Who am I?
“Stop modeling and be yourself!” The photgrapher says. Easy for him to say, as the man watching with the camera.
Who am I?
“You’re doing it again! Stop modeling!” How can I just be myself? Been trying to find that illusive creature for a lifetime. Where am I hiding? How am I hiding from myself, and why?
The photographer says, “RELAX!” Which makes me try to relax, and in the trying I fail every time. How do I relax without trying? How does one achieve effort through non-effort? If no one were watching, would I still be posing, sucking in my gut, wondering if the cops are going to show up and shut us down? Or better yet, a forest ranger… and now we’re back to porn again.
RELAX! BE YOURSELF! STOP TRYING! My thoughts spiral down the rabbit hole of memories to New York, where they taught me to get an attitude. Cop a GQ look. Cock an eyebrow.
Create a character. Be anyone or anything but yourself.
Authenticity is fatal to fashion. Unheard of in porn. I changed my name. Played the game. Act like you’re “straight.” Dumb down. Look tough. Walk and talk like a man. But don’t ever be yourself. That would be fatal.
Here we are in Joshua Tree, where life is bare bones. Very little survives here, and what survives is thorny, hard, and abrasive. Who am I? All my life, I’ve been searching for myself, under every leaf and rock. I’ve searched the sky, the wind, mountains, waters, books, dreams, visions, and my own heart. All I have found is open sky. Emptiness.
I am nothing. And under this desert sky, perched upon this rock, I know what I am not. I am not my name. Not any role in any script that has ever been handed to me. Not God. Not separate from God. Not my actions or the consequences they engender. Not gay, but queer as a two dollar bill. Not male or female, but projecting masculinity to protect the terrified little girl inside.
Not my personality, or any of them for that matter. Not my past or my future. Not anything that can be described, named, quantified, distributed, consumed, or conquered.
Who am I?
The wise man says start with “who.” “Who” is asking the question? Where does the question come from? Then move onto “am.” Where does the sense of being come from? Within. Where does this “I” originate? It simply is, but knows nothing, asks for nothing, requires nothing, not even it’s own being, which is like a circle with no end and no beginning.
Be yourself. Stop modeling. Stop posing. Stop reinventing the idea of who I am based on who I have been, reacting to who I was told to be. Let the bare bones of this desert landscape burn away my sins.
Thomas Aquainus said all sin is simply misdirected love. My desire for love has been focused outward. Looking for love in all the wrong places. Looking everywhere but inside, where the “I” that is the “yes” to the question “why?” resides.
David, great writing at wonderful pixs of you.