Tears with Rothko

I’ve been on a healing journey leaning into outreach and vulnerability as a way to quiet my sense of hyper independence and this long lasting idea that I need to handle everything on my own. This means more plans with friends, reaching out to them with honesty and openness to survive rather than isolating within ruminating thoughts and overwhelm. A curse of the eldest daughter.

I had been looking forward to meeting up with a friend at the Menil park but when I arrived by the grassy field I got no answer from them. In this moment I was pleased to find myself understanding of their current situation, watching the wind pick up the leaves in tiny swirls, dancing on the street. I decided to take the opportunity to spend this quality time by myself instead.

I roamed down the sidewalk under the gray, overcast sky unfazed by the potential rain that might come. Strolling past high brush I was met with a warm smile from a mother embracing her tiny, satisfied child, their gaze shifting then to a monumental statue.

Its broken peak reached for the hazy clouds as I watched the water shiver with the wind and its rusting bodice wave to me in the pond surrounding the triangular prism. Its stillness felt betraying, balanced on its tip atop its pyramidic stand as if at any moment the wind might nudge it off its crown. Yet it remained unyielding to the wind. A symbol for civil unrest, for a questioning of the times at hand, a dedication to Martin Luther King Jr. and a movement of the people.

I sat in its strength, watching the mother and her child enjoying this moment of peace. Their presence made me feel at home, safe in the middle of the city. When they looked at me a sense of familiarity and acknowledgement was exchanged. A warm smile, a knowingness in her eyes as she gently held her child.

The Obelisk seemed to watch us in our own defiance, resting in the public on a weekday morning while others worked, or mourned over the disruption of their families across the country. I thought then that maybe it was a talisman for protection in the space we’d chosen for respite.

I held onto that feeling as I got up to notice the chapel.

What I experienced inside the Rothko Chapel stayed with me long after I left.

It was a moment of quiet transformation I didn’t expect—and I’ve written about it in full as part of my new reflective series on art, healing, and memory.

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