08 Jun Niobe’s Shadow

NIOBE’S SHADOW

Barbara Bose This large oil painting includes a reference in the background to the Greek mythological figure Niobe, whose weeps forever over the loss of her children. Cursed by the gods because of her father’s hubris, the cliff is a real place in Turkey and has a perpetual waterfall spilling into the sea like Niobe’ tears.

This painting is about how nice it would be to ‘leave’ for elsewhere, past this perpetual sorrow, shown as some lucky souls taking off on their magic carpets past my inner landscape that feels like a cold, craggy reality passing a waterfall of tears.

The sudden trap door of the loss of being ghosted was devastating on so many levels. I developed heart palpitations, I had an amnesia attack. I didn’t especially want to live. If my breast cancer returned I decided I wouldn’t seek treatment. I’ve been through a lot in my life, but this was way more than I could handle. I had practice already with the rejection of my older daughter, but ghosted by BOTH of my children? What does this say about me? This called for every fiber of my being to not collapse into despair.

I do, in fact, feel like a ghost. But I’ve noticed there are hundreds of thousands, probably millions of us ghosts on Facebook. What the hell is going on?

An actual ghost does not have agency – but I still do.