Today

Nothing quite like arriving home to see yet another squirrel in the trap on your roof to brighten things up. And when I say, "brighten things up," I mean, put a fifty dollar damper on. I'm hoping that in my next life I come back as a large squirrel terrorizing alley cat who lives on the outskirts of a small European village, and who is fed the leftovers from fine meals of middle aged women. Is that too much to ask for?

We're in a down phase of the home planning projects. We've painted almost every room, snaked out every pipe available, we're in the midst of conducting a large scale reduction in the local squirrel population, so we're pretty much done with this house. It was a fun ride, but I'm going to put it on the market and move back to CA.

Okay, so we've still got a couple of things that will really make our house pop. I think that pop can now be used as a term that means roughly, "appeal in an slightly ostentatious yet perfectly acceptable way." Their is only one way to this when you are a youngish and childless married couple. You need to buy a painting. Paintings signify to people that you've proudly accepted the wine and imported beers stage of your life. It signifies that you've got the sort of extra income to spend on something signed by a local artiste. It signifies that in lieu of children you'll be spending your money at art galleries, sipping wine, and exchanging stories with other hip young people who you don't really care for. In short, you've got it made.

However, I think it is imperative that the painting matches the color of our dining room in some small way. Even if it's just a window pane catching light that is the exact same shade. Unfortunately, off the top of my head I can't think of any beautiful pictures that have a splash of yellow that will fit into our dining room. I'm flummoxed. And that's not a word I use lightly. I use it heavily. Where can we find a picture that will define our space, and therefore, define us, that will also match our goldenrod (or whatever) wall?


I wonder if the halo from this Rimbaud would match? I think it's a bit duller. Besides, I'm not certain that the Louvre would loan it to us, and I'd only want the original. Note: Whenever possible make it insufferably clear to people that you've recently been to the Louvre and admired pictures like this, "A Christian Martyr." By no means should you relate the story of recommending Chekhov to a vacuous young student, only to run into her two weeks later and have her tell you how great his plays are and ask you if you've ever read them to which you have to reply, "no." Thus, perhaps making you appear a bit vacuous.

Plus of the painting: You've seen it in person and were quite impressed.
Minus: Is it okay to have a floating dead woman in your dining room? or will it creep out your guests.
Plus: You can always say, "Oh, that's by Rimbaud." And if you're lucky someone will think you've made a mistake with the play write, and you can correct them again saying, "Different Rimbaud." And then quote them this poem about a different women floating in the water.
I

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...
- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.

The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;
- A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.

II

O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!
- It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.

It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights;

It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees!

Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!
You melted to him as snow does to a fire;
Your great visions strangled your words
- And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye!

III

- And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.

Arthur Rimbaud


Perhaps you could try this painting instead.


On the bright side (pun intended) you have a nice color match. And, you have a monkey trap set up on your wall. Monkey's are one of the few animals that I genuinely find to be cute, particularly if wearing diapers. On the down side you have a painting of bananas on your wall. Bananas are slightly below dead floating damsels in the pantheon of emotive pictures.

Then again, maybe you don't need a painting at all. Maybe you just need to keep a blank yellow wall that occasionally reflects the monstrous shadow of the chandelier. Maybe it is best this time to let things stay the same, to not rush to fill every last space with something that will define it. Perhaps it is time to let the sun come in through the back window to alight in a square at the back edge of the table, and to trade stories with people you've grown to love. And perhaps it is time to not reflect on how strange it is that your life has turned out this way, drinking coffee in a warm dining room, in the middle of Washington D.C. To think that you entered and lived most of your life as a stranger to the people who now consume most of your thoughts. Perhaps it is time to grab the shovel from where it has rested against the back of the house, and to dig a hole in the ground, and to bend down, mid dig, the sweat collecting on your brows, and to peer into the hole as if you might see dinosaur bones as if you were still young.