The oddest thing happened. A few months ago the agent for the painter Don Bachardy contacted me and asked if I'd like to sit for a portrait. I quickly Googled and discovered that Mr. Bachardy is one of the premiere portraitists in America, having painted everyone from Stravinsky to Montgomery Clift to Henry Fonda to David Hockney. He was novelist Christopher Isherwood's lover for three decades and still lives in their house in Santa Monica Canyon, just a few hundred yards from where I used to live when I was married. When Isherwood moved there the canyon was a bohemian enclave, famous for its European émigrés like Thomas Mann. Now it's most famous for the steep wooden stairs that nutjobs obsessively race up and down.
Bachardy's agent told me that if I were ever coming to Los Angeles again to let them know so they could schedule a sitting. I was thinking it would be too much trouble but then I emailed and he got right back to me with a four-page list of everything I would have to do to prepare. It seemed so daunting, with such a long list of precise directions: where to park (in the unmarked driveway at the end of the property), what to eat (bring snacks but not too much water because you can't move between the three sittings of 2 or 3 hours a piece, starting at 12:30), what to wear (no patterns), what to say: (only speak when spoken to).
Still, I was intrigued enough and vain enough to persevere. Also, I could use the day of silence. Although I consider myself a Zen Buddhist I haven't made the time to meditate properly in months. In Zen it's called a sesshin, where you sit and meditate most of the day in long, marathon sessions each lasting maybe a forty minutes and then you rise and walk in silence for a few minutes before sitting down and meditating some more.
I was determined to arrive on time so a half-hour early I was in the neighborhood. I went to my old grocery store that had now become a chic food palace to rival Whole Foods, and I bought a roast beef sandwich (no turkey, the L. Tryptophan would be deadly) and I needed some sort of caffeine delivery system to endure an entire day of sitting still. I'd tried Redbull once and it tasted like Mountain Dew mixed with battery acid. They had something called "Full Throttle" but I was suspicious (and I also thought it would reflect badly on me for the portrait. Full Throttle seems like the drink you chose to chase down your crystal meth.) Then, thank god, I found the Stabucks espressos in a can. I bought two.
I was understandably nervous when I arrived, but as soon as you enter the little gate and descend the hill, the same hill that loomed over my old house but with panoramic views instead of the sliver that I was so proud of, as soon as I saw the Pacific loudly blue below I relaxed. As instructed I descended the uneven stairs and opened the door to the studio. Huge, moving, colorful portraits lined the very white walls. As instructed I yelled, "Don?" He was on the second floor and called me up.
Don, 73, was in cut off chinos completely besplattered with colorful paints and a white wife-beater that was, remarkably, absolutely spotless. His hair is a white crew cut, he's small but strong and in better shape than many guys half his age.
Instead of a persnickety eccentric I found myself talking to a charming man with the clipped, almost English accent that American movie stars all had until the 1950s. My fantasy was that he was a fan of my work but he apologized, said he had never read any of my writing but that his agent thought I might make an interesting subject.
We talked about how he doesn't work from photographs because the image is dead, his long sittings produce almost a series of time-lapse photographs superimposed on top of each other. There is something Modiglianian about his images, painfully deep eyes, as open as can be.
He was just finishing up one of a series of plaid-looking panels while I roamed his upstairs studio looking at the other portraits, trying to decide how to pose (even though the instructions said clearly not to, to let Don do the work and just be.)
For my first portrait he had me sit on a chair facing the window. He set up a bench with a small cushion, sort of like an old shoeshine stand, and straddled it. He set out the jars of paint, big and small, some in old spice jars. He unscrewed a paint splattered thermos and poured himself a cup of black coffee.
I went to the bathroom one last time then found a giant bird of paradise with the leaves split to the vein like a feather and tickled by the breeze. I started staring and breathing, breathing and staring, aware that I had never sat still more than the forty minutes at a time in all of my life. This time would be up to three hours, maybe two. I knew, however, how the waves of temptation would come and go so when they arose I just breathed some more. I thought about what Thich Nhat Hahn has beginning meditators chant:
Breathing in I calm myself,
Breathing out I smile,
Dwelling in this present moment,
I am aware this is a wonderful moment
I began with these words, inhale first line, exhale the second, inhale the third, exhale the fourth. After around ten minutes my mind was clear enough to just count breaths, inhale one, exhale two, up to ten and then repeat, or (more often) beginning again whenever a thought floated into my consciousness, or if I found myself having shot past ten and counting twelve or thirteen.
The sun, the sounds, the concentration was a real treat. Ice cream for my mind. I pretty much ignored Don and just floated my mind on silence and breath. Since I was sitting in a chair instead of cross-legged on a zafu (zen cushion) my body was completely comfortable, it was just my mind that got restless. However when it did I tamed it again with breath.
And just like that past the time.
"Thank you very much. I think I've done all that I can do."
He let me see the painting, I wasn't sure he would, that like showing actors the film dailies, it might inhibit me for the next sitting. I liked what I saw but didn't yet see me in the portrait and didn't see it at the level of the other portraits in the room. He congratulated me on how still I could sit and I had a very un-Zen moment of vanity. Because I sat so still he finished this painting in about an hour and a half.
I downed a Starbucks espresso and cream and half a sandwich. He talked a little about living in the Canyon here for forty-eight years, about meeting Isherwood when he was just a boy and how, when he met him his life truly began.
I was high on a cloud of concentration and walked a bit to stretch my legs, peed, then got ready for painting number two, on a chair but facing the canyon. This time he had me stare right at him (almost all of his paintings are dead on) for the first ten minutes so he could get the eyes, and then I could look away.
It was intense staring at a stranger right in the eye but after the first sitting I was so calm that I felt open enough to trust. Then he said I could look away and I fixed my gaze on a tiny window on a big house on the other ridge, a half-mile away. I poured my concentration into that tiny window. An hour and a half later this portrait was done and I liked it much better. It was how I liked to think of myself, noble, a bit sad, intelligent, intense. It was also much more colorful.
I downed another canned Starbucks and sat once more, this time propped on the bed against some pillows. By now it was late afternoon and I did start to nod off once. He graciously said I could close my eyes now if I wanted because he'd already painted them but as a matter of pride, and in continuing my sesshin I combated the sleepiness and rededicated myself. This time when it was done the painting was fantastic, one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen and the fact that it was me made the experience positively surreal.
It was over and I was peaceful yet also high on the hours of attention paid to me. Don was courteous but kind of shooed me out. He said he won't know if the paintings are any good until hours later, around the time he goes to bed.
I got in my car, the sun was low now but still strong, and I rumbled the Mustang back to Venice.