Bukowski has a ton of poetry, and is perhaps more well-known and respected for his poetry than his prose but his novels are essentially memoirs of his life - which make them interesting and provide the reader with a sense of realism. This is not life in suburbia with a few kids and a minivan and private schools. This is world where the next few bucks to buy the next drink is the most important objective of the day. It is a rough and tumble world where death or serious bodily harm is possible every day. It is survival of the drunkest.
Chinanski, like Bukowski, lived in the bars, horse tracks, liquor stores, and shithole apartments of society as a boozer with little ability to hold down a job or have any meaningful relationships. When he does find stability of sorts, he works for 10 years in a soul sucking job with the US Postal Service, which provides the content for one of his novels, Post Office. This period, coincidently, corresponds with a 10 year absence from writing.
Bukowski's novels take their way through his life, from his youth in Ham on Rye with an abusive father and various self-esteem killing ailments - including a nasty bout with boils, to the latter part of his life when one of his books is being made into a movie in Hollywood. If you are wondering, the movie is called Bar Fly with Mickey Rourke. A few years ago, one of his other books, Factotum, was also made into a movie with Matt Dillion. His last novel, Pulp, was written shortly before he died. Amazingly he made it to age 72, original liver still intact.
For me, one of his most revealing novels is called Women. This takes place after Chinanski (Bukowski) has achieved some literary success and is getting more and more interest from women, including ones quite a bit younger than him. What you come to learn about the author and his exploits, is that even with all his flaws and poor choices, he is strangely a romantic. He has a deep love for women, with all their complexity, quirks, emotions, problems, and flaws as well as their tenderness and beauty and empathy and sexuality and love and care. He is after all a poet at heart.
It is probably hard to believe - given that articles have been written about how to never date a Bukowski fan or that he is a misogynist - that he really wants and needs a woman in his life. He wants to be cared for. He wants routine. He wants more than a hangover and another juicehead sprawled across his floor with little recollection on how she got there. He just doesn’t know how to help himself. Bukowski is certainly not perfect and never claims to be – and that is why he is so refreshing. He doesn't treat women as well as he should and never fully shows remorse. In reality, nor do most men. I, as a man, certainly should feel worse for my misgivings with the women in my life. It is not that I don't have them, I just don't show them. I don’t know how to help myself.
Eventually Bukowski stayed married for the latter part his life and finds some peace but it was a broken, wet, and downright dirty road to get there. But even that relationship had its rocky moments. Surprisingly, he also had a daughter from a previous marriage. The thing I like about Bukowski is that he is able to admit that he, the woman, and his relationships with them are imperfect. They are real. And real is messy. But you just survive another day, hung-over or not. He was once quoted as saying, “You have to die a few times to learn how to live.”
I think one of the reasons Bukowski has been on the forefront of my mind is that I believe my accident has changed me. It is not that I want to see where a bottle a day can take me, it is that my interaction with people is different. Perhaps it has to do with how I see myself. Maybe it is what I see valuable in friendships, in conversation, in interpersonal contact. And a big part of that has to do with women.
If it weren’t for women, I never would have recovered, physically or mentally. The paramedics were women. The nurses at the hospital were women. The PTs and dieticians and Pilates instructors were all woman. The physician assistant is a woman. My sister. My mom. My aunts. My wife. My daughter. My mother-in-law. My nieces. My boss. My sisters-in-law - in particular my wife's twin sister.
Did I mention my wife? No one has carried and live through recovery like my wife. She has had to endure more conversation about hips and pelvic tilts and avascular necrosis and limps and crutches and pain and canes and screws than she ever would have dreamed. And she has never once not supported me. She has attended every appointment and has lived it as if it were her own injury.
The only male directly involved has been the surgeon. And side from the surgery, he hasn't done much. There are only a couple of other males and those are the personal trainer and a coworker. The personal trainer has helped greatly and if he lived nearby, I am sure I would spend a lot time speaking with him. The coworker is also far away and in North Carolina. But even by phone he has been great counsel and great support to me. There are others but the interaction is far less frequent.
My realization of this internal change came as a part of conversations I have had with other writers and bloggers, all of whom are female. I sat and had coffee with one friend and writer and had great, in-depth conversation. I also attended a gathering with a group of about 6 other women and talked about everything from kids and parents to funny household stories.
Before my accident I don’t think I would have ever even thought of doing such a thing. Nor been in position where I would have even been invited. Nor would I have enjoyed it as much as I did. I enjoyed their depth of thought. I enjoyed their humor. I enjoyed their lack of airs. I enjoyed their stories. I saw what I had been missing. I saw myself.
What I mean is that I enjoyed is their ability to convey a sense of reality. These are moms with 2, 3, 4 kids, all under the age of 10. Some have jobs outside the house. Some don’t. They are all, however, very busy people who are surviving in their own way. No one has enough sleep. The kids have a million activities. Spouses travel. Parents are getting old. Budgets are tight. Jobs are lost. Kids have problems. The furnace breaks. In laws are pains in the ass. Relationships ebb and flow. On and on.
But that is the beauty and color of life. And one shows that better than women. They feel okay with admitting that they, like Bukowski, have died a few times and found a way to live. And that is comforting and inspiring. And it is hopeful. I feel that writing again and talking about life with women has helped me evolve into a better, more well-rounded person. Unfortunately, I have about a million years of evolution to go before I catch up with the females of the world.
Just as you can tell from Bukowski’s work, the women in my life sometimes irk me. Sometimes I think they are nuts. Sometimes I want to go to garage. Sometimes I wish I was alone in the woods. But women have helped me recover physically and mentally better than any legion of men ever could. And I now stand to have more friends who want to explore the depths of surviving life and children and love. And if that happens in the cozy homes and coffee shops of St Paul, Minnesota instead of the mean streets of L.A., that’s okay. Survival is survival, bottle in hand or not.
Bukowski never really achieved mainstream success until later in life and perhaps that is why his work always has a subtle undercurrent of hope. And if I have learned anything from the women in my life is that hope is never lost.
So in honor of the women, I raise my glass. Charles Bukowski would have it no other way.
Thanks for reading…
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