A MEMORY

I may have written about this before.  I don't remember.  Leave me alone, I'm an old woman!

I remember watching a movie, or maybe a TV show (I'm not sure) about a woman who lived in an apartment building where a new tenant had just moved in upstairs from her.  The new guy was an artist, and he fell in love with the woman, but the woman just thought of him as a friend at first.

She invited him over for dinner one night and they sat and talked all night until she fell asleep. When she woke up the next morning, she realized how much she liked the guy and went upstairs to talk to him, only to find out his apartment was empty and all of his paintings were gone.  The landlord was showing potential tenants the place and he couldn't tell her anything about the guy who had lived there.

The lady didn't have any proof that the artist-man had ever lived there, so she thought maybe she had imagined him until one day she was coming home from work and she passed an art gallery with a big painting of herself sleeping, wearing the dress she had worn the night they'd had dinner (which sounds creepy, but it was a nice painting and not weird) with the guy's name in the corner.  It had been sold, and the gallery was closed, so she couldn't go in and ask anyone about it. She just smiled and went home.

I really don't know the point of the movie (show?) and I know that sounds like a creepy thing to happen, especially looking through the lens of modern thought, but I always thought that was the most romantic thing ever.  That someone would think she was so beautiful and that he loved her enough to create art based on her.  I know that sounds sappy, and you'll just have to give me a break because I am not very sappy about many things these days, but to my little girl self, that was just the best thing I could imagine.  I always wished that someone would like me enough to do something like that.  Granted, I have never looked like that lady from the movie, but still...I always thought that would be nice.

What is very ironic (at least I think it's ironic. Darn you, Alanis!) is that I married a man who doesn't even like to take pictures, much less make art, so I doubt there will be anything inspired by me on anyone's walls!  That's not a slight against him or anything, I promise, I just think it's funny. Life is weird that way sometimes.

So anyway, what I'm saying is that if you (whoever you are. I don't know who reads this!) love someone, I hope they inspire you to do great things.  If they do, then do those things for them.