the stone lady

When I was a teenager I went and saw Steel Magnolia's with a girlfriend of mine. Her mother had died less than a month before and both of us were still too young to really know how to manage it. I remember that sinking feeling as I watched the film that it was not going to end well and I started planning my strategy. I was determined not to cry even as the egg in my throat started weighing down on my heart. How could I cry at  Hollywood make-believe when sitting next to me was some one who had just lost her own mother to an insidious disease. So I sat there, mute, dried eyed right through to the end and then probably made some insightful comment about how wonderful Dolly Parton had been. A few years later my friend teased me and called me 'the stone woman' for how unemotional I had been that day. Of course I felt miscast ( I mean cry over dead pigeons for goodness sake) and just to prove it I cried like a baby when we went to see Philadelphia a few months later on. Now I cry with great gusto at any movies I see. I think my best effort was watching Jesus of Montreal. Inconsolable. Anyway I only mention the stone woman because of the one I recently painted for a knowledgeable-frau I know in Basel. A thank you I suppose but definitely not a good bye. I much prefer this stone woman though she's not afraid of anything.