Because none of us want to think the universe is a blank dream….
— Jack Kerouac
Naples and the Ghost Condition
I’ve started work on a new novel, and I have cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to thank for it. Before I get into that, some background:
When I was young, I spent a month in Naples, living out of a hotel near the old NATO base in Bagnoli, close to the naval hospital. After a serious injury that nearly severed my femoral artery during deployment, I was treated, discharged, and kept as an outpatient, with no room in the barracks to stay. I lived among Neapolitans with ease, only because, after nearly dying, the thought, “I shouldn’t be here; I’m a ghost,” freed me to be as open and direct as I could.
I could die at any moment. I needed to live without the conventions that label natural impulses as taboo, as though it were my last day on earth.
Homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum puto.
I am a man, nothing human is foreign to me.
—Terence, Heauton Timorumenos 77 (c. 165 BCE)
Women and Connection in Naples
What followed were encounters with many women I met along the way. Some were part of the naval commands in the city, others I found in underground wine bars and speakeasies hidden from outsiders.
Because my mindset back then was, “I’m not supposed to be here; I could easily be dead; I’m a ghost,” I approached every woman with a level of honesty that set me apart from the others who lied or acted fake just to get in their pants. I’d say it straight, with charm and body language they later told me put them at ease, and they’d answer, “Sure, it’ll be fun.”
The Stuck Point and the Sublime
There’s a reason for what may sound like boasting: it’s a pattern I’ve repeated ever since. In CBT, I uncovered something I never expected—a stuck point. At the root of most stuck points is shame and self-blame for trauma endured. For me, mine is an addiction I developed from entering the liminal space of the sublime, standing at death’s door and staring at the specter of nothing.
But this nothing isn’t the usual idea of absence most people think of. “Nothingness” names the sensation at that threshold when you glimpse the other side, a state beyond words, alluded to in the Upanishads as a peace that passes understanding, and which Sufis describe as fana, the word for the annihilation of self.
I want to die without dying.
For years, I’ve chased this in orgasm, but only if there’s connection. What spiritual experience could I have with someone unconnected to me? Connections were what I built during my time in Naples. And in those connections, I experienced la petite mort (“the little death”) in the arms of women who gave me their trust.
One woman I saw regularly gave me that trust every time. I took pride in helping her to her own la petite mort whenever we had sex. She asked me to stay at her apartment in the Spanish Quarter, so that during my remaining time, she’d take off from work and treat me to trips to Sorrento, Capri, and Rome until I had to return to the States for more outpatient treatments.
Illness, Memory, and Making Peace
Decades later, I’m battling cancer. The work I’m putting into CBT is meant to free me from anything that could block me from fully living in the moment. When I finally go through that door—and it won’t be soon—I’ll do it free of what’s attributed to Meister Eckhart in the movie Jacob’s Ladder:
“Eckhart saw Hell too. He said, ‘The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won’t let go of your life, your memories, your attachments. They burn ’em all away. But they’re not punishing you, they’re freeing your soul. If you’re frightened of dying and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.’”
The new novel is my way of making peace, because clinging to these intense memories of pleasure, bound up with PTSD and the sublime, keeps me seeing myself as a ghost.
Now more than ever, I need to be present—in the moment, in the now. The novel should help. I’ll be posting draft chapters here in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I’ve shared a DJ set I recorded about ten years after Naples, with a sound that matches the mood of those long walks at night with my “friend,” who became the inspiration for Charlotte.
I don’t care what other novelists say: every story starts as an idea rooted in the emotions of personal experience, not the experience word for word. From there, the characters take on lives of their own. I don’t know how the story will end, but I’m having fun seeing where it goes.
What I do know is this: after years of writing about generational trauma in my last novel, The Desert Road of Night, this one will be erotic, sensual, and graphic. I’m doing through words what my health now keeps me from doing without connection—and that’s fine. After all, I’m a ghost. I shouldn’t be here.
I’m just glad I am.
From Page to Sound: The Mood and the Feel
This is the Naples of my memory. The DJ set carries the mood and feel behind the new novel. Listen and you’ll hear it.
TRACK LIST
00:00 Holden & Thompson — Come to Me (Amateur Guitar Mix)
07:11 Agoria ft. Scalde — Dust (Rocco Vision Mix)
14:24 Yaxkin Retrodisko — Don't Cha Want It (Deepsee Mix)
21:33 Blue Six — Sweeter Love
28:00 Jori Hulkkonen — Let Me Luv U
35:50 Ormatie — Twisted Turns
40:06 Astrid Suryanto — Distant Bar (16 Bit Lolitas Mix)
46:39 Manoo — Winter
52:40 Manoo — Redzone
58:06 ADJD — Save Me
1:02:51 Roman Salzger — Solaris (Sebastian Drums & Rolf Dyman Work Machine Remix)
1:09:05 John Creamer & Stephane K — I Wish You Were Here ft. Nkemdi (Mike Viera & Pete Tha Zouk & Jaimy Remix)
My latest novel The Desert Road of Night, which explores many of the themes in my short stories, poems, and personal essays like this one, is available now on Amazon.
Originally published at worldasecstasy.com.
