A moment of pause and reflection in the charming , historic neighborhood, Le Marais, Paris.
Oscar Wilde believed that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. "Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the arts that influenced us," Wilde penned in The Decay of Lying.
Last summer, on a writing sabbatical in Paris, I marveled at the world in countless portraits, landscapes, and sculptures at renowned museums, impressive cathedrals, spectacular gardens, and in a sprawling cemetery. Ironically, Wilde and a long list of famous artists (Jim Morrison!) lay in eternal rest in Pere Lachaise. I must write a short story set there.
On my last day in Paris, a skylight inside my hotel, the Villa Marazin Hotel, splashed like a trompe l'oeil across a bright blue sky. Ah, a moment of pause found in a bustling city once stormed with revolutions, wars, and, most recently, terrorist attacks. The more I gazed at the skylight, Wilde's philosophy took form, as nature imitated art; I transported back to The Ruth Foreman Children's Theatre, in North Miami, Florida. A flashbulb memory, performing on stage, suddenly, I'm 13-years-old, melting into the lead role as Anne Frank, a Jewish girl hiding with her family and neighbors inside an attic.
A skylight is my only view of the outside world. The imaginary escape is where I skip in the park with my Nanny, wishing to take flight like the birds and butterflies in the garden. I invite my boy crush, Peter, to join me. "Look, Peter the sky what a lovely, lovely day. Aren't the clouds beautiful?"
Unfortunately, he doesn't see the view with the same lens, refusing to partake in the stroll with me. My dear Peter has gone crazy mad hiding from the Nazis, an evil yolk invaded our dreamy homeland, the Netherlands. "If we don't get out of here... I can't stand much more of it," Peter said, rather desperate to break free of his confinement. Me, Anne, the budding journalist, and author scribble the scene in a diary, hoping he would convert his ways.
As it would turn out, the group were arrested, separated, and sent to concentration camps after someone gave away their safe house.
Anne never saw Peter again.
The story of Anne Frank gripped my life as a young actress and again throughout my life. I re-read her words, guarded first by the family who hid the Franks. Years later, her father, he survived the Holocaust, gifted her sweet prose to the world. Sadly, her mother died of starvation, and a few weeks before the Bergen-Belson camp in Germany was liberated by British troops, her sister Margot and Anne, 15, died from lack of nutrition and Typhus-a bacterial disease.
It is uncertain what happened to Peter. Did he change his pessimistic views? Or did he fight the Nazis to his death?
Anne Frank's diary turned into memoirs, novels and
screen plays. Her accounts are fossil records of truth. As a result, unarguably, Anne Frank is the most famous face, voice from The Holocaust. As an author, writing a unique Holocaust survivor's tale (my trip to Poland for "The End" is postponed in a Covid-19 world) Anne floated into my mind, and onto my journal. Magically, she transformed into a colorful hummingbird with iridescent feathers, flapping her wings in a figure-8 pattern, free of ailments and religious persecution. Despite seeing evil in the world, she held onto the belief that people are really good, at heart. With tragic headlines of murderous acts around the world, I long to see the world as pure as Anne. " I don't want to see the world in the skylight like Peter. "I think the world may be going through a phase... it will pass," Anne told Peter. Those words would later come to me during a difficult time in my life. "It shall soon pass," said an elderly woman, smiling behind an oxygen mask. Her name was Dorie (Doris), a Holocaust survivor, living out her last chapter. She was never sent to a concentration camp, nor was she trapped in a ghetto. Dorie escaped through a vast forest, later hiding on a small farm, blending in the countryside canvas, alongside Farmer Krackow and his family. Through her stories, later some fictionalized to expound the novel and to protect her identity, the book pours out her memories, watering her life garden, blooming with roses and thorns as she once did with a metal bucket on the farm. Next to the roses, violets, and jonquils, Anne Frank's spirit, a colorful hummingbird, buzzes above, reminding us to look up at the skylight and believe there are good people, despite the darkness that looms in the world.
Last summer, on a writing sabbatical in Paris, I marveled at the world in countless portraits, landscapes, and sculptures at renowned museums, impressive cathedrals, spectacular gardens, and in a sprawling cemetery. Ironically, Wilde and a long list of famous artists (Jim Morrison!) lay in eternal rest in Pere Lachaise. I must write a short story set there.
On my last day in Paris, a skylight inside my hotel, the Villa Marazin Hotel, splashed like a trompe l'oeil across a bright blue sky. Ah, a moment of pause found in a bustling city once stormed with revolutions, wars, and, most recently, terrorist attacks. The more I gazed at the skylight, Wilde's philosophy took form, as nature imitated art; I transported back to The Ruth Foreman Children's Theatre, in North Miami, Florida. A flashbulb memory, performing on stage, suddenly, I'm 13-years-old, melting into the lead role as Anne Frank, a Jewish girl hiding with her family and neighbors inside an attic.
A skylight is my only view of the outside world. The imaginary escape is where I skip in the park with my Nanny, wishing to take flight like the birds and butterflies in the garden. I invite my boy crush, Peter, to join me. "Look, Peter the sky what a lovely, lovely day. Aren't the clouds beautiful?"
Unfortunately, he doesn't see the view with the same lens, refusing to partake in the stroll with me. My dear Peter has gone crazy mad hiding from the Nazis, an evil yolk invaded our dreamy homeland, the Netherlands. "If we don't get out of here... I can't stand much more of it," Peter said, rather desperate to break free of his confinement. Me, Anne, the budding journalist, and author scribble the scene in a diary, hoping he would convert his ways.
As it would turn out, the group were arrested, separated, and sent to concentration camps after someone gave away their safe house.
Anne never saw Peter again.
The story of Anne Frank gripped my life as a young actress and again throughout my life. I re-read her words, guarded first by the family who hid the Franks. Years later, her father, he survived the Holocaust, gifted her sweet prose to the world. Sadly, her mother died of starvation, and a few weeks before the Bergen-Belson camp in Germany was liberated by British troops, her sister Margot and Anne, 15, died from lack of nutrition and Typhus-a bacterial disease.
It is uncertain what happened to Peter. Did he change his pessimistic views? Or did he fight the Nazis to his death?
Anne Frank's diary turned into memoirs, novels and
screen plays. Her accounts are fossil records of truth. As a result, unarguably, Anne Frank is the most famous face, voice from The Holocaust. As an author, writing a unique Holocaust survivor's tale (my trip to Poland for "The End" is postponed in a Covid-19 world) Anne floated into my mind, and onto my journal. Magically, she transformed into a colorful hummingbird with iridescent feathers, flapping her wings in a figure-8 pattern, free of ailments and religious persecution. Despite seeing evil in the world, she held onto the belief that people are really good, at heart. With tragic headlines of murderous acts around the world, I long to see the world as pure as Anne. " I don't want to see the world in the skylight like Peter. "I think the world may be going through a phase... it will pass," Anne told Peter. Those words would later come to me during a difficult time in my life. "It shall soon pass," said an elderly woman, smiling behind an oxygen mask. Her name was Dorie (Doris), a Holocaust survivor, living out her last chapter. She was never sent to a concentration camp, nor was she trapped in a ghetto. Dorie escaped through a vast forest, later hiding on a small farm, blending in the countryside canvas, alongside Farmer Krackow and his family. Through her stories, later some fictionalized to expound the novel and to protect her identity, the book pours out her memories, watering her life garden, blooming with roses and thorns as she once did with a metal bucket on the farm. Next to the roses, violets, and jonquils, Anne Frank's spirit, a colorful hummingbird, buzzes above, reminding us to look up at the skylight and believe there are good people, despite the darkness that looms in the world.
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