Freida Kahlo

I just watched the film, Frieda, one of my favorites, yet again.  Firstly,  BRAVO Salma who's performance is amazing.

Freida Kahlo is one of my favorite artists.  I think what I love most is the candidness of her work.  Every time I view her art, I suddenly feel as though she were a childhood friend and I had lived her experiences with her.  Each of her paintings speaks to a very specific instance of suffering she endured.  Whether she painted about her relationship with Diego Rivera, the loss of her unborn child or most profoundly, her trolley accident and the years of pain caused by it, her emotions bleed through each canvas with disturbing familiarity.

At the end of the movie, a scene which portrays the last days of Freida's life and which I have viewed countless times, had an unforeseen effect on me this time.  Completely bed bound by that point in her life, the scene takes place in Freida's bedroom with Diego entering to visit at her bedside.  He says her name and she responds, "I don't think there's any Freida left in here".  I was watching the movie with my parents and husband and suddenly found myself choking back my emotions.  Tears flowed and I tried to hide them with my hand.  The scene had subconciously reminded me of a recent conversation with my therapist where I told her that I felt like a shell of who I once was.  I thought of all of the things I had done and places I had gone and it was as though I were recalling a character in a novel.  Sometimes I can't even remember what it felt like to hike to the top of a hill and it was only two and a half years ago.

I'm certainly not comparing my experiences to those of Freida Kahlo or implying that I can begin to imagine what she endured, but at that moment I really felt like I understood her statement in that scene more than I ever had.  I never really appreciated how much my physical body and it's strengths or limitations dictated who I was as a person.  It may sound naive but it's true.  I was hoping to learn this lesson in my seventies rather than my thirties but I suppose every lesson is a good one somehow...well it sounds good anyway.