I hate Rembrandt.
I suppose it's time I wrote some sort of entry here. I'm sure it's time to write anything. Now, I know you may be thinking, "Rembrandt? How can you hate Rembrandt? Wasn't he one of the greatest classic painters to come from Europe?" Possibly you're thinking this. Or you agree with me, which is to be commended no matter your cause.
Sunday was horrible. I actually lost my temper, which never happens, and I cursed at my boss. Throw in a couple existential plays, running tech at a professional theatre for the first time in my life, and some timely hormones and voila: one upset and very stressed out Karen. So I thought at the end of my day, which wasn't really all that long, I would stop by the museum. I would sit and stare at that El Greco of the Crucifixion for an hour and everything in my life would make sense again.
I arrived, walked up a set of spiral marble stairs, into a wood paneled hall and to my right I see the two doorways which should lead into the Spanish exhibit. Should? The doorways are blocked off. The walls are empty and there is a disgustingly well designed poster for an upcoming Rembrandt exhibit. Rembrandt. Rembrandt has replaced the Spanish room.
My heart falls right through the floor. Onto what I believe is the American wing. I go back downstairs, pick up my heart and I ask the young girl behind the information desk if perhaps it has. He has. Been Moved. And she just gives me three little words. Three little words that take my heart and throw it into the Greco-Roman hall and stomp on it.
Not on view.
And of course she has no idea when it will be back. At least I turned around before I started crying and headed out the door.
I'm not certain which is worse: the idea that my friend, this painting, may be somewhere miles away with a lender or borrower; or that He is in a dark basement in storage in a cold vault underground.
You see, once you've studied paintings, and researched, and attempted copies of them, they become friends. You walk into a museum miles from home where you don't know a soul and suddenly you are surrounded by familiar faces. El Greco, Renoir, Rodin, Goya, Manet, Chagall, Derain, Cezanne, Seurat, Monet, Pissarro, Picasso, Degas, Bologna, and on and on into more galleries and rooms and hallways and you find more friends. And to look for that one friend who was there not so long ago, that one that is the only one you want to see, could see on a day like today, and to find him absent? Well I cried all the way home. Because I failed at Sunday. I failed. C'est ma faute.
Mais, you pick yourself up again, and He tells you it's okay, and it is. It is. And fittingly we watched Amazing Grace when I got home. And I remembered the world, and how many people and countries that have been on my heart lately. And I remembered that it isn't all about me.
And that's why I don't think I can do theatre for another year.
Sunday was horrible. I actually lost my temper, which never happens, and I cursed at my boss. Throw in a couple existential plays, running tech at a professional theatre for the first time in my life, and some timely hormones and voila: one upset and very stressed out Karen. So I thought at the end of my day, which wasn't really all that long, I would stop by the museum. I would sit and stare at that El Greco of the Crucifixion for an hour and everything in my life would make sense again.
I arrived, walked up a set of spiral marble stairs, into a wood paneled hall and to my right I see the two doorways which should lead into the Spanish exhibit. Should? The doorways are blocked off. The walls are empty and there is a disgustingly well designed poster for an upcoming Rembrandt exhibit. Rembrandt. Rembrandt has replaced the Spanish room.
My heart falls right through the floor. Onto what I believe is the American wing. I go back downstairs, pick up my heart and I ask the young girl behind the information desk if perhaps it has. He has. Been Moved. And she just gives me three little words. Three little words that take my heart and throw it into the Greco-Roman hall and stomp on it.
Not on view.
And of course she has no idea when it will be back. At least I turned around before I started crying and headed out the door.
I'm not certain which is worse: the idea that my friend, this painting, may be somewhere miles away with a lender or borrower; or that He is in a dark basement in storage in a cold vault underground.
You see, once you've studied paintings, and researched, and attempted copies of them, they become friends. You walk into a museum miles from home where you don't know a soul and suddenly you are surrounded by familiar faces. El Greco, Renoir, Rodin, Goya, Manet, Chagall, Derain, Cezanne, Seurat, Monet, Pissarro, Picasso, Degas, Bologna, and on and on into more galleries and rooms and hallways and you find more friends. And to look for that one friend who was there not so long ago, that one that is the only one you want to see, could see on a day like today, and to find him absent? Well I cried all the way home. Because I failed at Sunday. I failed. C'est ma faute.
Mais, you pick yourself up again, and He tells you it's okay, and it is. It is. And fittingly we watched Amazing Grace when I got home. And I remembered the world, and how many people and countries that have been on my heart lately. And I remembered that it isn't all about me.
And that's why I don't think I can do theatre for another year.