To Secure Immortality

In his 1990 novel Immortality, Milan Kundera exposes Bettina, lets Goethe walk with Hemingway, and secures his own imminent immortality.

Those who are secure in the knowledge that immortality is theirs face a different problem than the rest of us. While we struggle to secure that certainty, those with the certainty firmly in place struggle to ensure that the impression left behind is the one they want to leave. Too late they realize that they should have been monitoring their actions all along, making sure the actions stand up to a certain image.

I´m only paraphrasing Kundera´s ideas so far. Kundera, an Immortal in his own right, and probably well aware of the fact by the time he wrote Immortality. What I really want, of course, is to join the ranks of the certain, the ones secure in their immortality. With ten more days of thirty years old left, I am still young, just barely. Or I could leave off the "just barely", and say it brazenly -- I am still young. Two tasks lie before me, then: to secure my name and work in a legacy of immortality, and to ensure that that legacy is one of my own choosing.

I have trouble with the monitoring of my actions, and the fact that my actions create my image. I restrain certain impulses because I fear the consequences. But the consequences I fear involve rejection in this life, not misportrayal beyond it. If I were brave enough, I´m sure I would rather swagger, unrepentant, like Hemingway, than cower, paralyzed, like Goethe. Or at least like the impressions they´ve left behind.

So how to secure immortality? Everyone has his own answer. I can try to do it by formulating ideas, and by distilling and interpreting life through writing and art. By taking my unique perspective and transmitting it, intact, to others. Essentially, immortality can be achieved by the formulation and then the promotion of ideas and images. As Kundera said, the paths of artists and statesmen lead undeniably to the possibility (though not the certainty) of immortality. I am not a statesman. And yet, I may be an artist. I say it brazenly -- I am still young.

A Certain Peace

From the first warm windy weather when I stepped out of the airport, I knew I´d come to the right part of the world. From the stars in a sky still holding dark blue, and the clouds scudding across, from the hand-painted tienda signs, one after another and none of them chain logos until one Texaco half an hour later, from the trees and trees and trees arching over the empty late-night roads, I knew.

A turn and we reached town. Granada was pale and ghostly at 3 a.m., and we drove through canyons of colonial buildings that would be pink, blue, green by dawn. Doors and windows were covered with the wrought iron I know from Baja, but the massiveness of the buildings in the narrow roads reminded me I was somewhere new. Nicaragua.

I was led through a quiet open courtyard, past palm trees and hammocks and large dark murals I´d look at closely in the morning. From the carved, solid bunk bed, from the sheets that had been dried outside and still smelled of sunshine, I knew. The right part of the world. The next day, I was reminded of it again, by church bells and a rooster, by the cu-cu-ru-cuuu of pigeons on the roof, by a certain peace.

Buon viaje, said the woman I met on the plane, a great-grandmother. Vaya bien. It is a good journey, abuelita, gracias, si cierto, and I will go well.