After Hilma af Klint
I stood in front of so much stained glass. With my mouth open. Yet nothing could be swallowed. Even Marc Chagall’s stained glass windows in Fraumünster looked black and white. But look how the bottom of af Klint’s triangle squeezes something so hard, I can feel it 109 years later. At the root of every woman is a triangle filled with colors. A triangle that pushes at a circle hard, but not too hard. So that the pressed thing doesn’t puncture. This year, my triangle feels so heavy because I have gained fifteen pounds of joy. I never thought I could eat so little and still gain joy. They said joy was the thing we needed to find. All this time, it was actually emptiness. Lately, I have tried too hard to feel joy, so I have an excess of it. I have deposited a large sum of joy into the earth for the next generation. The big lie is that joy can be transferred. The bigger lie is that it is enjoyable to see others joyful. When you’re young, they want your beauty. When you’re old, they want your knowledge. Why can’t a woman have beauty and knowledge together? When you’re young, they will lie and say you are smart. When you’re old, they will lie and say you are beautiful. The truth is, we were always neither. We were always just time.
