Angie Weeping

This week, we have out of town guests. Normally, I love having guests, showing everyone around this city, especially people that think that Philadelphia has no redeeming qualities. I like pointing out the history and art, the beauty of the city...I like telling those goofy Philly stories, showing them it really is a small town by walking around and running into people everywhere. Of course, it is different now. I wasn't sure I would have the energy to do it. Everyone seems a little bored with my stupid banal knowledge of the city. Perhaps I've truly lost my joie de vivre, or maybe, closer to the truth is, no one ever really enjoyed my ridiculous tour guiding.

Still, we hit the Art Museum yesterday, which is impressive without me having to do anything. Just by its mere existence. Now, I have a membership, and have gone/go quite a bit, but it has been a while since I wandered around the permanent collection. I generally go for a new show, or just head up to the Asian art section and Buddha-gawk. So, I was delighted to have an excuse to look at the European collection. The Philadelphia Art Museum has an amazingly vast collection of truly beautiful work. I was impressed with us. Go Philly.

Then, we decided to hit the American collection. I had forgotten that the Gross Clinic had become part of the permanent collection, and was excited to see the other Eakins. We walked into a room filled with quintessentially American furniture, and glassware, and I walked around. Wide-eyed, taking it in, and then BAM, there it was. Rachel Weeping. And the room began spinning, and I searched for an exit. My niece, age 7, stood next to me, and said, "Is she dead?" and I was faltering, "Yes, I think so. I have to go." And I turned around, past my family, past my husband, just saying, I need to walk, I need to walk. and the tears were streaming down my face.

I couldn't pull it together. I couldn't reign it in. I was just simply a wreck. Why didn't I notice these paintings before? Or the songs, or the poems, or the anything...how ignorant I was. I felt such a pull of two emotions. One screamed like an insane women, "Get me out of here. Get me out of here." And the other wanted to pull each person to this painting and say, "See how sad she is. This is how sad I am too." Of course, these incidents always remind of how universal this is, how very human losing my child to stillbirth is, but that doesn't make it any fucking easier. Sure, I feel very very human and very very fragile.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, a day I have been waiting for since Lucy died, and I was a mess. When we got home, everyone wanted to head to the playground, while I just lay in bed and sobbed. It took all of my energy, all of my everything to get up when I heard them, and try to make it look like I hadn't been crying for an hour and a half. Last night, I looked up the painting on line, because I was ready to look at it. I was prepared, unlike the chance encounter we had in the American collection. And when I found the painting on a blog, it said, "Rachel Weeping, by Charles Willson Peale. Above is a painting by Charles Willson Peale of his wife Rebecca weeping over her dead little one. This painting is a poignant reminder of one of the blessings of modern life: the drastic lowering of child and infant mortality."

Fuck you, blog writer.