Please Happy

This is my sister. She’s backstage.

She lives in Brussels. She speaks French. She just graduated from a post-grad modern dance program at P.A.R.T.S. She’s now setting off for a whirlwind tour as a professional dancer that will include visits to Vienna, Amsterdam and Kinshasa (in the Congo). She’s athletic and strong and graceful. She is a leader in her group, organizing picnics, group games, performances….

And, I was lucky enough to visit her in her element. I saw her perform under the lights — jumping and running and shaking and spinning. My eyes never leaving her strong calves, her flowing hands. I was lucky enough to go with her to Nice and wander the dirty streets looking for a hostel. I was lucky enough to share a bed and dinners and conversations and a stony beach and a long trudge up to a fortress and lots of bread and coffee (And history, parents, memories). And love.

Thank you, Universe, for sisters! Especially Anna Kathleen Whaley.

It was like the infamous orgasmic deli scene in When Harry Met Sally. Except it involved only one person (me), a piece of cheese on a stick and a string of “mmms” that made Rue Saint-Antoine feel like my own private theater — the Fromager man with little English and lots of chuckles there alongside the speedy passersby — all silent extras in my very own five minute cheese-eating film called Orgasm Avec Fromage.

Seriously, though. It not only melts. It explodes. And lingers. And you swirl it around and smell it with your tongue and your nose. And it makes you say Mmmm and Yes! outloud. And you feel like you understand something basic and ancient and delicious in this crowded city of love.

D’adieu, Paris.

I didn’t want the lilly lady wearing red next to the red reflection of the sleepy train lady.

So, here is some blank space to break up the red.

Monet designed the space where the lillies live.

First, I walk into an all-white circular room. A decompression space for us to transition from the the outside city craziness to the art experience. A space to breathe in and out. Breathe in and out.

Once in the exhibit, also housed in an oval room, the floor to ceiling lily panoramas envelop me in cloud-water reflection. Four walls worth, with two entrances, so there is no obvious start (nor stop).

When I stand back to look, it feels as if the turquoise and pastel paint is being poured on my head and dripping down my cheeks and fingers, that I’m diving into the water, which is also the sky. It’s like in Mary Poppins when they jump into the sidewalk painting. It’s all over.

Up close, I see his layers and layers and years and years of working and reworking and looking at the world. Impulsive, calculated, dreamy, precise.

It’s all chunky paint and color and sky and water and lillies and willows and love, love, love.

Anna Dunne’s kitchen in Montmartre. You can’t see it from this pic, but if you stand in the kitchen looking out over the lavender, you can see the Eiffel Tower.