Page 150 of Crystal Iris
“Are you going to abandon your career, everything you’ve worked so hard for? Give up art? For what? To live in a barn?”
“Aaron.”
His words… I don’t want to think about his words.Was he right?Would I be abandoning my career?
“Iris, I will always love you. I’ll always wonder what I did wrong, but I would really hate to see you give up everything for him. Giving yourself up. I know how you feel when you’re in front of those paintings; I know how much you breathe history. Please don’t forget who you are. Even if it’s not with me, I want you to have everything you’ve ever wanted. It’s what I’ve always wanted for you, since that day you sat next to me in the cafeteria.”
My tears fall, and I don’t know what to do. He comes closer and holds my hand. We continue looking out at the water.So much for being ready for the unknown.
My headache is back. It’s been back since Aaron dropped me off days ago. My insomnia hitchhiked.
I walk for hours, eyeing each painting like it’s the first time. I tell myself I’ll stay until I feel better; consequently, I remain—and my uneasy feelings do too.
I’m sitting in Monet’s gallery when a hand touches my shoulder.
“Hello.” James takes a seat next to me.Very close.
“Hi, how’s your research going?” I ask.
“Great. I’m currently on an Icelandic rabbit hole.”
“What interests you about the subject?” I didn’t realize I needed the distraction.
“Throughout history, featured not only in religious contexts but in folklore as well, the supernatural comes up again and again. Maybe the laws of nature we know aren’t everything that’s out there.”
I’ve learned this very lesson this past year. “Have you seen the Japanese print of a female ghost we have here?”
“I have not. I’m embarrassed to say, this is my first time here.”
“Where are you from?” I ask as I walk us to the artwork.
“New York. Long Island.”
“How do you like Boston?”
“It’s great. I feel like I’m around like-minded people here.”
”That’s what I love about this city. I feel understood.”
We stand in front of the woodblock print by Kitagawa Utamaro. “Here it is.” I pause, then ask, “How much have you written so far?”
“Of my book? Not much. I’m obsessed with the research. Sometimes I forget it’s for a book. I wish I could get a job just doing that—learning.”
“I found being a teacher comes pretty close to it.”
“I’ve thought about it, being a professor. I don’t know if I have the patience.”
“Not a lot of professors do. But it grows on you—the more you help, the more your patience grows too. Let me show you something else.”
We walk to another corridor, and I say, “This is a Mayan ritual vessel from around 740 AD.”
“Is that a baby?”
“A deity baby,” I tell him.
“Amazing.”
I smile. It’s nice having someone to talk about art—someone who doesn’t think an ancient serpent umbilical cord surrounded by dragon heads is anything butamazing.
