The Frick With Lea Morgan

The Frick

AUTHOR: LEA MORGAN | VISIT WEBSITE

I was in my early 30’s and at the Frick Collection in New York with my then boyfriend. Looking back, I was holding my identity together by a thread and felt lucky to be with such a nice guy in a hip place doing something I considered to be on the list of what well-educated, cultured and all around cool people did.

Don’t get me wrong. I love art. I love museums. It’s just all my motivations then were coming from a place of creating this persona and this life I felt would save me. Save me from what I’m not really sure. But, at that time I was pretty much on autopilot with this mission and not getting (or rather allowing) any communication from my higher self or any real evaluation of my own behavior.

So, we’re at the museum and looking at the art, each at our own pace (as culturally immersed people do,) and I just can’t wait to meet back up and discuss our favorites. I mean, seriously. I’m so busy focusing on this that I am repeating the names of my chosen pieces over and over to myself so I will remember them.

When we do circle back to one another, I immediately blurt out, “What are your top 3?!” And, I believe, I listed my ‘top 3’ immediately (probably so I wouldn’t forget them.)

My memory says he looked at me quizzically with a hint of frustration and said, “Why do you always have to rank everything?” (My apologies to said boyfriend if I’ve misquoted him. But, that’s what I heard.)

Here’s where it gets interesting. I immediately started crying.

I realize now that my ranking system was an integral piece of the complicated plan I had in play to make everything fit into place. It was just one of many coping behaviors I had put into practice to add gravity to my seeming atmosphere-less existence.

It was as if he yanked on a foundation-supporting piece in an intricate house of cards I had created — and it was scary. Was I not playing the part of the well traveled, authentically in-the-moment person I had so well studied? Sigh. I was not only missing an important piece of living in the now, I was going to be found out — which was worse.

I was crying because I knew I was destined to fail at this task. I was clearly not smart/observant/cool enough to fake this endeavor effectively.

Here’s the lovely part. Although I can’t imagine having this experience now, I have such great love for that woman who was trying to be something, to do something, to create something she sincerely believed would make everything alright. She must have felt very alone and it was quite industrious of her to come up with a plan at all.

I feel such compassion for the hopelessness she felt in that moment (although to others it most likely looked like a lack of emotional stability.) It was actually an authentic response to how terrifying it was going to be to be present and be herself if she could ever find the courage to do it.

I often can’t remember what I did yesterday, but this memory (albeit a small moment in time) stays with me as the start of some sort of sea change. There were years before many more of these behaviors would be exposed. But, sometimes the first signs of crumbling are the harbingers of hope.

My disproportionate reaction to the actual circumstances spoke volumes about my state of being. It wasn’t about the art. It wasn’t about the ranking even. It certainly wasn’t about the boyfriend. It was about me. I wasn’t going to make it trying to act like what I thought I was supposed to be. And, for one small period of time on that day in the Frick, I knew it in my soul.