Preparing Vegetables - painting by Henry Tozer

Elsa is sitting by her hearth, wondering where her life has gone. She knows there's life out there. She knows her life - the one she was meant to have - is out there, but knowing this is no comfort. So she sits. And listens. And stares blankly ahead - half seeing things as they are, half seeing things as she wish they were. She sits in her chair, listening to her kids playing outside, to the mule team her husband is driving - wondering if this is all there is. Her world has been reduced to 4 walls and a dirt path leading to them.

Material things, she has. Maybe not everything she wants, but she has everything she needs. Seemingly. To the outside world. But more facets than the physical need to be nourished and that's all she's getting here. Her heart's not in it. Her mind's not in it. Her soul's not in it. Her spirit is grounded. Her body is on auto pilot. She goes through the motions of life or something like it, but she isn't living. She's just exisiting. She's never been so stuck in a place in all her life, but she's never been farther removed from one, either.

She loves her kids, but she resents them. She never loved her husband, but she tolerates him. She hates her house, but she tends it. She hates her life, but it must go on in some form or the other. So she'll sit in a chair until it's time to lay in a box. In the physical sense, that is. Because the rest of her died years ago.

Gypsy - Paiting by Pia DeStefano

She says she's not a gypsy, but I know her soul is. Her eyes tell of a mischivious youth, lovers lost, dances danced, wines tasted, kisses wasted, and hurts beyond belief. If you sit with her, she'll tell you a story. Maybe about how she danced in the streets at Carnival while her long black hair trailed behind her like the tail of an ebony kite. How she once was married, but realized on the way from the chapel that marriage wasn't for her so she climbed out a window to escape. How she knew a man in Sinaloa who promised to take her away, but all he took was her heart. Of a beach in Morocco where she wrote her name in the sand and ran out to meet the waves. Of the child she left behind with her mother in San Jose . Of how she was almost Fred Astair's other half and how she used to do everything he did, but backwards and in high heels. Of curanderas in Mexico who always smelled of incense and rotting leaves. About how she sang in Salsa clubs and danced the Merengue with cocoa skinned men in fedoras. She says she's not a gypsy - but I know her soul is. A gypsy soul can never be content in one place - even if the body can no longer keep up. So she talks. To whomever will listen. So that the gyspy soul that lives inside her can satisfy its wanderlust - just like the 2 of them used to do.

Figure In The Window - painting by Salvador Dali

The figure in the window looks forelorn because she lives a life of solitude. She is the wife of the lighthouse keeper and she lives in the keeper's shack on the south side of the bay, far removed from any neighbor or the hussle and bussle of the city streets. By day, her husband tends the grounds and readies the structure for its nightly duty. By night, he tends the beacon - guiding the traveling ships safely to shore. She looks out the window - waiting for her own ship to come. She looks out the window - waiting for a beacon to guide her safely to shore. She looks out the window - waiting for her husband to return when he's not even really gone. For years, she's been perched in this window. For years, she's gone unnoticed. By ships. By beacons. By her husband. By life.