It was
1973. The setting was Taipei, at a
photographic exhibition by the fantastic seven - emerging, avant-garde artists by
the standards of Taiwanese people.
The young
woman was 19. She came with her friends to
check out the phenomenon. It was the
first day of the show, late afternoon; throngs of people milling about the room
filled with large and small black-and-white landscape photos of dreamlike quality,
whispering, gesturing, and commenting.
There was a smaller crowd of giddy, young people surrounding the seven
producers of the unconventional works in another corner.
The young
woman spotted the young man in black in the center of the circle. The memories of that meeting seem so strange,
so unlikely, so out of the realm of possibility now that she finds it difficult
to reconcile the details with the two persons she is remembering. He was soaking up all the attention from the enthusiastic
admirers, exuding an aura of glamour and aloofness, and his handsome eyes
floating in and out of the room, finally landing in her direction. Their eyes met (she declared, “If someone is
going to turn me on, that someone is he.”)
He was the star of her dreams, the fantasy she had held on to as long as
she had remembered.
She grew
up in a very strict household, with a domineering mother and an invisible
father. The mother imposed her rules and
expectations on all members of the family, her teenage daughter in particular:
“You will smile and act pleasantly when spoken to.” “You will not seek attention of strangers.” “You will work hard to be the top of your
class.” She lived a sheltered life of
limitation and cultural restriction. The
only escape was through books, books about the sky of many colors and different
clouds, about adventures, about boys and girls journeying together across the
world. She often read herself to sleep,
dreaming for the stars.
Loving to
read saved her from herself, at the same time making her rebellious and
confused. The brains and body of a
teenager didn’t move in synch; sometimes she felt like Frankenstein in a
prettier mask; she was told to behave modestly, but she had the darkest
thoughts of wanting to attract the attention of outlaws, vagabonds, stray cats;
she had raw talents, but undeveloped; she was hollow in the center, no
identity, no direction. All she had was
the belief that she would find a person to inspire her, and as long as she held
on to what inspired her about that person, she would be okay.
Liberation
came when she went away for college. She
embraced the new world with abandon: She could take charge of her life, allow
herself to fall in love, to forge an identity for herself. The moment she met the young man in black,
she knew he would be traveling with her to experiences of vibrant blues, reds, yellows
and greens, the adventures she had only read or dream about.
The young
man was a brilliant artist from an early age, the precocious only son in a
high-minded, intelligent family. The
family understood his genius and supported his career choice despite earlier objection.
He was attractive, warm-hearted, courageous
in his artistic expression, and wildly popular among his art contemporaries –
musicians, performers, dancers, painters, writers. They commissioned him with works, catapulting
him to artistic stardom. He responded by
bringing celebrity culture into his own works – He hung out with pop stars and
models, and he photographed them and their glamorous lives. The press regarded him as the eyes of a new generation. Young people who didn’t know much about
photography flocked to see his shows.
Publicity certainly helped his career, but many critics remained leery
of him who was introduced to the public with an excessive amount of fanfare.
Like true
artists before him, he possessed that surreal sensitivity to all things around
him. He wanted to be liked by everybody,
but also yearned for a gypsy-like existence, no roots, no sense of belonging, roaming
from place to place seeking myths and beauty, with his own imagination. “This world isn’t enough. I need more.”
He would pursue his altered reality in solitude someday. He would travel to Europe and the Far East to
see Japanese woodcuts, Greek god statues, Egyptian reliefs, Indian art and
Byzantine mosaics.
It was
hard not to imagine girls falling for this enchanting boy. But girls were just his conquests, forgotten
as soon as they were out of sight. He
was superb in his shift of roles from potential husband material, soulmate, to
careless Don Juan, to exquisite dissolute in intimate relationships. A legend grew up about how he was always
going to be dangerous and tragic for his lady friends.
The young
woman didn’t care. She accepted the
gorgeous young man… knowing he was cheating on his fiancé to be with her. The lovers only had eyes for each other,
however blinkered love could be.
For the
brief time she enjoyed his love, she was totally immersed in him, seeing his
way of the reality, absorbing his absurdly serious habits of an artist,
learning his way of making paintings and photography, taking pleasure from his
genuine, unconcealed obsession with his process, enjoying the exhausting kinds
of fun with him.
His works
were fascinating and detached mirrors of the culture surrounding him. Because he was a painter by training, he
approached photography always with a design in mind. Every picture had a poetic message, and every
image carried his signature stamp.
He
changed the way she saw the world through his haunting, alluring images. She was both intrigued and awakened. She loved words. Thought him, she discovered the person she
truly was: a free-spirited writer who longed to explore and write about the mythical
wonders conveyed in his paintings and photography.
They were
only four years apart. But in
love-making, they were both innocent children tasting the forbidden fruit. They didn’t stop making love for two days
until she came. There was nothing right
or wrong they wouldn’t try. When it
worked, when they reached that state of ecstatic unity, they wanted more. Even though they had their first fight, they
made it up by making love all night.
The
sensation of his passion for her made him want to make art. He made his most amazing work of art during
this period: a small painting of her in the nude as her eyes flashed at the
climactic moment that one could almost saw it happen.
When he
wasn’t chasing after glamour and hype for his job, he took dark, heart-breaking
pictures of death and decayed subjects hovering at the brink of despair. Why was all this sadness? What was he thinking? She wondered.
She soon found
out that he had a secret – His bipolar disorder. He could be crazy, manic, rambling on and on about
his loneliness one moment; then tender, wildly inventive, bursting with all
sorts of creative impulses the next. He seemed to be aware of his condition, but
his fixation on keeping people around him safe was so intense that it overrode
his craziness. He was ever so vigilant
about maintaining his own well-being.
She could feel a bomb ticking inside of him that he was always
monitoring. It made her nervous
sometimes. But she liked him a lot, and
she was terrified of losing him. She revered
his mysterious (!!tempestuous!!) inner life that kept him unknowable. He was the one who rescued her from her
ordinary life, to be able to feel alive, feel anything again.
Their relationship ended as abruptly as it had started. One Friday in June, she spoke to him on the phone. He sounded happy. ("He hasn't sounded this happy before.") By Tuesday, he was gone, already left Taipei for France with his fiancé. She was numb, unable to cry or grieve for a long time, trying to forget.
As time passed, she missed him; she fell victim to crippling pain, furiously attempting to hold on to whatever pulse or memories could be kept while chunks of who they were had vanished forever.
