Generally, American girls are discouraged to rock the unibrow. We spend hours tweezing, waxing, threading, and defining our arches so we won’t look like we stepped out of a Bert and Ernie segment of Sesame Street. The unibrow is never synonymous with fashionable; in fact; the furry caterpillar across one’s brows is the antithesis of beauty. I always felt a strong dislike for the furrowed monobrow, that is until I stepped into
The Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City. The moment I stood facing the self-portraits of the infamous painter, I was enamored.
The museum’s more commonly recognized name, La Casa Azul {The Blue House}, is unlike any of the museums I visited during my time in Mexico City. The childhood home that later became the place of pain, anguish, sadness and infidelity for the artist, Frida Kahlo, had just something that drew me in. I stood for hours wanting to touch the Mexican folk artifacts, the paintbrushes, and the traditional Mexican clothing that saturated every room. I stood silently in Frida’s bedroom, imagining her pain as she lay flat on her back, staring at the mirror mounted above her head. The very mirror that allowed her to see her dismantled-self and paint her tragedies as self-portraits. I wandered into the courtyard, questioning how Frida and Diego Rivera, could have lived such a tumultuous life right there, where I was standing.
I didn’t want to leave. The people in my group had left the building and were assembling in the bus. I had to go back inside. Fighting back what was almost tears, I went and stood in front of a portrait of Frida, almost twice my size. Frantic that my bus would leave, I couldn’t move. I felt Frida’s presence there and I was compelled to stay. After a bit of time, a curator came over to me. We spoke, and I tried to impress upon her the spirit I felt there, in that room, in Frida’s house. Thinking I was crazy, I tried to explain an emotion that I’d never experienced before, and I stumbled upon my words as I clumsily botched my Spanish and created an even more awkward language barrier between the two of us. I needed to explain what I was feeling, but almost intuitively, she put her hand on my shoulders and told me that her spirit is truly in that house. The essence of Frida is felt often by those who work in the museum and those who visit there. What I was feeling wasn’t an imagined presence. She really is there, and I was lucky enough to experience her spirit. Nodding, I felt reassured about my total paralyzation and need to be back inside of the home. The heaviness quickly left, and I finally felt like I could leave.
Thankfully, the bus didn’t leave me. I had a hard time explaining my experience to the 28 other educators who were traveling with me that day. I’ve always had a love of art, but that experience was far beyond being drawn to a certain artist or painting. Mexico City is filled with artifacts of the great artist. Through many of the other tours, I was able to see different portraits of Frida, and I was able to see the great murals in the National Palace painted by Deigo Rivera, Frida’s husband. Although curious and interested in each piece, nothing was, and nothing ever will be like the experience I felt that day in the little blue house located in the Coyoacán borough of Mexico City.
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