emilyrems.com

Box o’ Pain, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

By now it should come as no surprise that I respond most to art that is sad. Not globally sad, like Schindler’s List, or stuff like that. Everyday sad. Clautrophobic personal stories of despair and loneliness grab me tight, and I obsess over them for ages, so it may be quite some time before I get over Grey Gardens. The music was fine, and the staging and sets were lovely, but the acting was un-fucking-believable. I’ve never been to a musical of any kind before where, by the time the rapturous standing ovation rolled around, both the star and the audience were choking back tears of cathartic grief. Riding home on the subway alone, I was as blue as a Billie Holiday song, only not as pretty. When I got home I collapsed in bed next to my love and squeezed him extra tight, as if doing so could somehow keep the duty-bound nightmare of isolation and broken dreams I had just witnessed at bay. But the ghost of Little Edie Beale swirled through me all night long, and getting back to work this morning was a long hard slog. Maybe it’s because my Grandpa let me know without a hint of irony once I turned 27 that I was officially a spinster, but stories of older women fending for themselves without any comfort or companionship always hit close to home. I feel like it could so easily happen to me.

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