I have decided a need a little mirror above my desk so I may see the trees reflected in it while I work. This is the first time in many years that I have worked facing a wall, and I keep gazing at the reflection of the street in my framed print of Carl Larsson's old lady in black. She stands, white handkerchief clasped in old, elegant hands, staring out at us through black wire spectacles. Behind her, a green porch on which an old man sits, looking up from his paper. To the left of the painting stretches a red clapboard house with white framed windows. A ladder leans up against the roof. Beside the woman in heavy black frock and apron, a riot of greenery, blooming red dahlias and blue blooms.
Honestly, it wouldn't have been my preferred Larsson print--I would have gone for the girl watering a row of geraniums blooming on a
windowsill. I feel romantic about geraniums (though you'd never know it, since I didn't rescue mine fast enough and they are frozen purple outside).
But this print has been growing on me. I love looking at the old lady in black. Her wispy white hair frames a truly beautiful face, a face in which you can glimpse what she was as a young woman, but you are happy to be looking at her now, and not as she once was.
At first glance she seems stern or worried, but then when you look closer and for a while (as I have, sitting here for hours), you realize that maybe she is remembering something, or thinking over something private--and her slightly fly-away hair under the black cap suggests a whimsical nature. She makes me think of my friend Kara, how she will be as an old woman. I hope I will be as beautiful, though I am not beautiful and Scandinavian, but a Finnish-English-who-knows-what mongrel with a funny nose. At least I hope to have the depth in my eyes.
Now to the book. It moves so slowly. I have found myself glancing obsessively at the word count, which is always a bad sign. Well, sometimes writing is fun and sometimes it is just mainly work. Hopefully today will be a mixture of both!
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| Image from Wikipedia--Painting by Carl Larsson |
Honestly, it wouldn't have been my preferred Larsson print--I would have gone for the girl watering a row of geraniums blooming on a
windowsill. I feel romantic about geraniums (though you'd never know it, since I didn't rescue mine fast enough and they are frozen purple outside).
But this print has been growing on me. I love looking at the old lady in black. Her wispy white hair frames a truly beautiful face, a face in which you can glimpse what she was as a young woman, but you are happy to be looking at her now, and not as she once was.
At first glance she seems stern or worried, but then when you look closer and for a while (as I have, sitting here for hours), you realize that maybe she is remembering something, or thinking over something private--and her slightly fly-away hair under the black cap suggests a whimsical nature. She makes me think of my friend Kara, how she will be as an old woman. I hope I will be as beautiful, though I am not beautiful and Scandinavian, but a Finnish-English-who-knows-what mongrel with a funny nose. At least I hope to have the depth in my eyes.
Now to the book. It moves so slowly. I have found myself glancing obsessively at the word count, which is always a bad sign. Well, sometimes writing is fun and sometimes it is just mainly work. Hopefully today will be a mixture of both!
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