I know this will come as a shocker to you … but as a teenager I was a brat. I used to live in Morocco, would travel with my parents to Europe often, and felt that if I had to step foot into another cathedral I might just scream. In fact, when I was seventeen I backpacked with my sister for six weeks throughout the old continent. I said I’d go with one condition: we were not to step foot on any museum or church. She dutifully obliged.
Time has gone by, I have matured, and Europe is no longer next door. Although I appreciate art, and respect the amount of talent and work needed to paint, sculpt and build these incredible buildings and artwork … it’s just not my thing. So I am guessing that Fearless takes after his dad after all.
The Cathedral in Toledo
We are in Spain, at the beginning of a five-week European family vacation. I am so grateful to be here, and even more grateful that I am here with Joe and the boys. We are staying at a friend’s place in Madrid and doing all the things tourists do, though we shorten visits to accommodate a seven and five year old attention span. Yet the boys are surprising me. Dreamer insisted in going through the entire palace of Felipe II at the Escorial; he wanted to see his room, his study, his court room. He asked a million questions that fortunately Joe was able to answer; while Fearless discovered the frescos in Toledo.
Toledo is an ancient town about an hour away from the capital famous for its fortress and its cathedral. I was hesitant, but Joe insisted on taking the boys to the latter. In order to “save” my boys from the utter boredom of visiting a church, a PTSD of sorts, I agreed but insisted we go up the bell tower because it would afford us a great view of the town and well, of everything in a cathedral, I always thought that was the best part.
We entered this incredibly ornate 18th century building and in order to get to the bell tower we passed an open courtyard where five frescos painted by Francisco Bayeu in the 1780’s are. I was holding Fearless’ hand as we walked and he stopped.
“Mami what’s that?”
“A painting”
“Who is getting their head cut off?”
The death of Saint Eugene
Crap. The one painting he was focusing on had the image of someone being beheaded with these creepy baby angel faces looking down on him. I mean really, the frescos are so bright and realistic that the whole thing was eery. If I were going to believe in angels, these body-less cherubins were not going to be it. I tried moving Fearless along with relative success until we get to the last fresco. An image of a woman who is dead, dying or fainting, a cross on the bottom and Jesus looking down on her although it doesn’t quite look like the Jesus Fearless tends to see on a cross. I did not have a tour book and had no idea what the painting was about but Fearless was fascinated, and asked question after question.
Fearless asking me loads of questions
Making sense of “The Sad Lady in that painting made with egg” (the fresco)
I answered “I don’t know,” “I’m not sure”, time and time again so he began to draw his own conclusions. . He would not move and he stayed there trying to understand what was going on. He told me he recognized Jesus because of the wounds on his hands and feet, and that the lady was sad he had died but the angels were telling her he was okay.
He then began to work backwards and we ended up once again in the fresco of the poor beheaded man who I later googled and found out was Saint Eugene. There are two frescos: one where Saint Eugene is preaching, and the next one where someone is slitting his throat. Fearless spent a lot of time looking, analyzing, figuring out it was part of a story … recognizing the person being killed was the one preaching, how his clothes were on the floor, how one man who was watching him preach was now putting a knife to his neck. He was putting these pieces together and would not leave until he was satisfied he’d captured what he needed. That took about one hour, and then we finally made it up the bell tower.
Back at the apartment I find out Fearless’ story behind the sad woman is wrong. It’s actually Saint Casilda who had died in the woods. The angels were taking care of her and Jesus was welcoming her to heaven.
It doesn’t matter to him or to me if he was right or wrong, but I did see a different side to my rambunctious child. One that I am fascinated by and am now trying to foster. We have taken four day trips to ancient cities, gone into three palaces and two cathedrals – all in our first week of traveling.
I’m glad that I grew up a little, and no longer am the girl who would pout when taken to a museum. If I were, I might have missed these wonderful experiences and this little jewel of an art lover I’ve come to see in my son.
