Closeups

Getty Museum.

One day Eleanor took her mother-in-law, Cecilia, and Chive, Lila’s boyfriend, to the Getty in Los Angeles. This was Cecilia’s first trip to the Getty. Eleanor and Chive had each visited before.

After parking several hundred feet below ground, Cecilia, Chive and Eleanor boarded the tram for the 10-minute trip up the mountain to the museum. They shared the tram car with a boisterous group of 6^th graders and their teacher. The teacher told the students to look out the window for deer which live in the mountains. A few seconds later, students with sharp eyesight began announcing, “I see one” and “There’s one.” Eleanor looked and thought she saw a statue of a deer but wasn’t entirely certain.

The three went first to an extensive exhibit with photos of Cuba from the last 75 years. Cuba has always been a mythic place for Eleanor. She grew up in the 1960’s on Key Biscayne in Miami. Her friends were young Cuban immigrants whose families had left Cuba before Castro. As they sat in their living rooms, her friends showed her photos of themselves dressed in white in front of grand homes in Havana. They spoke Spanish to their parents and ate meat cooked with onions and plenty of garlic. Their names--Miriam, Lilian, Gloriosa, Manuel--were unfamiliar to Eleanor.

Lilian, Gloriosa, Eleanor, Miriam.

Eleanor was completely overtaken with the idea of being forced to leave your home and move to another country. She made up a story of her own to tell them. She said that her family came from France and spoke French. (Eleanor’s mother did read and speak French, and Eleanor’s family had recently been to France on vacation). One of her friends, probably Miriam, asked her to speak some French. Eleanor quickly repeated the one phrase she remembered from her trip, a phrase the hotel doorman greeted her with each morning, “Comment allez-vous, mon petite fille?” Miriam remained unconvinced that Eleanor’s story was true.

They took in the beauty.

The trio ended their visit to the Getty with a walk around the garden. Chive took the camera and followed three monks whose bright orange robes matched the intensity of the colors of the flowers.

 Cecilia and Eleanor sat on a bench and took in the beauty of their surroundings. They talked about the photos they had seen, mostly the ones of the sky in an exhibit next to the Cuba exhibit.  Cecilia looked up and saw that the blue of the sky was almost exactly like the blue in a photo of the sky at Malibu. She was happy to know that the photographer had not fooled her.

Cecilia looked up and saw the blue sky.