Cupid's a Bleep: Rubenesque, #1

1

It all started with a painting.

Actually, it started the day before the painting, during a meeting I was having with a colleague at work. Nick, from accounting, was sitting in my office trying to grasp the training he had been assigned earlier in the week.

So, we’re not supposed to bring up someone’s weight? Ever? he asked. Why?

We should all be aware that someone’s weight might be a sensitive issue. To delve into those types of conversations at work might be either hurtful or a form of prying into personal issues they don’t want to discuss, I explained

"So, if someone is working out a lot and they lose some weight…we should not congratulate them."

You know, Nick, some of this stuff is a case by case issue. If they bring up that they are working out and they are proud that they lost some weight then congratulating them would most likely be acceptable. However, weight loss can sometimes be due to a disease or stress and mentioning it out of the blue may be upsetting.

I was trying not to be annoyed.

I work in HR. Every year we email all employees interactive online trainings that contain little scenarios in each lesson. Every year, someone–the Nicks of my life–sits across from me to nitpick the simple scenarios presented to them in those trainings. They struggle to understand why comments that they consider normal, everyday conversation should be avoided in the work place. Sometimes these conversations are rough.

The IT tech, George, for instance, grapples with the fact that he can’t keep asking the CEO’s assistant out on dates. He balked at the sexual harassment training because he didn’t like being told not to flirt with colleagues. It took an official warning for him to finally get it. After that write up he just moped around the water cooler, or over his computer screen, barely talking to anyone. Ever since, whenever I see him in the break room he avoids eye contact with me.

Forgive me, Helena, but sometimes this stuff seems…well…overly sensitive. It makes it hard to relax and be personable with people. I mean, if I complement you and say, ‘Helena, you look lovely today. You are absolutely Rubenesque.’ Would I be in trouble for complementing you? Bringing up your weight? Is that harassment?

I’ll admit it, I paused. I sat there, caught off guard. I could tell by Nick’s expression that he was just talking, not trying to make me feel uncomfortable. But in classic Nick fashion he was borderline offensive. Yet, wait…was that a complement? I was so confused. Was I flattered or insulted? I honestly didn’t know how to answer his question. What did he mean, exactly, by ‘Rubenesque’?

I shook my head and sighed, then told him when in doubt to just keep quiet and, perhaps, not use me or other colleagues as hypothetical examples. I excused myself from the meeting, blah blah blah…finish wrapping up some Friday tasks…blah blah blah.

A post meeting Google search on ‘Rubenesque’ led me down a digital trail which ended at the original paintings by Peter Paul Rubins. A playful text message exchange with my best friend, Chloe, eventually brought me to a museum. It was a Saturday in the center of the city, at a Peter Paul Rubins traveling exhibit, when I stood in front of the painting. The painting that changed my life.

It wasn’t a huge piece of art work. Only about 15 by 23 inches, but the depth of color and the voluptuous figures depicted in it, the pale woman and the deeply muscled man creature, seemed life sized when you stared at it.

Oooo, Helena, she looks like you, Chloe cooed. It was embarrassing.

Really, I don’t think so, I responded,

I mean her face and hair are a bit different, but if you were naked you would look like that. Chloe moved towards the painting to inspect it more closely.

If I was naked? Is that an insult?

Nooo, no, she’s beautiful, and so are you. I guess you were Mr. Rubin’s type, she chuckled.

Yes, if I was naked, blonde, and being chased by a goat man in a bunch of tall grass carrying a red towel, I guess that I would look just like that, I said.

I think that’s her dress. Chloe looked at the painting thoughtfully. And he’s not a goat man, he’s a satyr. He’s kinda hot.

Oh, a satyr, I responded. Is he pulling off her clothes?

I guess so. Chloe read the little plaque next to the painting out loud, Pan and Syrinx… she’s a nymph.

Great…I look like a nymph.

Chloe laughed. She did not look like the figures in the painting. She was a tiny woman, fragile almost, with giant expressive eyes and a bobbly head on a long thin neck. Her wispy short curly hair often looked out of control and jiggled with her bobbly head when she laughed. Despite her slight awkwardness, she was cute as a button.

And then there was me. Rubenesque, I guess. Full hipped and fleshy, medium tall at five foot six inches, my hair pulled tight in a bun, sporting sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt. I guess they didn’t have sweat pants back in the 1600’s when these paintings were made. I guess they didn’t have clothes, or at least their clothes were constantly being ripped off of their bodies by goat men. This Syrinx nymph, I bet she would have liked some sweat pants to wear while she was being chased around by Pan.

Chloe turned to look at the room beyond the painting of Pan and Syrinx. Her eyes widened as she took in the full volume of work on display. Oooo….Helena, you could be in all of these paintings! she exclaimed.

I turned around to see what Chloe meant and there it was, painting after painting of women and men, many of them naked, undulating bellies and thighs and rolling muscles. All of them involved in different activities; lounging, chasing, fighting. Even the clothed figures seemed fleshy, their capes and dresses puffed and clinging up around their bodies, falling halfway off a shoulder or open on one side to expose a singular breast. Half clothed men offered fully naked women pieces of fruit or fought off raging tigers and other beasts with their bare hands. Angels, gods, mythical creatures, and humans all merged together so that it was hard to determine what world we looked upon.

