2 enthralling details

1. After the trolley accident:

Frida lay in the debris, penetrated by bloody steel tubes all over her body. She lay there, like a flower in the swamp, like a sacrifice on the deserted Stonehenge, while shattered glass and golden dust descended gracefully.

 

 The scene reminds me of Zeus and Danae. The love Zeus bestowed in the form of golden rain didn’t bring happiness to Danae, instead, it almost ruined her. Could it be that Diego was the golden rain insinuating itself enticingly and cruelly into Frida’s life? The ecstasy, the pain, not independent of each other for one single minute. This second she was intoxicated in sheer bliss, next, trembling in the unfathomable abyss the infidelity of the beloved had left her in. “In my life there have been two accidents, one is the trolley, and the other is you. And so far, you are the much worse.”. And so what? Diego was not to blame. Men are not to blame—as long as they believe it an excuse valid enough that in casual sex they show less affection than in a handshake. And women, women that clutch so desperately and pathetically to the last fragment of loyalty, are left to repent for their own idiocy.

                                             

 2. Getting rid of the plastic cast:


 

Imprisoned in the cast, Frida had no where to plaint but on this new “skin”. “I am like the bride having a new suit everyday but the next moment all suits become doctors.” I was stunned by the beautiful cast painted all over with exquisite butterflies. She was like the caterpillar shedding the cocoon, yet instead of transforming into a butterfly, she was left as miserable and helpless as a crippled larva. Fate was not to be fought, just like her still-born baby was not to be recovered. She painted her feet. She painted her dead baby. She painted the schizophrenic woman this absurd world (represented by the couple’s American trip) helped to squash from her own body. What is not to be portrayed and what can’t she see? She was, and is the voice of the world. She is the tear of all the suffering people. She is the heart. In their life course people keep looking for the expression of their hearts, the heart, and, since most of them do not own the talent or temperament to achieve that, they adore the people who successfully deliver it. The craving. The agony. The bitterness of a restless soul. All this shall be delivered, be displayed, be chewed and digested by man so that he can indulge himself and then let go. Some do it merely by their faces, (such as Dreiser’s Sister Carrie). There’s no natural or nurtured mask on their face so that the information of the soul clearly shown there and appreciated. Writers do it through their pens, composers through the scores, and Frida, her crayon. So far so good, yet what if the messenger is not sure about her own voice? To doubt, to dismiss, to endure, while the questions about life are still left unanswered. “ I hope the exit will be joyful and never to return.”. Frida’s last word was as good as any others’, maybe the best as long as it’s true.


Sept.2005