01/04/2024
No museum has moved me to tears like the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City. I’ve always adored Frida and known her story…. But it wasn’t until I saw her back brace covered in paint splotches and sketches, an x-ray of her spinal fusion, the bed where she lay for years of her life (with a mirror installed above by her mother so that she could continue to paint), her crutches, her dresses designed to disguise a shorter leg, and her journals and sketches that dealt with the complexities of miscarriage, trauma, and death that I actually felt this woman’s legacy.
She lived with pain, 22 surgeries, metal in the body, back braces…. I’ve known chronic back pain, too, for over half my life. I had a massive spinal surgery when I was 16 after a car accident (my lower lumbar was fused, x-ray shown here) and I was in and out of the hospital more times than I can count. But I also live with plenty of resources in the 21st century and had impeccable medical care when I needed it (the best in the country). I have an insane pain tolerance because of this (ask anyone who knows me well), and yet, the sympathy pain I felt around my own spinal fusion when I stared at Frida’s back brace, (I don’t think) could possibly match what this woman went through almost 100 years ago.
The unrelenting beauty she created within her and around despite it all baffles me. Over and over again, I’m reminded in life that the silver lining of trauma is resilience. The more we survive, the more we know we can survive. And to live with pain and trauma can also be beautiful, it can lead us to create, revolutionize, connect more deeply, and live with our eyes wide open.
I’m forever grateful to this woman (and a nod to Patti Smith, another favorite hero, who wrote Frida a poem).
