The Angelus & Intercourse With The World

Late last week I left my flat and headed into Davis Square, Somerville, which is about a mile away. In a coffee shop that was not Someday Cafe (I'm still angry about them closing), I perused a book on the world history of art which I had purchased at McIntyre and Moore Booksellers moments before. Cramming the entire history of art and architecture into about 700 pages is an absurd undertaking, but useful to freshman in college for a survery course. I didn't buy the book for the words, though, but for the fantastic color prints.

As I savored my $4 cup of coffee and scowled at a bourgeois prick who wouldn't stop talking loudly about himself, I started to get lost in the art. Edward Hopper is in there, and he's my favorite artist...probably. Before long I discovered emotions stirring in my sorry little mind. As I contemplated each familiar painting my chest began to constrict, and I felt heavy all over. My breathing breathing became shallow, as well, and I thought that I was having an anxiety attack, but I wasn't. It was more like the feeling one gets reading an old love letter. There was no bitterness, only a feeling of fond remembrance and sadness from loss.

Then I got to a painting by Jean-Francois Millet called, The Angelus. I posted it here on my blog, above. I swallowed hard and bit my tongue in a way that one might in an attempt to fight back tears, perhaps to avoid embarrassment at being moved by a sentimental movie or song. Why was I reacting in this fashion? I wasn't so moved at university when I looked at these very same works of art. Well, this morning at around 3am it occured to me why this happened. Sadly, I see myself as a man, or a thing, apart from the world, as malformed and sickly. In a sense, this book was a love letter from a time when I felt roughly normal. And it reminded me of my love of my fellow human beings. My hatred of myself is real, but my cynicism is faux; I'm an romantic.

I stopped looking at the book when I got to American Realism, and perused The Boston Globe instead. At some point a woman, probably in her 40's and very tall, laughed genuinely and loudly at an unheard comment by her friend. It was a lovely spontaneous human melody, and it alone made her comely. Otherwise, she seemed distant and locked in an unpleasant frame of mind. But what a laugh. I would have liked to have gotten to know her.

I'm ambivalent about what happened next. I had 17 pages of research for a short story in a UMass Boston folder that I've had for years. The story is all about how disconnected we all are from each other, and that we use hate as much as love to come together. Intercourse with the world is what we desire most, and what motivates it is a secondary concern. Anyway, I had my little folder in my little hand and I accidentally left it on the table in Diesel Cafe. It's strange to me that I don't care. Perhaps I'm happy to be free of the way those 17 pages insisted on being used to write something.

Well, that's all I have today. Be well. I'm going to go have a Cup o' Noodles.