Monsters at play

Yesterday, I did not spend the little free time I had on breathing exercises or reading or moving my atrophying body to do anything but clench. I need to disconnect sometimes (wine, tv), but these days the work is to connect more than to numb.

So, today I looked back at one of my favorite paintings, In the Sea by Arnold Böcklin. It’s at the Art Institute of Chicago, so I got to spend some time with it when I worked with paintings there. I never got to clean it, though. It’s not super well done, but it makes me earnestly, gleefully laugh. Böcklin painted alongside the Impressionists, but this is a Renaissance-art-looking monsters’ day at the beach. It’s all these mythical creatures listening to conch shells, floating, and hanging out with sand in their shorts.