Philately & Broken Masts

             My recent post about my mother reminded me of another aspect of her character: She was a bit of a prude. But then, back when she was born, 1901, nearly everyone was a prude. Before I explain her prudishness, I have to refer to the Lawrence Block series about the likeable hitman named Keller. In Hit List, Keller was doing his usual thing, hiring out to kill various unsavory people, but this time he revealed his off-work passion, stamp collecting. He talked quite a bit about how one becomes a collector, and then he remarked on a stamp I knew vividly from my youth:

“And of course there was the Spanish set honoring Goya.  One of the stamps showed his nude portrait of the Duchess of Alba.  The painting had caused a stir when first displayed, and, years later, the stamp had proven every bit as stirring to a generation of young male philatelists. Keller remembered owning the stamp decades ago, and scrutinizing it through a pocket magnifier, wishing fervently that the stamp were larger and the glass stronger.”

When I was a mere lad of fourteen, and I was a budding philatelist, I purchased The Naked Maja, a painting by Goya, from one of my stamp dealers.  It was a large stamp, maybe an inch and a half long and three quarters high.  It was a clean stamp, never released, and the colors were vibrant.  There she was, reclining on her left side on a love seat, left arm raised and resting on her head, legs demurely crossed at the ankles.  And she was buck naked.  Oh, how the young adrenaline pumped.  She was large-breasted, voluptuous, a mother-earth figure to make a boy’s heart yearn.  In Yiddish she would be described as zaftig (juicy, succulent, or in slang, a full-figured, shapely woman).  And my mother found her in my collection and threw her away.  She never said anything to me, and I was too ashamed to mention its absence, but I knew in my heart she’d tried to keep my virginal eyes clean and pure.  Boy, do I wish I still had that stamp.  It would probably be worth some money today.

“We rest here while we can, but hear the ocean calling in our dreams,

And we know by morning, the wind will fill our sails to test the seams,

The calm is on the water and part of us would linger by the shore,

For ships are safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are for.”

          My friend Anne sent this to me a long time ago, reminding me that life must be lived out in the unsafe world, not in some isolated safe house. It seems even more appropriate for me now as my life and world have shrunk to isolation. I love this little quatrain. But now, my ship’s main mast has, in a winter storm, broken off at deck level. I guess that might be appropriate as a symbol of my confinement to a safe harbor. Or some might think it’s also a phallic symbol. And, damn it, I guess they’d be right.