John William Waterhouse

John William Waterhouse

One of these prints (can you guess which one?) has been hanging above me every night as I sleep for nine years. So lovely and wonderful. xoxo

In high school, I was going with a new friend to see MacBeth.

(...This friend was so amazing - she rang the bell in our private school every morning. I went with her once, crawled up through the attic of our school through a hidden door - banged my head pretty good on a thick wooden beam, didn't let on to the pain - and watched her pull down on the thick rope that led high up to an opening where sky and bell met. On the upswing she would rise with the rope off the wooden slat boards of the floor and into the air. She would giggle softly under her breath with pure delight with every upswing. This girl, we'll call her Marion, had a tendency to shun shoes so to see her rise and fall with the bell, in jean overalls and barefoot left me awestruck. I got to ring the bell with her once but learned that you had to have a certain rhythm as holding the rope, you fell to your knees and then lept into the air, and down again, like a ballerina doing a plie and then soaring straight upwards.

Regardless, the day I rang the bell, the symmetry of the rings were not even and I recall swinging, flailing side to side on the rope, hoping to land on my feet with each landing. I thought it a pity that I could not ring the bell as beautifully as she. She was one of the closest embodiment to a nymph or fairy that I ever met.).

...so back to the story...I was fresh friends with Marion and I had gone home with her after school and we were to attend a performance of MacBeth at school that night. I thought it high-brow of me. I remember her room smelled of dried herbs and berries and there were a few of John William Waterhouse's works on her walls. I remember walking into her room and taking a full 10 minutes to circle slowly and take everything in. She had bits of beautiful nature and seeds and flowers, art projects, paintings, and Cd's strewn perfectly across the carpet. If my memory serves me correctly, she was holding the universe of freedom in her room. It was as if I had entered a mysterious and beautiful netherworld of a secret society of amazing women. This was how amazing women lived. They had non conventional ephemera and bits of the earth all around them. They were full in their skin and felt themselves in the presence of time and space. I loved the experience of walking into a natural high, something my life at home did not seem to have. Each moment seemed stretched to eternity and every movement was amplified and graceful. (I being the less graceful felt awkward and huge in her presence).

I have lost my train of thought for now. I guess just that Marion introduced me, in a beautiful way, to John William Waterhouse.

She had this painting on the wall...

and these are some more of my later found favorites... xoxo