What do you think? asked Chloe, as she moved into the full exhibit, her back to me.

I think this looks like an HR nightmare, I responded. I could see her curls shake as she laughed.

I was making jokes, but that painting–all of the paintings, really–did something to me. I’m not sure how to explain it, but I felt different when I got home. I stood in front of the mirror in my bathrobe and looked at my reflection. I have to admit, I don’t often stand in front of my mirror and stare at myself. It’s not that I ever felt bad about myself, it just wasn’t a habit of mine. But after seeing the figures in those paintings, the way I saw my own reflection seemed to have changed.

I pulled my hair out of the bun and let it fall around my shoulders. I held my arms out as if I was going to dance the waltz and let my bathrobe fall away as I glanced over my shoulder.

Then I said, to nobody else in the room, Maybe it’s time I updated my look, be a bit more adventurous. You know, spice it up. It might be fun.

2

My adventure, by most standards, started out pretty mellow.

On Sunday I shook out my mane of hair and, instead of pulling it up tight into a bun, I kept it down and called to make a last minute appointment for a haircut at a nearby salon. I drank my morning coffee looking out the open window of my third story condo. The weather was perfect. The sun was shining, but the puffy white clouds occasionally dimmed its light keeping the early summer day from getting overly hot.

That afternoon, still sporting my weekend sweat pants and big t-shirt, I decided to walk to the salon instead of driving or calling a cab. After all, when was the last time I had walked through my neighborhood or strolled through the parks near my house?

I couldn’t help but notice the more wild areas that existed around my place. All of the years I had lived in this condo they had been there and I hadn’t paid much attention. I had been such a homebody. I thought about Ruben’s paintings and the thick groves, forests, and gardens displayed in them. Wandering down the trails that ran through the parks I was like a child who was seeing it all for the first time.

Beyond the well mowed grassy lawns that dominated the parks, the further edges exploded with untamed nature disappearing into small forest glens or spreading into open space meadows where butterflies spun above bending grass. Walking over tiny bridges I looked down the length of the small creeks that wound their way through the trees, tall grasses arching over the water, cattails bursting open with fuzzy seeds at the edge of ponds, red winged blackbirds calling across the water, and little yellow birds occasionally perching on purple thistle.

These discoveries gave my step a light hearted bounce and I even found myself humming quietly and nodding to strangers as we passed each other. After the parks I moved into the streets where little shops were bustling with Sunday customers. When did we get a shoe boutique and a flower shop in my neighborhood? This city had grown so fast for the last couple of years that I barely recognized some of the blocks as I strolled. New shops, more people, in the distance construction cranes hovered over the skyline where new buildings were being built. Wow. I had really been hiding away for awhile.

I should get out more. I said under my breath.

When I turned down 16 th street, just a few blocks away from the salon, I didn’t recognize anything. New buildings and street lamps lined the block. The sidewalks were wider and had new trees planted along them. Even the center of the road, which had once been so busy with traffic that I feared trying to cross it, had a center median, full of landscaped flowers and bushes and special crosswalks that gave pedestrians a safer way to cross.

There, on this newly designed urban block, a shiny metal sign hung out over the sidewalk above the door of a new bar. The name was spelled out in elaborate etched filigree strokes, The Hoppy Faun. Outside, two slick haired bouncers leaned against the wall next to the door, talking. As I walked past, one of them raised his eyes and looked at me as he lifted a thin cuban style cigar to his lips. He smiled slyly and winked. I kept walking.

At the end of the block, a few loud shouts echoed from behind me and I turned to see the two bouncers leading a short, plump, balding man roughly to the edge of the sidewalk. They held his little pudgy arms behind him as if they were about to cuff his hands behind his back.

We told you to get out of here! One of the bouncers hollered at him as they pushed him away from the bar.

The man, barely half the size of the bouncers, was nearly flung into the street with the force of the violent shove. Instead, he stopped right at the edge and wavered slightly as he caught his balance. He wiggled his plump little body, straightened his rumpled suit jacket and, to my surprise, let out a high pitched giggle, He he he he he! Then he skipped across the street seemingly without a care in the world.

Don’t come back here. You hear me you little prick? the second bouncer threatened.

If the little man heard him, he didn’t respond. He simply bounced along down the block in the opposite direction that I was going, thankfully, giggling all the way, He he he he he…

That was odd, I thought. Then I went about my way.

*****

Somebody hasn’t had a cut in a long time. Ron, my hairdresser, held my long locks in a plume at the top of my head.

I know. It’s definitely time, I answered.

He nodded curtly in agreement. Basic trim? he asked, his tone that of someone expecting the normal answer.

Actually… I started and Rons right eyebrow raised in shock. He waited, wondering if I was changing my pattern. I was hoping that maybe we could do something different, I said.

Really? he asked enthusiastically. Sure, what are you lookin’ for babydoll? He ran his hands through my hair, looking at my face, considering the possibilities.

"I’m not sure, something a