The other person who treated me with enmity was ER. She owned a small vintage shop with an art studio behind. I'm not sure if she produced much art.
Like PM, she was a bitter person, though perhaps happier now. I think her husband was rather countercultural and ER was a conflicted countercultural. Her relative poverty beat her down. Her husband didn't make much money and I don't think her shop did very well, since it was quite expensive compared to the Eye. It was also upstairs in a downtown building and not as well situated.
When I went into a thrift store, ER would say to her young daughter, "Uh oh. We have to hurry before SHE gets the good stuff!" I thought this was a joke, till I talked to my friend Charlotte. Charlotte's beautiful daughter Kate (for whom I babysat) was friendly with ER's daughter Emma. Charlotte said, "ER asked me why you always try to talk to her." Oh. How humiliating. I hadn't realized my very chats were unwelcome. So--in a mean-spirited way--I never spoke to her again. Not a single word.
Watching these unhappy people made me realize--though it took a while--that picking was not a permanent career for me, fun as it was. ER--in one of our few chats before I learned how much she disliked me--said "I went to the Art Institute of Chicago! I have a BFA! I'm an artist! I should be a curator! I shouldn't be doing this!"
I had to do something with my OTHER talents. Naomi pushed me back to my vocation.
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1 comment:
It must be terribly frustrating to not be the thing you think you 'should' be, whether you 'should' because of duty or because of entitlement. There is a lot of those people out there and they all seem quite bitter or at least dispirited. I do my best to avoid them.
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