Rainer Maria Rilke and Street Art

I went and talked to Joan in the studio he was working in today. The one portrait is nearly finished of a school child (my daughter) on her first day of school. 

The words above her silhouette are taken from my favourite poem from Rainer Maria Rilke, Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen. Here is a pretty good translation of the poem:

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

~ Ranier Maria Rilke ~

The reason I chose those words is because I believe that all children and particularly my children have been the greatest blessing I have received in my life. So the answer to the question is "a great song" when it comes to what their presence means in my life.

Early morning battle

I have been participating in a wonderful street art project. The street artist, Joan Aguiló from Mallorca, is in Lübeck for two weeks trying to portrait the essence of this beautiful city by creating portraits of the local residents on walls throughout the city.

In the photo above he is making up a drawing of my daughter on her first day of school. His street art is often on paper, which he glues on walls. Weather and vandals influence the condition and length of stay of his street art.

This is the story behind the story of this photo.

Early morning battle

When I was a child, my sisters and I wore the clothes our mother chose for us to wear, especially when it came to special occasions. To my chagrin, my daughter had a different idea from the moment she was old enough to stand on her own feet and open up her cupboard door. She was the master of her wardrobe and the decider of her fashion statement. Every morning she and I entered into a battle over what she would wear that day. Her fashion choice was one of serendipity and did not take into account weather or practicality. It was a battle I nearly always lost because of her tenaciousness and our immediate need to get her dressed and out the door to her kindergarten. On the morning of her first school day ceremony, we had a battle of monumental proportions.

The evening before, we hung out two beautiful dresses she could choose from to wear on this special occasion. One dress was a red velvet sparkled with stars. The other one was a blue-and-white striped navy theme. You might be wondering, why two dresses?

This is because it was the only solution for getting my daughter and I out of the department store’s changing room without tears. My tears, not hers. She had been trying on dresses for two hours and her wide selection of possible dress choices had been painstakingly reduced to two, which was when the standstill occurred, thus leading to my buying both.

Dawn comes and we are all running around getting showered and shaved (my husband) and breakfast on the table. I call everyone to the table. Our son, my husband, and I sit down in our dazzling festive outfits and then my daughter comes into the room wearing her favorite old-and-should-have-been-long-ago-put-in-a-garbage-bin cotton leggings and t-shirt. I innocently tell her, she doesn’t have time to play, since we are due at the school in 45 minutes. I ask her to go and get her dress on. She says she wants to wear her leggings and not her dress.

What ensued was not a pretty scene. Lots of arguing back-and-forth. Lots of tears were shed. (My tears.) Lots of exasperation felt towards the other party not seeing reason. (Her exasperation towards me.) No willingness on either side to back down.

As the minutes ticked away and the point-of-no return was rapidly approaching, I made an executive decision and give her an ultimatum. Brandishing a large pair of scissors, I said she could wear her leggings, but if she did, I would cut through her dresses.

I know, not a proud moment. Pedagogically wrong. Complete loss of dignity. Relinquishment of all parental control.

She looked at my face, saw the resolve, turned around and went back to her bedroom.

Five minutes later she came back in the room wearing her beautiful red velvet dress sparkled with stars and walked to her new school with a happy skip in her step.