.SOMETIMES RAW.

Hello and Happy Sunday. 

I have been thinking about death and grief lately because of a family member who passed away last week. I am wondering how his family is doing and if they are feeling better or are able to heal. Is there a way to speed up the process of healing or make it more bearable for the ones who suffer the most and stay behind? 

In College I read the book “Lament for a Son” by Nicholas Wolterstorff which is about a professor who lost his son in a climbing accident. This is a fantastic book on grief and is one of the truest, heartfelt books I have ever read. I have seen many people die throughout my career as a police officer and I lost a good friend last year due to a motorcycle accident. Luckily I have not lost anybody of my close family yet. I know that it is unavoidable and I believe that the pain of loss must be all-encompassing and inexpressible. 

“Rather often I am asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote. The answer is, No. The wound is no longer raw. But it has not disappeared. That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides. So I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it. Every lament is a love-song.”

Watch this video which is beautifully done if you would like. Have a safe and healthy week. 

(Self-portrait with Thorn necklace and hummingbirds, 1940)

Hello and Happy Thursday!

“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.” – Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo (de Rivera), 1907-1954, was a Mexican painter best known for her self-portraits. Very important in her work are Mexican tradition and culture. Many times, her work has been described as surrealistic but she denied this. She believed that “her work reflects more of her reality than her dreams”. She was married to the Mexican artist Diego Rivera and many stated that this relationship was very volatile. Kahlo suffered lifelong health problems and most were caused by a tragic bus accident that she survived when she was eighteen years old. The doctors thought she would not survive this accident but she did recover – however, mostly isolated because of her injuries. She painted many self-portraits throughout this time. 

“I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”

Kahlo painted in a wheelchair, in bed laying down and even throughout times of almost complete physical immobilization. Painting was her life. And Diego Rivera. Even though the couple simultaneously cheated on each other, they ended up back together. They even divorced and remarried. Kahlo had another huge problem. She did get pregnant initially but then had miscarriages. Three times. The third one almost destroyed her mentally. She wanted a baby so badly and did not feel as a “complete woman” if she would not be able to raise her own child. Her suffering and pain is depicted and can be felt in many painting, an example, click here. 

Her suffering continued; her paintings changed. Initially she painted herself and nature – she wants to become one with nature it seems. Then the paintings started to get darker and more painful. Her health deteriorated. In 1952, Frida’s lower right leg was amputated and she became frail. She was very ill throughout her last two years and had reoccurring anxiety attacks. Diego Rivera was by her side and helped whenever he could. The morphine she took towards the end made her often delusional. Of course her paintings changed again. Frida Kahlo died on July 13th, 1954. She was just 47 years old. A couple of days before she passed away she wrote in her journal: “I hope the exit is joyful — and I hope never to return — Frida”

The two Fridas, 1939

Self portrait with monkey, 1938

See more of her artwork here. 

Current Exhibitions of Frida Kahlo’s Paintings: 

Frida Kahlo Collection at the MOMA, New York: Ongoing

Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Rehmund, Baden-Baden: Exhibition until 3 April 2016 

Museo Frida Kahlo, Mexico (Still on my bucket-list!)

Watch this great documentary on Frida Kahlo here.  I love art books and usually every time I visit the MOMA, I purchase one book before leaving. The Diary of Frida Kahlo is one of my favorite art-books by far. It is Frida Kahlo’s amazing illustrated journal which depicts a plethora of her paintings and documents the last ten years of her life. I highly recommend this book. A gem for every art-lover. 

UPDATE:   There is an amazing movie called “Frida” on Netflix if you would love to see! 

Do you like Frida Kahlo and her art? Which is your favorite painting? What other artist(s) do you like? I would love to hear from you. 

Hello and Happy Monday. Glad that you are here. 

I read to my son every night. We have these little rituals at night and always curl up in bed while he waits for his bedtime story. I love that he is into books for now.

Have you heard of the Brothers Grimm? Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm were German linguists and academics who wrote the most famous German children’s books and fairy tales. Stories like “Little Red Riding Hood”, “The Frog Prince”, “Hansel and Gretel”, “Sleeping Beauty” and many more. I found an old Brothers Grimm book on my son’s bookshelf the other day and started reading to him when I realized how dark all these stories actually are. When you are a child I believe you won’t realize that your parents just read to you that a little girl (Little Red Riding Hood) walked all by herself through the dark deep woods to find grandma’s house. Then she met a weird wolf who asks her were the grandma lives. She tells him and the wolf devours her, jumps in her bed and waits for the girl. The wolf then of course gets shot by a hunter who slits him open and puts many rocks into the wolf’s belly.  Then throws him into a well. The hunter rescues the girl, brings her back to the parents and everything is a-okay. The end. While all this sounds like a horror movie in a way this is supposed to make kids sleep. And my siblings and I slept, believe it or not. We were fine. We did not think about anything bad really or are traumatized. Or are we? Hah! 

While reading Grimm’s fairy tales you will find tons of magic. Like in Disney films and other fairy tales. However, with Grimms’, children who don’t behave might also burn to death in an oven next to a gingerbread house. And all this just because they ate pieces of the woman’s house instead of starving to death. Their parents abandoned them and sent them in the deep dark woods because they were all poor and had nothing to eat. Way to go, parents!  [wondering: a witch? or just a woman who wants to live far away from society, built herself her dream house in the middle of nowhere and now these kids come and try to eat it all up?] 

Some of these tales are just dark. Besides child abandonment (Hello, Hansel and Gretel) you will read about a woman who is kept in a tower for it seems thousand years because her hair has become so long that the prince who wants to rescue her climbs up into the tower on her hair. Say what? Yep, bizarre, I know. Rapunzel at its best. I think that these fairy tales all have one thing in common. They all do use an extraordinary language to mirror our fears and hopes of this world and to let us know that a few lucky ones are able to escape this gingerbread house, forest or tower that metaphorically means life. Of course Grimm’s tales are a bit on the darker side but as far as life lessons and moral they are right on. You teach your kids to not trust strangers (or wolfs in the park, damn you wolves!), that family is important and whatnot. And in the end we all live awesomely every after. 

However, do Fairy tales still teach us lessons today? Are Fairy tales just for kids? What are you reading to your kids?