Words from Wise Women: Frida Kahlo

I recently listened to a great podcast from Stuff You Missed In History Class about Frida Kahlo and was immediately intrigued by this cultural icon I had seen so many photos of, yet knew so little about. From her childhood and a bus accident that left her in pain the rest of her life, to her tumultuous relationship with her life-long love Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo lived a fascinating life. You can listen to it here. 

While I may not particularly agree with her politics, I think she was a strong woman with a will to do whatever she put her mind to. And she loved fiercely, without worrying what other's thought about her. To me, this is admirable.

“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”

“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”

“I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.”

“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light.”

“I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.”

“I paint flowers so they will not die.”

“I love you more than my own skin and even though you don’t love me the same way, you love me anyways, don’t you? And if you don’t, I’ll always have the hope that you do, and i’m satisfied with that. Love me a little. I adore you.”

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”

“I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of “madness”. Then: I’d arrange flowers, all day long, I’d paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: “Poor thing, she’s crazy!” (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else’s - my madness would not be an escape from “reality.”

“Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic.”

“And you are not stupid. You loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. Heart like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas. Heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street.”

(Above graphic mine.)

Read more Words from Wise Women here.