It’s a calm Sunday as I sit in the backyard of a house built into the woods of New Hartford, Conn.
Spring is here in one of its first days of sun and warmth. I’d forgotten what sitting outside in a T-shirt felt like, a crisp breeze on my skin amid the sun’s heat.
To say I’m relaxing wouldn’t quite capture it.
My posture is ramrod, my back pulled up into a single line, my sloping shoulders back, chest out.
My eyeglasses are off, so it’s tough to find a point on which to fix my gaze as I am instructed to look this way and that way. Between the lack of vision and the sunshine, I’m trying hard to avoid squinting.
Oh, and I have a sash curled up on my head like a turban – like you do.
This is what happens when my friend, Anna, is painting me. I’m not suspended on a fake horse like the Prince in the new Cinderella movie, thank god.
Anna’s an artist, and a very talented one, working in canvas, ceramics, porcelain, whatever she decides to master. And today, she’s trying to master my visage by translating it to canvas in oil paints.
All of this is new, all of this is different, but the words to describe this process are simple: I’m a muse.
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| The artist with model. Oh snap, that’s me. |
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| A work in progress. |
I’m a muse!
I’ve known Anna for a couple of years now after we became fast friends at a museum shindig where she was selling some of her wares. Over time, she said from time to time that she wanted to paint me because I had a great look. So, one day I took the bull by the horns and set a date for the first portrait sitting.
Working with Anna and knowing her as an artist, I’ve had to come to grips with what the hell I look like.
Anna is bubbly and English and speaks at times with a fervent air that, in a state such as Connecticut, I’ve long gone without experiencing. She describes how I have a “really interesting face,” lightly tracing with her fingers lines at my cheeks, my nose, the shape of my head.
Lucky for me, it’s not Titanic with Jack asking Rose to paint her. It’s sweet and factual, not sexual and weird because we’re both married.
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| We won’t be re-creating this any time soon. And by “any time soon,” I mean “ever.” |
The capper, the thing that really spurred the portrait talk, was my beard. I’ve written about this beard before, which has turned me into a Professor Badass doppelganger. I’ve cut off the sideburns, but otherwise I haven’t cut it or trimmed since August.
When I buzz my head, the beard remains a giant tuft of groomed hair, its refined nappiness sitting like topiary, reshaping my jawline in any way I choose.Despite beards being very on-trend right now, I still call back to my fellow black men of Philadelphia who have been doing the big, thick beard for years and years. But trend or no, it’s understood that I only get to keep this look because my wife likes it.
And she’s not the only one. Anna admires my beard, and because she is nice and asks permission, I even let her touch it. She wanted a crack at painting it.
The first session was for a head-and-shoulders portrait in the style of Rembrandt. A few weeks later at a party, Anna tells me she showed the work-in-progress to another artist friend of hers.
“What a beautiful man! I have to paint him,” were the words Anna relayed to me.
Me. Beautiful. Me.
I’ve learned over time to accept a compliment. Despite my nerd-formed psyche of romantic neglect, paired with a masculine-gendered reluctance/uneasiness with accepting compliments, I grew comfortable with taking a “handsome” or “cute,” nod and be gracious.
I know what I look like, and I’m fairly happy with it. I’m no Hollywood heartthrob, but I’m no slouch. I dress well, have an array of talents, speak with general eloquence, can dance pretty well, and like talking to women like they’re people. So, I draw my share of womanly attention.
But, “beautiful”? Only my wife has ever called me that. And here was an artist – an expert in aesthetics with no skin in the game, so to speak – giving this at-first-sight opinion. From a photo and a painting.
I can’t even.
My reaction to it all sometimes is like I’m Stefan Urquell waiting for the magic potion to wear off and I revert to being Steve Urkel again.
I feel a combination of flattery, humility and reflection of something I hadn’t really seen in myself or felt about myself. As I accept as a fact that I have beauty, and that people mirror it back to me, there’s a powerful feeling in that.
I’m also amazed at how this is happening now. As Doc Holliday says in Tombstone, “I am rolling.”
Life has been in the sweet spot right now. Everything is just … working. Things I have spent years working on are coming to fruition. And an adherence to all aspects of myself, at any cost, is paying off.
At a moment like this, I keep pushing at insecurity and silence, feelings of weakness and fear and judgment from any source in my life. I want engagement. I want life. I want things on my terms. I want to be flexible and fair.
Last week, I won my first ever Sports Emmy after 10 years in the sports television business, not even two years into my move to a different company and overcoming a lot of doubt and toil. I dealt with a reorganization at my current job, and now I have a lot of variety, doing new things with old skills.
I gave my mother advice on recovering from a leg injury, and it worked. I’m getting more analytical practice and working on getting back into my intellectual mode. I’m reading more.
In the past year, I’ve gone through a car crash, my father’s death, and wife’s hospitalization for food poisoning. I got a dog, moved to a new town, and I’m trying to do whatever I can to keep newlywed life happy. It hasn’t been easy going through all this, but here I am.
This is self-actualization. It’s the law of attraction, and the benefit is swagger. Nerd swagger. Blerd swagger. Geek swagger (swaggeek?).
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| I feel like this guy. And 8 feet tall. |
The work is paying off, and I can’t stop. Gotta squeeze every drop until it leaves or recdes. Gotta keep this party going as long as I can. To quote T.I. in “Swagger Like Us,” my flow’s colder than February with extraordinary swag.
I’ve got the swag sauce for my swaghetti ’cause I’m drippin’ swagu – right, Beyonce and Kanye? I’m heavy and rolling, like Andrew Wyatt sings on Mark Ronson’s Uptown Special, prepared to uptown funk you up. Say my name, you know who I am.
Swagger. It feels good. Cue the viral video of Vince McMahon’s silly strut, please.
At my job’s cafeteria, one of the cooks that I’m friendly with said I reminded him of the song by new artist Jidenna, titled “Classic Man.” The chorus is simple, beginning with: I’m a classic man / You can be mean when you look this clean / I’m a classic man / Calling on me like a young O.G.
I think I can handle that mantle, sharing my glow.
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| Someone buy me this suit, please? |
And maybe I can keep this art model thing going as well. On Mother’s Day, I was back in those New Hartford woods, wearing a black suit and posing on a plinth for Anna’s next creation.
I joked I looked more like Dom Torretto’s new sidekick in Fast &; Furious 8, but I know Anna has something far more classical up her sleeve.
So I’m gonna let it happen. Embrace my beauty. Enjoy the moment.
