Happy Pisces Season, friends!
In 2000, I lived in a weird apartment in South Philly’s Italian section, right at 12th and Tasker. It was weird because there was no closet, and I never noticed until I moved in. My trapeze artist boyfriend would literally crawl up the wall into my apartment and just appear to show me how unsafe it was, but I actually liked it. It was one big room with all my books, a table, futon, and me. I took lots of baths.
There was an opera café across the street, you know, a café where the waiters sing opera while serving you. I would hear them practice in the afternoon when all my windows were wide open. I was back in college after a hiatus to get married, move to the desert, learn a bunch of stuff about myself, and then come back to Philadelphia. I was kind of beaten by life at that point. I had a failed marriage. I was living off student loans and working in a vegan café as a cook. My parents owned their second house were married with two kids by my age.
I was confused about my life—I had been a film major, and really wanted to go back to my childhood love of journalism, but I had been encouraged to study something I loved and write about it, rather than take journalism classes. So, I became a religion major, but I started taking some of classes outside of my major for pre-requisites in different schools, and I was taking a figure drawing class. I loved that class. I wanted that class to be 100% of my time, and the professor got me after class and said, “Angie, you should major in Art, or at the very least minor in it.” And I said, I have so much going on. I can’t imagine adding another thing. I was already in the Honors College, and working, and taking 16 credits. And she said every class, “Think about it.”
Art is part of my psyche and my life, and so I did think about it all the time. I also was healing from some significant relationship pain and trauma, which I will not go into here. One afternoon, I was just lying on my bed reading a magazine of artwork, like one does. And I saw this painting. It was a white abstract painting and very small in script on the edge of the painting it said, “don’t cry.” And I stared at it for so long. That was basically my mantra from the time I was 4. Don’t cry. Don’t’ cry. Don’t cry. When I cried, even at that age, I would beg my mother not to tell my dad that I cried today. Please do not tell him, because he would make fun of me...wah, did the baby cry? I was still a baby, but still, I always tried to stop myself crying. But that painting, it took me back to a time when I tried so hard to be strong when I need gentleness. It made me cry and cry for that 4 year old.
I cut that painting out and put it up on my fridge. Many years later, I found Yoshitomo Nara’s painting Don't Cry, 2012 and still have that as a wallpaper on my computer. But I think it resonated because this is my wound—don’t cry. That simply phrase—the one my father said in his actions, the one I repeated in my head because I felt so damned emotional all the time, the phrase that I ended up rebelling against after my daughter died. Crying is how I healed. Crying is how I feel. Crying is my greatest gift. Crying is the opening of the heart.
And so I say this because Crying is Pisces's gift. Emotions can be close to the surface. When you notice yourself saying, "Don’t cry, suck it up, be a man, grow some ovaries, or whatever abusive, societal crap you say in your head, rebel! Fight against it. Just cry, damnit. Cry cry cry..be dramatic. Draw a bath and linger in the melodrama of it all….it is okay. That is why we have bathtubs!
Love you.