Tuesday, May 10, 2011

So what happened to her?

But then what? Why did she change like that? And how did she look when she got old? She
is frozen there, in the passport photo, like someone you could know and see on the street tomorrow.
"Shermund's Work changed in the forties, in style and in voice, yet the underpinnings of the change began in the thirties--her faces became stylized and less realistic, and simultaneously her humor became less poignant."
--Funny Ladies, page 64.

As I thought of expressing those questions, someone played Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes. Seemed appropriate. (Somewhere in the world, other people live by orchards and vineyards...)

Something about it made me want to go reread a thing I once read (long forgotten the book or article I read it in) about Jean Rhys. About how someone who stayed with her reported overhearing her go through a kind of terrible crisis, somehow acting out feeling tormented, abandoned. (However, is there any chance that she knew someone was listening, actually?) I had a thought at a stoplight today, about how very picky some women are about life, how actually, they have so much self esteem, they express it in a way that looks like lack of self esteem, how it turns into something strange. Mmmm. Maybe that will be pieced together later.

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