Old Friends

"Girl Before a Mirror"

The beauty of art is in the interpretation. I have no idea if Picasso meant for this painting and all his other bizarrely beautiful Cubist paintings to mean distorted views of ourselves and the world, but that's the way I embrace them.
This is one of my favorite Picasso paintings. I first saw it back in 1998 when LACMA hosted a huge (overpriced) Picasso exhibit and have a postcard of it taped to my door. To me, it represents the distorted views in which we see ourselves, something I and tons of women everywhere, struggle with on a daily basis. I may be 30, but deep down, I will always see myself as that nerdy awkward girl from junior high. It's that anchor that weighs my self-esteem down from time to time. The anchor that prevents me from being consistently confident about my looks. The anchor that seeks validation from silly boys, overly critical parents, and mean petty girls..
It's terrible that no matter how much my good friends compliment me, sometimes it's the words and actions of people who don't unconditionally love me that make the most impact. Over the weekend, I went to a birthday dinner and met up with some old friends I hardly see anymore. One of them in particular, a truly poised and cool beauty who looked exactly the same as the day I met her over ten years ago, struck up a conversation towards the end of the night. Over the years of our friendship, I never knew with her when she would be warm and open, or aloof and taciturn. That night, she was friendly and gregarious, complimenting me on the fact that I looked good, like I had lost weight and toned up. I.was.blown.away. It was like being thrown back to junior high and getting complimented by the most popular girl in school. It was one of the highlights of the evening, my encounter with this old friend.
As for the painting, I went to the MOMA in New York for the first time earlier this year. To my wonderful surprise, I saw Girl Before a Mirror and several Picasso's that I remembered from the LACMA exhibit years back. I had forgotten that the exhibit had been directly curated from sources such as MOMA. I left with a happy feeling inside, like I had just visited old friends.