[Also I wanted/to be able to love.1]
I read something recently and for the life of me, uncharacteristically and threateningly, can’t remember the citation, but what I took from it is be careful not to turn old versions of yourself, prior selves, into antagonists (i.e. villains, i.e. quit warring with them would you). This imperative is not about reconciliation necessarily, or virtue, it’s more about freedom, about choosing something other than flagellation, harping (how did the harp get deputized for our exasperation in this way? lmk if you know).
Anyway, it’s embarrassing to be alive, humiliating even. The personal and vicarious emotion of it all, rancid…despicable, threaten to overtake. And still, there is a kind of acceptance, peace that is blistering, ferocious — which is contradictory, paradoxical. You can’t look directly at it, it’s like the sun. It includes all of the ways this existence feels like an elaborate humiliation ritual, transforms them. This enormous, powerful regard transforms. I don’t know how it works this is my vague notion. This is what comes to mind looking at this photograph of Frida Kahlo, which I saw on Sunday afternoon. She looks lost in thought, but not unpeaceful, a quiet moment, hands folded, upright on the four poster bed. I think that’s a dog sleeping in front of her, she might be (light) years away.
She looks like she is on speaking terms, maybe even affectionate terms, with all of her selves. She looks stern and gorgeous. Sure, there have been sharp edges, but none as sharp as the colors; paintbrushes and easel and universes from bed. As many portraits as it takes, work reaching out all the way across over and over.
Dogfish, Mary Oliver - been keeping me company for months now