Writing |

Part 1. The Street
We first know you as an shouting infant, for you are born within our walls. In these days many people hurry around the street corner where our walls and windows and roofs meet the earth of the city. The streets are lined with ficus trees and jacaranda, and the people carried baskets laden with fruit, with ears of corn still in their husks, with pots and tools and paint. You take your first breath in a whitewashed room filled with your family. Your sisters gather. Your father weeps. And you, Frida, you shout so loud they hear you on the street.

At the corner of Londres and Allende, our gates open to the downpour of summer’s afternoon rain. The old man waiting on the tiled stairs takes the news with him. Before long, everyone on the narrow, leafy streets of Coyoacán knew of your arrival. Your family is spoken of in the mercado and in the zócalo. But you, Frida, you will soon find your place in the world that swirls around you. You, Frida, who say, “Nobody is separate from anybody else. Everything is all, and one.”

Part 2. The Garden
We see you now in the courtyard, surrounded by birds and plants. The monkey watches you from the swaying tree. So do the ancient clay figures you rescued from the scorched earth, statues shaped by small brown hands long before Cortés and his men began to drain the salty lake that was once our home—for yes, the clay of our walls was lifted from the silt of the old lake held in the ancient volcano’s belly. You built a small pyramid in the garden to hold these statues and their memories. The water-fountain pools around it, holding your reflection.

You recline your small light limbs on a padded chair, your feet lifted, your eyes to the sky. Your young body has been broken once, and then again, first by disease, then by terrible accident, but your dark eyes are still bright, bold, terrifying and beautiful.

You, Frida, who whisper to yourself within our walls when you are left alone in your wheelchair, surrounded by parakeet chatter and dahlia bloom but no human to hear. You, Frida, who say, “I paint the flowers so they will not die.”

Part 3. The Studio
What is here with us? Your paints, and more paints, and brushes, and every small bead and feather and figurine that has caught your eye. Everything on low tables, easily within your reach. The door from your studio opens to your bedroom, this is your private sphere. In other rooms, men and women talk of revolution and you lead them in it, always so ready to throw off your chains. But you cannot march or run or fight, and so you come to this room to paint when the others leave. Here you make the revolution your own.

You, Frida, who say, “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”

Part 4. The Lover
You call him Diego, you call him mi amor, you call him panzón, you call him, sometimes, husband. At first he is
a visitor, a famous painter, you whisper to your family, he’s coming to look at my art. He comes again and again. Then he takes you away with him. For many years, our walls are empty of your bright spirit. But you return. You bring your man, you bring many others with you. You call me “home” again. Your beloved father dies and you paint our walls bright cobalt blue in defiance of your grief. Diego carries you up and down our stairs. You fill our rooms with paintings of your face. All over you hang your lace shawls and long skirts and huipil.

When he is here, Diego touches your things gently, touches you gently, sometimes. Sometimes you shout and he shouts, you weep and he weeps. But then you, Frida, you say to him, “My Diego, mirror of the night. There are waves between our hands. You are the one who captures color. I am the one who gives color.”

Part 5. The Bedroom
Your narrow bed. Your stacks of books. Your tasseled lamps. Your paints and brushes on the nightstand. The bed’s four pillars surround your shrinking body. On difficult days, you rise to dress and then wear your finery back to bed. On your back, your hair full of flowers, your bed full of lace, your body full of pain. Your easel made with special joints to bend and hold you in your bed.

You took your first breath inside our walls and so you take your last.

You, Frida, who told us: “What do I need feet for when I have wings to fly?”

— Lucia Retta