of his national constituency, but there is nothing which suggests that he be of the same makeup, leanings, and aspirations.  Americans have been conditioned to admire their Presidents but to like them from afar.  They have understood that leaders are of a different breed than followers and have unashamedly sworn an oath of allegiance to a ruling elite. While Americans may have rejected the idea of aristocracy a priori and out of hand, classism has been ingrained in them as it has been in all societies and cultures.

What then to make of Donald Trump who is the most American president since 1789.  Who but Trump has better expressed American social ambition, tinsel, glitz, glamour, beauty, and wealth? Who better to represent the country than someone with the morals of a street-fighter, a Wall Street investor, a real estate fixer, and a Hollywood mogul? America, taken in the aggregate, is not a pretty place; and Americans have achieved their economic success and international clout thanks to bare knuckles, insider trading, and a preference for victory over good.



Trump is hors de série, one of a kind, unique, and indisputably American.  Who better than a man of Hollywood, Las Vegas, New York to lead the country?  Who better than a street-fighter to go up against the Russians or Kim Jong-Un? A man of enforcer mentality and take-no-prisoners ethos to run America? A man of supreme egotism, bombast, and arrogance to send the progressive Left scurrying?

Why do Trump’s approval ratings remain high despite his antics – scurrilous tweets, precipitous firings and immediate hiring, fake news, bare-faced, bald distortions of the facts?  Because he, for the first time in American history, is one of us.  Forget the current progressive idealism – the fight against injustice, climate change, and predatory capitalism can be won and a new and better world can be had – Americans want no part of pie-in-the-sky fantasies that deny history, human nature, and social dynamics.  Trump is a an opportunist, and a manipulator; a gunfighter, a lone wolf interloper afraid of and intimidated by no one.



Most Americans do not want Pablo Casals, Picasso, or Brahms.  We might have been enamored by the sophisticated JFK White House, but this was just a princess fantasy.  We might admire aristocratic taste, but what we really want are pole dancers, neon lights, slot machines, hot starlets, and Hollywood scandal.  We love Trump’s Miss Universe and Mar El Lago;  his private jets, Fifth Avenue apartments, and private sojourns.  Of course he consorted with models, runway queens, porno stars, and the pleasure-dome mob.  Of course he was and still is a bronco. No corral can hold him, no justice but frontier justice need apply.

Despite Trump’s unapologetic dismissal of the Washington establishment; his outrageous, provocative, and shoot-from-the-hip tweets; his chaos; and reports of his sexual exploits, a significant percentage of Americans are still very much for him.  Are his precipitous moves rational and in America’s best interest? A trade war with China, an abutment against free trade on the Southwest border; a free-for-all cascade of uncertain fiscal, economic, and financial policies; and a wild circus of in-Washington, out of Washington presence are neither criticized nor examined by the 40 percent of the American electorate who support him.

This significant support has nothing to do with policy, white papers, or official proclamations.  It has all to do with the support and embrace of the first president who is like ‘us’.  Of course Donald Trump does not reflect the principles, ethos, or personality of the coasts – no inclusivity, multi-everything pluralism, environmental idealism, and social reform – but that is exactly why he is so revolutionary.  He is neither classically conservative like Reagan, Buckley, and  Friedman; nor muscularly assertive like the Bushes; nor as internationally innovative as Richard Nixon; but he is as fundamentally conservative as his 40+ percentage of supporters.  Regardless of his coincidence with many classically conservative positions, his appeal is social, cultural, and emotive. 

What most progressive and international observers cannot understand is the parallelism of Trump and his American electoral base.  They cannot understand the visceral appreciation and approval of this outrageous, uncontrollable, exuberant political outlier. They look only through the narrow lens of ‘rational’ political consideration and opinion and the presumption of a consistent standard of national leadership. They miss the point entirely.

Trump is likely to make the 10 Worst Presidents list; but this will have been compiled by those with a traditional political perspective; but anyone looking more closely, will rank him near the top.  When a President embodies the zeitgeist of a time and place, expresses its fundamental principles, and evokes visceral support, he cannot be ignored.  Is Trump’s populism or liberal progressivism the real zeitgeist? Only time will tell; but it is more likely that Trump’s uber-bourgeois Presidency is the one most Americans will remember.

Let It Be–Franklin Solis’ Happy Indifference And His Wonderfully Good Life

Franklin Solis felt the birthdays piling up, crowding his ordinarily sanguine view of life and making indifference harder than ever.   Now that there were more decades behind him than before him, the time had come to clear the decks for running, tack sharply into the wind, and make for his final port. 

Franklin had always led what he called ‘a life of elision’.  He was never one to build dams, firewalls, or fences; and was far happier when one year melded into the next or one troublesome episode joined a larger stream.  Generally it worked out well.  Even serious family issues – illness, minor disability, divorce – all seemed to peter out before they caused any real damage.  Tempests in a teapot which when cooled went unnoticed.   Things didn’t always turn out for the best; they simply turned out – not according to God’s plan; not according to any plan at all, just as part of a network of freight trains going nowhere in particular with goods that no one really wanted or even cared about. 

