Dancers in the Rotunda at the Paris Opéra

My Struggle and Visit to Norton Simon Museum

Writing is like chipping away at ice melt; you try to finish your work before it becomes a puddle of water. Time is passing, and each moment brings another empty gesture to get something finished, but one feels like they are living in a frozen time. I write a word or sentence here and there, but I see the couch calling out for me, and once I lay down, it is like I have reached my Waterloo moment. I can get up, but for what purpose? I will be knocked down again, more likely add another sentence, and then rinse, wash, and repeat.

The mechanics of life are a slow grind, and as the bank account gets smaller and the weight adds on, it is a process that I can easily say goodbye to, but it sticks like castor oil; you never remove the stickiness or the oil feel off your hands. I can go out for coffee, but my phone tells me the air quality is terrible in Los Angeles. There is no reason why, except there are layers of industrial fog stuck in the basin, and it is like we are the second layer of an ice cream soda, with the bad air being the cherry on top of the soda.

I developed a bad habit of a series of bad phobias that I think are from my childhood. I have traces of memories of fears, and they disappeared and then appeared around when I was 21. And now, at 70, they are back. I am hyper-sensitive to the world around me, especially in architecture and space-related areas. As a self-therapy, I have been going to the Norton Simon Museum on their free first Fridays of the month. I was dreading to go, but there are no rules. If I felt uncomfortable, I would leave. So, I entered the museum lobby and turned left to see their 19th-century paintings. I felt OK in that room, but I had to hold on to my wife as we walked around to look at the paintings.

Once I felt comfortable, we went into the other room. What disturbs me is how the rooms are laid out. They are shaped like a T, and one can either go left or right. But the attached rooms are long, and for whatever reason, it gives me vertigo. With the help of my wife, we went into the other room. The first painting I came to was Edgar Degas’s Dancers in the Rotunda at the Paris Opéra, painted between 1875 and 1878 when the artist was around forty-four. The work was finished in 1894, which is interesting because Degas took his time but returned to complete this painting. His significant change was using his fingertips instead of a brush to make the work softer. It’s an image of six ballet dancers working in a dance studio. Also, it looks like he drew their legs in dark paint/ink, which feels like his memory is working, and he wanted to add particular details. There is a looseness, but also very sensual, in how these dancers are portrayed on the canvas.

Lun*na and I sat in the Norton Simon Museum garden with a glass of wine. We both agreed that we needed to base our backyard on the landscape of this garden. Of course, we have no budget or funds to pay for such a garden landscape, but ideas or inspiration come before finances. I believe I can turn our sad-looking backyard into something more like the Norton Simon private park. Nancy Goslee Power and Frank Gehry designed and made this garden inspired by Monet’s Giverny. Is there any logical reason for me not having such a garden for our yard? Can I afford to hire Nancy Goslee Power to do such a project?