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March 31, 2005
My Paper Child
A child is born and the new mother admires the cute button nose and breathes the angelic scent. She stares, incredulous. When my children were born, first my son Charles, then my daughter Katherine, I was ecstatic. For days, I held them in my arms, so happy they were perfect.
Now, I can’t wait to see Maddalena, my paper child, to admire her elegant pages laid out thoughtfully by my new friend and book designer Nancy Webb, bound with the plates of my watercolors that seemed months in coming, in a story that took years to shape.
Why so long? The genesis seemed so painless and short. Some one-hundred-plus chapters written in a year’s time. Irving Stone’s The Agony and Ecstasy, that amazing historical novel from the times of Michelangelo, was the model for my first draft. But, at nearly one thousand manuscript pages filled with painstakingly gathered art-historical detail, I knew the book would not fly. Who’d want to endure a static chapter with a Renaissance play during Lent? Read about El Greco, before the New York show made the master of feverish, elongated figures more visible and appreciated? Probably only literary and art-historical buffs. But Maddalena is a fictional character and the agony was shaping her story. The ecstasy will be seeing Maddalena born.
These days as I walk in town, I search for the color red, like in the dust cover. But only the tall maples behind my house are covered with burgundy-colored buds; my roses still look shy as do the fragile begonias in the nearby nursery, resisting spring. Come glorious Mother’s Day, I will sit with a bunch of red flowers from my garden, leafing with admiration through Maddalena and wondering how she came to be so perfect, with all her ten fingers and toes in their places. I will gladly share her with the rest of my children, and the world. Please join me!
Posted by Eva Siroka at March 31, 2005 03:28 PM
Comments
Eva,
Can't wait for the release of your third child. The hard work and persistence finally paid off and now you can take solace in the fact that your youngest child will gladly sit upon the shelf and do as she's told.
Posted by: James at April 15, 2005 02:24 PM