Franklin was never vexed about international conflict, political vanity, or the environment.  A quick look at history demonstrated the perennial, inevitable repetition of events.  To be sure Richard III was a very different king from Henry VIII – one was bloodthirsty, cruel, devious, and evil; the other was intellectually complex, passionate, and politically savvy.  One ruled by subterfuge and murder; the other by supreme confidence and authority.  In the end England retains little of the legacy of either king, has merged, melded, and elided over the centuries.  Neither Henry nor Richard could have imagined how little they mattered.  What was the point, considered Franklin, of forcing the issue, insisting on one reform over another or pushing for reform in general?

Franklin, however, was no nihilist – a philosophical denier of purpose or meaning, an intellectual wet blanket.  Elisionism was a very different paradigm, a kinder, gentler version of that of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Kierkegaard.  It wasn’t so much that life was without meaning, it was without coherent meaning.  Every individual is convinced that his actions, particularly if planned, purposeful, and determined, have meaning; and in fact they do contribute to the ascription of character and personality.  They give identity, if nothing else to the individual who carried them out.  It was just that they meant nothing in aggregate.  There was no collectivity of actions which meant something or had more meaning than any other.

Every individual action joins a network of others, past and present.  On the day before the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon’s valet forgot to bring the Emperor’s gum boots; and as a result, his feet wet and cold from the rain and mud, he caught cold.  Because of the congestion, aches, and pains, he could not concentrate.  His otherwise brilliant ability to design strategic objectives and devise the operational plans to effect them, was clogged, rheumy, and inoperable.  For want of gumboots, the battle was lost.

The reason why the valet forgot the Emperor’s boots was because he had received a letter from his wife who had left him for another man and was completely distracted by her surprising infidelity.  Had his wife been more faithful, or at least more gentle in suggesting the news, the valet might not have lost sight of the Emperor’s needs.

in other words actions caused other actions to happen either purposefully or willy-nilly; but the results were always the same – a predictable, never surprising display of human nature according to which streams joined other streams, purposes effected other purposes and results became indistinct or irrelevant.

All this being said, Franklin Solis was not a philosophical man. While not exactly a good-time Charlie and never a ne’er-do-well, he found enjoyment in most things and was troubled by few.  Take his neighborhood, for example, a leafy outer-ring upper middle class residential neighborhood of a major city.  In the time since he had moved there, two generations had come and gone, the elementary school expanded, downsized, and grew again.  Children played in the alleys, then moved on to more purposeful, productive activities.  Appliances improved, cars became more reliable, houses were flipped, renovated, and expanded; but nothing ever really changed.  Things came and went in small incremental changes before anyone took notice and before long the neighborhood was substantively different than those before but existentially the same.

In a sophomore philosophy course at Yale, Franklin’s professor – a famous metaphysician - asked the class to consider this question: If over the years you replace every piece of your car – tires, fenders, bumpers, engine, wipers, windshield, and tappets – is it still the same car? Of course there is no answer – it either is or it isn’t, but the professor had made a point that Franklin never forgot.  Change in the aggregate may have no meaning, but incremental change is at the core of meaning.

“How can you be so indifferent?”, asked a close friend who was a political activist for whom no issue was irrelevant.  Positive change was possible – i.e. there was no such thing as fatalism, nihilism, or Franklin’s elisionism – and since this was so, one would be morally derelict and irresponsible not to engage in the struggle for reform.

Yet this so-called indifference conferred an enviable equanimity, and Franklin was one of the happiest men around.  Of course the roof had to be replaced and the leak in the basement fixed, but there was never aggregate meaning in keeping up the house.  Whereas his wife saw stability, security, and enterprise as part of what made us good citizens – a judicious use of money, aforethought, care and attentiveness to practical detail were more than temporal investments; they meant something.

His son once asked him what would he have become if he had studied number theory one summer instead of studio art – the two choices available to him between his sophomore and junior years in high school.  “You would have become a mathematician or an artist”, his father answered.

As the birthdays piled up, and as Franklin felt the urgency to set sail for port – no one in his later years is immune to the pressure of figuring things out once and for all – he did the needful. He began stripping, divesting, and withdrawing.  Since the happy indifference and the easy love affairs, adventures, great meals, and fine-sand beaches of his youth were long gone, and he was now faced with something grim and unpleasant, for the first time in his life he balked.  Putting one’s house in order was a very different enterprise than fixing the plumbing or saying goodbye.  Where was his happy indifference and his confident elisionism when he really needed it?

His balkiness lasted a day or two, maybe a week, and then he was back to normal.  He had simply paid too little attention to the elisions of old age, had not kept up with the emotional times, and had gotten sloppy.  Of course death had no meaning as Ivan Ilyich, the character in Tolstoy’s short story realized moments before.  “Ah, death”, he whispered. “So that’s all it is?”.  It was the fear of death, not death itself that caused the obfuscation and the irritating frustration.  “Don’t think in the aggregate”, he told himself.

Franklin Solis actually saw quite a few more birthdays before his death at 95, and was a happy man throughout, notwithstanding bad ears, bad eyes, and dodgy memory.  He was lucky, for excoriating illness can test even the best nihilist or elisionist; but luck is part of the individual meaning compound, nothing to do with the aggregate.  How he would have handled it was a moot point.  He died in his sleep, and his eulogies were wonderful.