I watched Death in Venice yesterday. Gustav Aschenbach is a man whose entire life and art have been informed by a complete suppression of passion. Nearing death, his defenses weaken, and he falls under the spell of boy beauty Tadzio. His passion rises in direct proportion to his lifetime of repression, overwhelming him completely, but too late to actually be experienced as anything other than daydreams.
A former lover told me the other day that as I’ve gotten older, he no longer finds me attractive. As he’s always been big and hairy, he’s only grown more attractive to me as he’s ripened and grayed. My ego was not only deflated, but, because our affair had been one of the most passionate experiences of my life, it was devastating to imagine his love as being so superficial and fleeting. It was so much more to me, a headfirst dive into the sensual and erotic, a submersion into flesh and pleasure and being and connecting that was mirrored in the flowering of my artistic production and process.
Our love has become abstracted by time apart and by our different relation to each other. Somehow I thought that the desire wouldn’t subside, though, regardless of its current lack of expression, and that we would continue to hold not only the memory of it, but the thrill of its potential. Well, no such luck. He’s pissed on the last dying ember of our once flaming passion.
So much is on hold right now, pending the return of my work space, the success of my show in New York, my boyfriend getting the right job, etc, etc… and I feel utterly weighed down by these restrictions on my life and creative process. In Gustav’s final moments on the Lido in Venice, I saw myself, black dye dripping from my hair, reliving the missed opportunities, reaching out and trying to caress my furry Tadzio, who turns his back from me as I keel over into the sand.
Kiki, of Kiki & Herb, last night said that 2006 should be the Year of Whimsy. Amen Miss DuRane!