I fell in love with Jean when I was in college. Somewhere between 18 and 23 I met him on a cold rainy day. He was mysterious and brooding with a touch of whimsical and I was delighted by him. It amazed me how he could touch the darkest depths and brightest heights of my imagination with just one glance. He made me laugh, cry, sigh, wonder, dream, dally, determine, focus... He made me feel alive! And the creativity endlessly bloomed from my chest out the tips of my fingers...
When I was around Jean Corot, I could stay up all night looking through his eyes. I didn't like everything he said. In fact, there's a good chunk of his thoughts and impressions that I cared nothing about. Sometimes he talked about his life in the country or people he knew and I was transfixed, but othertimes he droned on in drab tones and blockish renderings that I could scarcely let him continue. Next subject please!
He usually could win me when he talked of trees. No one has ever talked about trees quite like Jean did, except perhaps J.R.R. Tolkien, but that's another verbal obeisance altogether.
I loved the way Jean would talk about trees.
He described the leaves with the utmost respect...the way the sun would shine through them in midday making them bright with color and glowing...in solemn shade...in the wispy ethereal dew of morning. He made the willow sound mostly optimistic as she attempted to stretch her hands into the sky and depicted the poplars as whispering socialites at a ball. I could almost hear their hushed voices.
The first time I really, REALLY saw Jean Corot, in person that is, was in Chicago. It was somewhere around my 4th year (the 2nd Junior year, that is). I remember not expecting to see him there. I was surrounded by all these well-known visionaries and he is so often overlooked. I turned a corner and saw him at the end of the room. I knew instantly it was him. The darkness, the light. All intermingled in a myriad of emotions, thoughts, and expressions on his face. For a moment, I could not breathe. I truly could not.
You know that feeling, I suppose. When you see someone you did not expect to see. Your true feelings come out, you know. If you expect to see them, you have time to think...time to prepare and line up all your thoughts and emotions. But when you're not expecting it...it can hit you like a gale and leave you breathless. You know in that moment not what your soul feels about that person, but how your heart truly feels.
I approached slowly. My eyes wide with surprise and delight, tears forming in the corners. I stood in front of him. It surprised me to feel warm tears, lilting slowly and sweetly over my cheeks. I just couldn't believe it was really HIM. The man who had so captured and spoke my heart over those short years. He had captured it to utter perfection...an exact likeness. And I was forever greatful.
I thought of all the times when he had known me, shown me myself. Gently and without even a hint of invasiveness...like tiny mirrors, reflecting a tiny piece here and there.
I wanted to reach out and touch him but there were guards positioned by the doorway and I know that it could also be his ruin. I rocked back on my heels and drank him in. Tears brimming, heart thankful. A tiny mirror.
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