The Milano Has Landed!

Many moons (years) ago I spent two solid days working on a painting for my then boyfriend, The Pilot. It was a huge, 3.5 X 5 canvas with tons of swirls, colors, and other intriguing things. After a laborious completion I said tongue and cheekily, “If we ever break up I’m taking this back!!” He reluctantly agreed.

Well we did break up about 4 months later and I forgot about the promise until I forgot about him–or so I thought. When the fundraiser ball & action I participated in rolled around, I thought getting that painting back and raffling it off would be a great way to fulfill the promise we made and raise some money for a good cause. I had heard through the grape vine that he had no clue what to do with the painting anyway (i.e. “What do I tell my next girlfriend? My ex made this?) So, I thought I’d do him a favor and take the painting off his hands. When I inquired about it through the grape vine, Pilot confirmed it was ok to come over and get it whenever.

Well I had hemmed and hawed about the right time to get it back. Since he lived with a friend of mine, I would wait until he was out of town and just pick it up when the roommate was home. I would call the roommate here and there and wait for a window of opportunity when the Pilot was tooling around thousands of feet up in the air.

After a stressful day of work my buddies and I went straight for the margaritas. I went straight for 4 and decided it was then the perfect time to call Pilot’s roommate and pick up my painting. Only until I stumbled out into the blizzard cold did I realize how drunk I was. Nonetheless, I was on a mission and on my way to Pilot’s house.

When I got to his place, J greeted me at the door. Having seen me 3-sheets multiple times before, he was unfazed. I stumbled around with a sinking, weird feeling–first time I’d ever been back in that place since the royal dumping. Seeing his shoes jolted me.

I saw the painting and swayed as I dismantled it from the wall. I also then noticed a few other things…he had kept all the travel trinkets I had ever given him in the same spots on the fireplace mantle (wasn’t he dating someone else? He shouldn’t have those up.) I asked J what else he still had around and he shrugged. I checked around. Pilot still had all the magnets I had given him on the fridge. And, from a preschool class visit I orchestrated, “Thanks for coming Pilot!” pictures adorned his wall.

I then made the unequivocal decision that he should not have these things, these memorabilia’s of me.

With that, I proceeded to stuff my backpack full of wooden Russian trinkets, a moose statue, preschool class pictures, magnets, and any other lingering token of myself in his apartment. With my backpack full J looked at me perplexed. I declared I was, “Helping Pilot…he shouldn’t have these things around.” J just shrugged and said, “Ok”—nothing fazes the guy.

I scooped up the painting and made my way out the door–backpack full of trinkets and stomach full of pride. The winds had picked up, sleet filled the street, and snow swirled around my dizzy head. It’d be a tough walk home but I was invincible, I was drunk.

Somehow I remember crossing a street, honking, a dumpster, and waking up just a few hours later tp go to work at 7am. Pain and that “day after sinking feeling” greeted me. I couldn’t quite remember the details of the evening until I saw my backpack and preschoole drawings strewn about…it all starting coming back piece by piece. Had I REALLY done this?! Yes, yes I had.

I remembered my mission: the painting. I scanned the room. No painting.

Looked in the other room. No painting.

That’s it. I only have a two room studio.

I looked outside my apartment. Nothing.

Where was the painting?

I had to get ready for work–quickly. As I made it out the door I realized…

I had somehow managed to “lose” the gigantic painting on the way home last night.

I pieced the evening together for my work friends. They were amused, stunned, humored, but not surprised. Just another typical night in the life of single NK…

My BFF told me I needed to apologize to Pilot. I hadn’t done a good thing. I knew she was right, so I would start to remedy the situation then and there. An email would do.

“Dear Pilot,

I am sorry that I went over to your house and took a few things that I interpreted were…mine. If it helps to understand, I did end up losing, yes losing, the painting on the way home. I am very sorry that I invaded your space and I promise to never drink profusely and ransack your house again. If you want any of your things back, please let me know and I can drop them off.

Regards,
NK

*ok the email was a little more eloquent than that, but you get the idea.

Pilot replied a few days later. my heart sunk when I saw his name in my inbox.

“Hey NK,

No problem… I think we both know I’ve done some stupid things under the influence too. If you could just please drop off the preschool pics in my mailbox, I really liked them.

Pilot”

Whew. Once again, I had managed to rise from the flames without the influence of law enforcement.

The problem of the painting lingered.

Days went by, I retraced my steps, searched the streets, building hallways, dumpsters and came up with nothin. I remember fumbling with it as I left Pilot and J’s house. Did I set it down to pee by a dumpster? (I have been known to urinate in public on several occasions when drunk and otherwise…) Did I THROW it in a dumpster? WTF?!??!!

In a last ditch effort I posed a note in my building above the mailboxes:

Hello neighbors–

I seemed to have misplaced a large, 3X5, colorful canvas painting. If you do come across it outside, in the hallway, or even in a nearby dumpster can you please retrieve it and place it outside 4Q’s door?

