Girl With A Pearl Earring

I was on Facebook today and one of my Facebook “friends” posted this photo of a famous painting: 

You’ve seen this painting.  It’s called ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’ and was painted around 1665 by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer.  But wait, the girl in this painting is wearing jeans and modern shoes.  And look there; hanging over the table, that’s a modern looking light fixture!   Another weird thing: sitting against the wall under this table is what looks like an aluminum chest.  Wow, I thought, this couldn’t be the original…what a great Photoshop job!   I know I’ve seen this painting in person, though it was many years ago.  I’d better go on-line and look at the original again.  And I found this:

You’ve got to be kidding me.  This can’t be right!

Eventually I found it:

This is a photo of Vermeer’s original painting.   Just beautiful.  But my memory sucks.

This got me thinking back to one of those simple questions I wrote about in my first post on this blog and that question is:  Who am I?  Part of who I think I am, sometimes, is stored in that junkyard of memories- the empty space between my ears.  Wasted storage.  Refuse. Garbage.  And I base much of who I think I am on this trash?

Haha…I don’t actually believe this.  I think I know better now.  I don’t always fall into this pit.  I know that’s not who I am even though I forget it at times and react to things or people based on those faulty memories…or emotions.  Sometimes I catch myself.  I’m learning.  I’m my own thought policeman and I’ve issued myself hundreds of tickets.  The fines can be punitive though.  My transgressions are punished severely by my friends and family.  I issue apologies.  Sometimes they are accepted, sometimes not.  Sometimes I forget who I am when I’m talking to people, and they forget who they are. The combination is a problem.  Trouble brewing.  We all need to pay more attention to who we really are…if just to avoid the fines.

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BTW:  The ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ is also known as:  ‘The Mona Lisa of the North’.  It is 17.5 inches long and 15 inches wide- a bit smaller than Leonardo da Vinci's ‘Mona Lisa’.  I love what humorist Dave Barry said of the Mona Lisa, finally seeing it in person after many years of anticipation:  “Hey, where’s the big Mona Lisa?”

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You can see Vermeer’s ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’ in person until June 2, 2013 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.  http://deyoung.famsf.org

© Steve Stewart and See Next Rock, 2013