if I could only get you oceanside.

I plague myself with an image of idealized love. It comes out of my fingertips in almost everything that I do - painting, writing, even underlining the writing of others. I've been called a hopeless romantic more times than I can count and it never bothered me because I know that's what I am. The problem, for me, comes when I am forced to realize that perhaps my idea of love is not realistic, or that the loves that I have thought to be perfect were not as perfect as they seemed. The relationship of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera is one that has fascinated me. While I did not find that to be completely ideal, seeing as he cheated on her regularly and she herself took many other lovers, Frida and Diego could not stay away from each other. They needed each other. Life wasn't life without the other one. I fell in love with the relationship of Henry Miller and Anais Nin when I read Henry and June, but even he cheated on her (as he was cheating on his own wife with Anais). What gets me about these couples is the intellectual connection and passion that they shared. Is it too much to ask for fidelity and a passionate and creative relationship? And if you're lucky enough to have such a relationship in the palm of your hands, how do you keep your crazy creative mind from becoming paranoid? These are things I think about a lot, and too much. Thinking too much is a problem of mine. I heard someone say once, "She doesn't allow weaknesses in others because she doesn't allow them in herself." I'm thinking about the last scene of Breakfast at Tiffany's, when Paul Varjek leaves Holly in the cab and tells her she's scared of being in a cage but she's already in a cage and she built it herself. I am building cages. Sometimes I think I wait for things that don't exist and miss out on what is earthly perfection when it's right in front of me. I am trying to learn. I am trying to grow. I am trying to value my own worth. I've found myself untamable. I am ready to be tamed, should someone know how to tame me.

all in green went my love riding.

I've always had a thing for couples from throughout history who were artists, writers, musicians, etc. Women and men who found another being that fueled them creatively in addition to their love. Maybe it's that two individually passionate people can make excedingly spectacular passion together. Romaine Brooks had a number of partners like this. Of course for Anais Nin, Henry Miller was the one and only inspiration for her best works. Lately I've been thinking about Georgia O'Keefe the painter and Alfred Stieglitz the photographer. He fell in love with her hands, and extensively photographed her for decades in an attempt to capture every aspect of her. Unlike the other couples mentioned, Georgia and Alfred married and stayed that way until his death. Very romantic, no?


photographs of Georgia O'Keefe by Alfred Steiglitz.