No questions asked. Thank you!

The next day there was a 3X5, colorful canvas painting outside my door and it was mine.

No note, no explanation, no questions. Just the painting, unscathed.

*************************************************************************

The painting sold for 300 bucks at the ball and aution. My antics? Priceless.

Wow, I think it’s absolutely imerpative that I read this book:

DAILY AFFLICTIONS:
The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

A dark, twisted, existential manifesto posing as a book of daily inspiration.

Revolutionizing the best-selling genre, this thinking man’s parody hijacks the format of daily affirmations, but offers a different message: only in paradox, truth; only in darkness, light; only in affliction, affirmation. These “daily afflictions” offer readers inspiration, practical advice, and food for thought, as they navigate the jungle of existential terror that begins anew each day.

We follow the fictional Brother Void on a spiritual journey, both profound and hilarious, into self, family, love, career, death–and finally, Enlightenment. We learn to “listen to our inner critic,” appreciate “the nurturing power of dysfunctional families,” “love the wrong person,” “succeed at failure,” “embrace our inner corpse,” and finally withstand the “agony of being connected to everything in the Universe.”

Part spiritual autobiography, part ironic meditation, this tragi-comic guide to life’s sublime predicaments will elevate and educate the spirit.

The truth will set you free, Brother Void reminds us, but first it will hurt like hell.

My main man (R) and I frequently discuss books, blogs, and generally like to tinker around in the world of ideas together. As ENFP idealists sometimes our thinking is shockingly similar. Other times, our thoughts vary considerably upon the idealist spectrum. As idealists are often prone to bouts of darkness and cynicism, different things trigger our negative buttons.

R has an extremely high tolerance for accepting people the way they are whereas I find myself constantly disgruntled by certain types of people, judgemental of certain behaviors, and on a more positive note, an advocate or catalyst for change when needed (upcoming post on The Empowerment Model). I started calling R steamboat because he is so slow to judge, takes a lot of time to gather information, think, and all the while gives people the ultimate benefit of the doubt about 98% of the time. Being a speedboat, I tend to make faster assessments, which are, well, often correct and Steamboat eventually gets there , but when my judgements are wrong they can be damaging and discrediting (and I feel like a fool).

There are times when R is light and I am dark and times when I am dark and he is light. It all depends on the topic . As idealists though, we try with all our intellectual and emotional might to lean towards, well, the light.

Ara asked me to write a little something about how to get through tough stuff, how to not let the bastards get ya down. I heard someone once say, as you get older life gets harder. I don’t think it’s necessarily related to the fact that with age you tend to have more responsibilities, either. I remember nothing more freeing than to be out from under the sometimes psychotic wing of my family and on my own supporting myself. Life gets harder as you get older because I think you become more aware of your own limitations and mortality essentially. In my profession, I see all that can go wrong with individuals, families, and children in a very intense, sometimes overwhelming way. The more I learn what’s at stake through loving and losing, doing and undoing, coming and going, the more I realize living should be a serious, deliberate event.

Recently, Rich Melman, the founder of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, was interviewed and he spoke of how he infuses the therapeudic approach with his business model. Melman said he believes that YOU are the center of all things. Much like Goethe, he suggested that HE controls the climate, HE creates his mood, HE is the decisive element, HE determines his response in all situations.

So keeping these ideas in mind, that I am the center of my universe and you are of yours, I think we can really do anything.

Faith is something I have a little trouble with. I love the idea of karma because it’s input/output…it’s what you do that matters. I’m not so great with the notion of giving up control and the merits of my own personal responsibility to a God. I come from a background where it was suggested that everything was up to God. God chose people to be poor, God chose people to be with horribly selfish and mentally ill spouses, God chose our professions, God chose who could go to college or not, God sometimes even chose what to wear that day. It not only seemed illogical to think God was so personal to interact with our wardrobes, but God seemed like kind of a scapegoat for many people who would not or could not accept personal responsibility. God’s incomprehensible, benevolent plan seemed to be the perfect explanation for our own shortcomings, misfortunes in life that were often so heavy and daunting.

As I get older though, I do detect some need for faith, for a mechanism that suggests some things are truly beyond our control. Given what I know of faith and some of its followers, I’ll admit, I’m not the first in line to trust God. However, this week, I received a thoughtful email from a faithful follower who has taken personal responsibility for his life, supported his family justly and compassionately, and has been very kind towards me. As we exchanged a few philosophic musings, in the end we agreed that we can do our best but essentially must trust God.

For the sake of levity, I didn’t admit that I haven’t built that trust so much. But I do, ultimately trust myself. However, as I said, I do see the need to find a Light to lean towards. I’m just not sure if that’s something that comes from inside my self…or beyond. Perhaps the Light comes from both.