Rambling Thought

Today I am running from one commitment to the next. Wake up, walk the dog, off to docent training, then on to work, to the cleaners and the grocery store, home again, make dinner, and don't forget to post on the blog.

Luckily LaValle, Roger, and I had five peaceful minutes with Nature's Fan between my two tours of the European galleries. These five minutes were spent contemplating the girl's inward and contemplative expression, the baby's grubby paws, the painting as a scene of a simpler life, patrons of these pieces as nouveau riche Americans, and who is this guy who spends his whole life painting little girls? This man who lost his wife and hoped to remarry, but listened to his mother. Think Moonlighting. This gifted man who had so many children to feed and lived on commissions. Would he have chosen other subjects if he hadn't needed money?

Would I? Today I wanted to crawl into that scene. I wanted to take off my shoes, grab some leaves, tickle that little baby, let him kick me if that's what his floating foot is all about. I want to be as impersonal and off in la la land as that nanny peasant girl. It isn't so much that the grass is greener, but that there is grass at all.