Self-Portrait without a Body

The self escaped the body. The body went around with me in it, but I was not there. I abstained from myself, just as you, too, may on occasion abstain from yourself. What a relief, what a relief it was.
—Catherine Lacey, from Biography of X

I’d like to begin by asking where are you exactly in this painting?
I’m the one making
the shadow on the lefthand side,
that spear of darker green
on the grass and clovers, pointing
toward the California pepper tree.

Would you call it a landscape then?
Yes and no. I see myself
in the foreground, obstructing
the tree, that Arabian horse
entirely. She was regal, Lou Lou,
and chiseled like marble. Her stride
measured, her muscles in sectors
rippled beneath her dark coat.
But I also don’t see myself,
foreground or background,
just as in some quiet moments
the horse would look at me
intently, and other times
through me, as though she was
assessing the mountains beyond.

Is it fair to say that anyone else besides you would see this painting as a landscape?
Yes.

Okay. Moving on—
I’m not trying to be difficult here.
I’m merely saying it is better
to be without a body.
That is why I painted myself
out of the painting.

Would you call this a conceptual painting then?
I would. But you are free
to label it a landscape.

You said it is better to be without a body.
I said that, yes.

How can a person be without one? It is, after all, the only way that humans can experience the world.
We can be without a body
only in the sense when we
forget we have one.
It happened to me frequently
there at the farmhouse.
Whenever I brushed her,
the bristles’ shush-shush,
there would be such a
stillness around us
that I would forget.
You see those bluish white
lines floating between
the tree and ground?

I was going to ask you about that.
It’s a wind chime
that was fashioned from
aluminum tubes. They would knock
the wooden clapper and toss
these bright notes
which rang across the property.
If I was filling
Lou Lou’s trough with water,
if a breeze also arrived—so,
both the sound of water
falling into water and ringing—
I was bodiless.

I’m curious about the barn. In particular, how you achieved those woodgrain patterns. It’s very tactile. I’d like to run my fingers over it.
Days of layering and scraping
away with a palette knife.
Vandyke brown, Bordeaux red,
burnt and raw umber. Some
mars orange, I believe.
It was done plank by plank.
Then the painstaking
hours with the backend of
a toothpick, etching
through impastoed paint.
That barn ruined my eyes.
Paul Klee famously said,
One eye sees, the other feels.
In my case it was, One eye
aches, the other too.

Last question—
This was quick.

I have a dental appointment. Two root canals.
My condolences.

I’ve heard conflicting stories surrounding an incident with the horse.
When she was spooked, you mean.

Yes. Do you know what spooked her?
It was a pop, like a bone
snapping, that came from
somewhere inside the barn.
I was grooming her, bodiless,
just before sunup, in that diffused
light of morning. It was cold
enough for me to see
my breath making steam.
Then this (makes popping sound).
She flinched and swung
away from the barn, one hoof
hammering down on my foot.

But what created that sound?
It’s the same sound
the frame of a house makes
when the temperature
drops, when metal and wood
expand, contract.
It had to be that.

So it was a drop in temperature.
It was a drop of temperature, correct.

And not the rake that you, perhaps, carelessly leaned against the barn.
The rake was still
upright when I hobbled by it,
when I set the grooming brush
atop the fencepost.
Lou Lou was alert, didn’t move
anything but her eyes,
which then were wide
and monitored a world
now charged with hazard.
I said, Whoa, whoa
girl, whoa, just trying to
calm her. On my good
foot I stood and moaned
as it was made clear
with each hot white
second, I have a body,
I have a body, I have a body,
while this mercurial steam
like the ghost of grass
swirled off her back.