On Masculinity, Ego and Naples, Florida
When my aunt and uncle told me that they wanted to fly me down to Naples, Florida, where they have their winter home, as a late birthday present, I was of course excited. Not so much because I wanted to go to Florida — I’m not much of a snow bird myself, with my pale Irish skin and predilection for misery — but because whenever Caleb and I spend time with them, we usually leave loving life. My aunt and uncle, after more than 20 years of marriage, are an exemplary happy couple; with them, I can also expunge some of my demons.
There is truly something wrong with me. I sat down at this computer with every intention of writing a nice post about how pretty Naples was, and instead, immediately found myself steering towards talking about my family. My immediate family does not want me to write about them on my blog; I know this, and frequently do it anyway. I cannot seem to help myself. But if I were to write a chirpy post about how great the trip was, it would feel dishonest; if I were to talk about why I sat on the beach on Saturday afternoon, and cried for two hours, I would literally be disowned. Writing can be therapeutic, that’s obvious. But I truly don’t know why I compulsively share my writing with the world.
My uncle worked for many years as a brain surgeon. He explained that surgery, for him, was less a technical endeavor, and more like painting a canvas. It was creative; artistry rather than science. In his retirement, he writes a lot. A blog, the beginnings of a few novels. Even though we’re not related by blood — my aunt is my mother’s sister — there’s a lot about him that I see in myself.
One night, during dinner, I asked him why he thought I felt the need to expose so much, knowing full well the consequences. “You’re an artist,” he told me. “Artists need to lay themselves bare.”
I don’t much think of myself as an artist. What sort of artistry is involved in red carpet analysis and rants about television shows? Even calling myself that makes me uncomfortable.
“You can’t do that,” my aunt countered. “You can’t write about your family on the blog, because their secrets are theirs to tell.”
My heart is torn in both directions. Both my uncle and my aunt are right.
What perhaps I can say is that for many years, I lived in an unconventional world of my parent’s own making, isolated from normalcy. My aunt and uncle sometimes stand in for the surrogate parents I wished I had during, say, graduation. The parents that would have taken me to the nicest restaurant in town, and met all of my friend’s parents; my own graduation experience involved an Italian restaurant 20 miles away from campus. In attendance was my own family, my uncle, my grandmother from my father’s side, and the old lady from Pawtucket from whom my parents had rented a house. They didn’t know her. I didn’t know her. All the rest of the weekend— the campus dance, the tea at my favorite professor’s house, the lectures and ceremonies — I was left to fend for myself.
There’s such a well of pain inside of me; I think I write about it to other people because I can’t bear the load of it myself.
It has been twelve years since I had spoken to my aunt, after a trauma that ripped my family apart. The weekend was a present, but it was also about us getting to know each other again, after such a long absence.
I didn’t want to make the weekend about the past; I wanted to enjoy the sun. I thought that Florida was all high rise apartment buildings on the beach, all balconies and pools and gated communities. I expected to find it all vaguely depressing, as I do any sort of planned urban living; I expected to drink a lot of wine and try not to focus on the exterior world.
What I didn’t expect was Naples. I’ve spent a lot of time in places the wealthiest Americans inhabit. My family, every year, rented a house in Nantucket. I babysat, for many summers in my 20s, in the Hamptons. My parent’s house is close to the border of Greenwich; I’ve driven through Beverly Hills. I’ve spent weeks in townhouses, in penthouses, in Ritz Carltons. My parents hate wealth but nevertheless always lurk on the edges of it, living amongst it but doing so frugally, perhaps as a sort of “fuck you.”
I would have rather not known such places; having access to them, it was acutely clear what I did not, myself, have. On the flip side, knowing wealth has allowed me to want for other, better things; money is a poison that both makes you more hungry, and allows you to isolate yourself from the world.
I should have known the Naples was a wealthy community. My parents, a few years ago, went there on vacation. I’m sure they stayed in the motel, and ate only entrees at the local restaurants, to save money. They don’t need to save money; it’s just one of many ways they punish themselves.
Driving up to the town, it was all strip malls and wide swaths of undeveloped land, as I expected. But suddenly, the landscape compressed. We turned onto a walkable street full of outdoor restaurants and boutique shops. It looked like Main Street in Greenwich. It looked like Rodeo Drive. It even looked like Polanco in Mexico City, where the wealthiest residents live in compounds.
In Naples, too, there were compounds. In fact, it seemed like that’s all it was. The quaint — albeit recently built — town, and street after street of 10,000 square foot houses, anchored next to each other on tiny properties. Surveillance cameras were everywhere; each house is required to be at least 30 feet from the main road.
On canals, they rested like building blocks, masculine and loaded with ego.
My aunt and uncle live there humbly. Their house, on a small pond, is the perfect size. Three bedrooms and a screened living area. One block from the ocean — white sand beaches and pale Gulf water.
I wondered if it was hard, in the midst of Naples’s massive houses, to live without wanting more.
Caleb and I, on the first day there, took out my aunt and uncle’s scooters, and zipped around, gawking at the grandeur. Old Southern mansions on the ocean. Heavy Spanish revivals.
Fountains and flowered trellises, all blocking views of the ocean.
The marked difference between wealthy areas in America, and wealthy areas in other parts of the world is that in America, there’s no need for real security. There are gates; there are cameras. But there are no armed guards. No streams of sewage just beyond walled gardens. No threat that the outside world might encroach; wealth, in America, is not dangerous. Wealth can show off.
I always wonder where it comes from. The lot right down the street from my aunt and uncle’s house just sold for $13 million. The gigantic house built on top of it cost $8 million. Who on earth has $21 million to build a second or third home?
Thousands of people, apparently — Naples, with all of its money, could secede from the United States and survive autonomously. It could become the Montecarlo of Florida. Perhaps that accounts for all of the paranoia — the cameras, the thick walls. Naples is prepared to fend off the outside world, when it does eventually threaten.
(Sometimes I say things that are incredibly naive and stupid. But it keeps things interesting, no?)
On the last day, I spotted a modest house on the ocean, mired in a sea of green lawn. The house didn’t seem recently constructed — perhaps the paint might have been peeling a bit. I couldn’t tell; it was set that far back from the road. It occurred to me that owning such a house on what was no doubt an insanely expensive piece of property was the ultimate “fuck you.” “I don’t need you to stroke my ego,” it seemed to say. “I am not insecure.” The sign of true wealth, I think, is living with exactly what you need, and not feeling the need to compete with others around you. And that wealth is not necessarily material — there’s something spiritual about it as well.
It gave me insight into my parents try to live. Above it all. But the truth of the matter is that both my parents and that blue cottage still are in the midst of it by choice. They could decide to move away, and let a masculine stampede burst their isolated bubbles. But they stay; and by staying, perhaps betray that their insecurity is the deepest of all.
