It was just another day of the indentured servitude at the Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Art Exhibition, warm but not as bad as it can get. Trapped like rats for seventeen days in a row, out in the elements, selling our wares. I guess God thought I needed a reminder of just how lucky I really am to have this opportunity, because just then a car was driving down Meeting Street. Inside was a passionate young man, full of love and hungry for adventure, with his mother at the wheel. That’s when Nick saw her from the passenger side window. A beautiful woman, hovering far above the Earth, facing the street. My painting of Cassandra, on the outer wall of my tent, captured Nick from afar. He told his mom to stop the car and park up, which she did, obediently. 

With the patience of a saint, his mom had learned by now there was no arguing with Nick, once he put his mind to something. And he had decided in that instant that he had to have her. At the time, he didn’t know why he wanted her; he only knew that he did want her, very badly. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig suggests we know quality in an instant and can spend the rest of our lives explaining how and why we recognized it in the first place. Maybe Nick just liked that it was a pretty girl, because what warm blooded American boy doesn’t like a pretty girl? But for Nick, getting the girl might prove more challenging than for most, because he has Cerebral Palsy. Inside, he is as normal as any young man, but his body is a prison, “doing it, whatever it is.” His own poignant words, which he was kind enough to share with me, describe his situation best:

“Let me out ot these chains please Jesus Christ
I know you let me live and you didn’t think twice.
Did I sin in a past life? if so I’m sorry Christ
But
Let me out of these chains please Jesus Christ
I am on my knees pleading with you.
I am surrounded by lead.
I am supposed to be surrounded by ladies.
Why did you give me a chance Lord? Give me a sign.
Let me out of these chains please Jesus Christ.
Why am I in these chains, please Jesus Christ?
What is you plan for me in this life?
I believe in you.
I know when I leave I will be free from these chains
I will change out of this body into my spirit.
Right now I am on Earth and doing it, whatever it is.”

Nick has every reason to feel cheated, and yet he still loves God. When I was a young man, I couldn’t get the girls to notice me; I couldn’t think up the right words to say, convinced I wasn’t good enough. What a pathetic, entitled waste of normality I was. But in all fairness, we all live in our purgatories. Some are self-made, others are foisted upon us. I believed Childhood Sexual Abuse defined me; I was imprisoned by this narrative. After many years of hard work, CSA no longer defines me. In Nick’s case, there is no amount of work he can do to change his body, although it’s hard to miss just how toned his muscles are; it’s clear he works out. At his age, we all wished we were “surrounded by ladies.”  But what I do pray and wish for him is he gets what he deserves: a kind, sweet girl who sees through his outward effect, to the loving soul he is.

But none of this explains why Nick was drawn to this particular pretty girl in this particular painting? I’d like to share Joseph Campbell‘s ideas about what might be at play here:

“Significant images render insights beyond speech, beyond the kinds of meaning speech defines. And if they do not speak to you, that is because you are not ready for them, and words will only serve to make you think you have understood, thus cutting you off altogether. You don’t ask what a dance means, you enjoy it. You don’t ask what the world means, you enjoy it. You don’t ask what you mean, you enjoy yourself; or at least, so you do when you are up to snuff.

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But to enjoy the world requires something more than mere good health and good spirits; for this world, as we all now surely know, is horrendous. ‘All life,’ said the Buddha, ‘is sorrowful’; and so, indeed, it is. Life consuming life: that is the essence of its being, which is forever a becoming. ‘The world,’ said the Buddha, ‘is an ever-burning fire.’ And so it is. And that is what one has to affirm, with a yea! a dance! a knowing, solemn, stately dance of the mystic bliss beyond pain that is at the heart of every mythic rite.”  -Joseph Campbell

I would add to the great sage’s observation with some from my own experience. I believe every work of art is made for a certain person; the challenge for the artist is to find that person. What I have learned, to my dismay, is that I must often be both artist and matchmaker. But sometimes the stars align and that certain person finds the painting, through no effort on my part.

There is something else we need to know about Nick, who is so much more than his disability. Nick Cerreto is also a painter, an artist of true vision. He discovered painting when he was twelve. And he’s been painting and showing his work ever since. In fact, his work can be seen in person at Public Works, in Summerville, through July. Count me as a fan; I love his art, which brilliantly captures his triumph over his condition. So, I’d like to think, as an artist, Nick is highly discerning and simply recognized the sincere work of a fellow artist when he saw it. We all know the real artist is the one who receives the art, not the one who makes it.

But I really think the thing that attracted Nick to my painting wasn’t the pretty girl floating above the Earth, or my masterful skill as an artist or even his highly discerning, Cassandra-like eye for the truth. It was something unseen, wrapped up and contained underneath the image itself, like a book that must be opened and read to be understood.

Like Campbell, I turn now to the Greek myth that inspired this painting for the answers to the question of why Nick was drawn to this painting. It depicts Cassandra, the Greek beauty who the God Apollo loved. Apollo loved her so much that he gave her the gift of prophesy. But because Cassandra would not return his love, Apollo cursed her by making sure no one would believe her truth. Nick is sort of a modern-day Cassandra. Like her, Nick is gifted with insight, prophetic truth, charm and good looks, knowing and feeling all the things most young man might know and feel about love and life. But he may never fully realize his hopes and dreams, because his disability is controlling the narrative at present. In time, he may find a different narrative, one in which he is not cursed. Yes, this wonderful, precious human being is trapped inside a body that simply will not cooperate. He’s like a book whose cover will most certainly be judged by the superficial among us. And honestly, the world is full of such people. But I say, who needs them anyway?

Nick’s qualities can best be appreciated when the book is opened. And it can and will be opened by those with the compassion and patience to look inside, people like his mother and others who see beyond his disability and are filling his life and their own lives with a much deeper meaning. In reality, Nick is a better man than most of us “normies” will ever be. I pray that he continues his struggle with faith. Our God is a God of miracles, and our life plans rarely go the way we want or expect them to go. Meanwhile, we all must do what we can to make peace with the present. And need I say it, to Nick and all those who have struggled with monsters? Never say never.

I think Nick somehow recognized all this complexity and somehow saw himself in Cassandra, all the way from the street. I believe this was the miracle of Nick and Cassandra that unfolded that day.  What better way to explain our petty and profound sufferings? What better way to explain such a deep connection to this painting? There’s a part of us, each and every one of us, that just knows.

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Nick got back to me after reading my projection, he offered his actual reason for being drawn to my painting of Cassandra.  Says Nick, “to me it is a woman who just dyed floating above the earth. She is on her journey to heaven ”the light ” and she is blessing the earth before she gets her wings. Like me some day.” Thank you, my friend.