THE DOVE WHO MARRIED AN ELEPHANT

Once upon a time there was a delicate pretty dove which lived in a cozy Blue House in the land of colors and light. She was such a brave little birdie, prisoner of her bed, at the age of six, during long periods of time, because life had no compassion with her.

Time went by and after recovering from a severe illness, the little dove decided she wanted to become a doctor. Alas, one day coming back home after school, she had a tremendous street car accident, which sentenced her to the most physical and emotional sufferings again. She was only eighteen.

So she started painting herself thanks to a mirror that her parents had fixed on the canopy of her bed. Painting was her way to escape and fly avoid from her pain: she never painted dreams, only her reality which was a very sad one. It was the beginning of her biography.

She draw still live, portraits of friends, relatives and family, waiting for her recovery, waiting for the moment to leave her bed and live like the rest of all the doves in the world, but in the meantime the poor little birdie had to endure thirty surgeries on her poor little body.

She recovered once again against all prognoses and started attending an art school, as painting had become her vital necessity.

One day, she saw a huge elephant painting a marvelous mural, and was fascinated with that “larger than life” animal. He was tall, strong and huge; he was everything she wanted herself to be…

The elephant was a famous painter so she showed her paintings and drawings to him. The enormous animal found her talented and brilliant and encouraged her to go on as her paintings were different, surrealistic and feminine.

They fell in love and got married when she was twenty two, but they didn’t live happily for ever after…

The story of the dove and the elephant is not a fairy tale; it is the story of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Frida was a beautiful, exotic Mexican woman and Diego a strong corpulent giant almost twenty years her elder.

Few human beings have gone through the physical and emotional ordeals she had to, like a broken back and a broken pelvis which would never allow her to carry on her pregnancies.

These are the reasons why her paintings always had a message of pain in them. She used to describe herself as a broken person, not as a sick woman, and when asked why she painted herself so much, she answered: “… because I am so often alone… because I am the subject I know best.” How sharp, clear, sad and true!

Her marriage with Diego Rivera made of her a feminist icon and she started wearing Mexican clothing and exotic jewelry. Men wanted her and women wanted to be her. She was brilliant, beautiful, racial, passionate, a heavy smoker, a tequila tippler, an off color singer, a dirty story teller, bisexual and addicted to pain killers.

But their union was not matched in Heaven and Diego cheated on her. “It is just sex, like a hand sake, nothing else”. But the discovering of his betrayal with her baby sister, Cristina, was more then she could stand. The couple divorced and Frida gave free way to her ambivalent sexuality.

“Have sex, have a bath and have sex again” became her philosophy of life.

And fatality struck her again. Gangrene stole her right leg forcing her to use a wooden leg and a wheel-chair.

Diego came back to her and they got married for the second time, with two conditions: “No sex and no money”.

Frida was by then a famous painter; she was Frida Kahlo, not Mrs. Rivera any more.

She passed away at the age of 47 from a pulmonary embolism, though suicide was suspected but never confirmed.

Her ashes are kept in a Mexican urn in the Blue House, her museum and previous home.

“Burn my body. I don’t want to be buried. I have spent too much time lying down… just burn it”.

And the little dove was free at last.

“Fly little dove, fly!”