...I was carried back on the wave of sound towards the old days at Combray...when I myself had wanted to be an artist. Having in practice abandoned this ambition, had I given up something real? Could life make up to me for the loss of art, or was there in art a deeper reality where our true personality finds an expression that the actions of life cannot give it? Each great artist seems so different from all the others, and gives us such a strong sense of individuality, which we seek in vain in everyday life! (from The Prisoner)
After reading a great novel, I am not the same person I was before I read it. Now all that stuff we take for granted--great story, great structure, good language--that all makes for a really good novel. But a great novel is not the one that transforms the character but the one that transforms the reader. (Rabih Alameddine in The Secret Miracle: The Novelist's Handbook)
How do we find our true selves? I think the answer is through art, whether we are creators of it or witnesses to it. The reader and the writer share a special bond through which they are both fashioned into something new and undiluted. What a solace in today's world, when we are bombarded with financial doom and gloom and the environmental catastrophes that rock every shore. What a solace for the ages.
We left my mother off at the Alzheimer's facility on Wednesday, and that night when my father and I came home to our apartment, empty except for our dog, Phoebe, I felt a real sense of mourning for the mother I would never have again. All the things that used to drive me crazy--begging her to prepare for a shower, changing her clothes, remembering to triple bolt the door so she wouldn't wander--now seemed like special rites meant to be missed. I miss her delight when walking outside and spotting a shaggy dog or a purple flower. I miss the way she used to talk to Phoebe, who, since puppy hood, has shared a special bond with her. Nothing can fill that void. Except, perhaps, for art, though as I write it I only half believe it.
We've had some reports that she's participating in the activities at the facility and even has made a gentleman friend who holds the chair for her in the dining hall. But last night when I spoke to her on the phone, she could only say tearfully over and over again, "I love you, I love you so much." We're not allowed to visit for a couple of weeks so that she can acclimate herself to her new surroundings. This is especially hard on my father, who has spent the last forty-five years with her, through all of their ups and downs, and who has been especially tender with her in these past months when her mental health has been declining rapidly.
Proust has been a comfort, as usual. And so is pursuing my own writing. But I am saddened to think my mother will not be able to locate that pleasure in reading that she used to enjoy. Years ago, we used to regularly swap books and our bond, as readers, deepened our ties as mother and daughter. And now, to think that she is no longer able to read or even sign her own name, no longer able to escape in a mystery novel or a Jane Austen book, seems like an especially harsh blow. It seems like a cruel and undeserved fate, one that divorces her from her true self. One that erases her true self. One that devours her true self. And for this, there is no solace. Even if art may be the closest I ever get to a religion.
