The Water Lilies
I know now why I cry every time I see monet’s water lilies. The red hue of his cataracts can be echo’d by many phenomena, from the modern ultra-physical blasts of blue light from screens everywhere casting a reddish hue on the rest of the world to his own meta-spiritual experiences of personal tragedy. Cut off from his family, an attempted suicide, fleeing to London to escape the war only to find social isolation and devastating losses back home. The saving grace, but of course his time in museums.
It’s amazing the beautiful things you can be in front of and can’t quite see living like this, the tears making it all blend together. Knowing how quickly it can be gone, it’s easier not to let them clear—for when the soft edges are replaced by harsh reality the picture isn’t so beautiful anymore. A gloss forms over your eyes, can’t let them leak to wash away the makeup. Your edges must be hidden as well, the rest of the world can’t handle wearing the weight of those rose tinted glasses.
They need to tear you down to hide you from the truth of who holds the key to your shackles. “Don’t let the man get you down” says the men trying to keep you down. What they mean by this is to never ask for help. To stand small on your own, so that you are easier to control. But truth is the tower that is always being built. Ebbs and flows, as the oil burns Atlantis grows. With each painted stroke of beauty shared a wound is undone. With every glance at the canvas a sword falls to the ground.
These museums, this history, this understanding… the importance of passing on our experiences so that another may not suffer in our shoes. To take pain and find healing, if not in ourselves in our brothers and sisters. To share our understanding of beauty so that others can finally see the beauty within us, and wish to uplift us rather than strike us down. Behind the paradisean kingdom of the fertile greens and majestic purple hues found within the water lily’s are the bruises and poison that so desperately need to be tended to and washed away.