Lia Purpura

 

I keep on my wall, a small print of Death, robed, with his scythe, leading a line of folks over a hill, backlit, at dusk. It’s a still shot from Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.  Next to it, I keep this photo, by Zoe Gensheimer (a Linehan Scholar in art at UMBC).  In the summer, my family, along with three other families, escape to a friend’s lake house for a few days; Zoe’s been taking photos of the kids year after year in the same spot on Lake Chautauqua. I keep these two images juxtaposed, strange as it is. Uncomfortable, even. Bergman’s: a straight line of hunched forms. Zoe’s: wild and ragged exuberance. Bergman’s: a parade wherein each figure pulls the other along. Zoe’s: forms leaping according to his or her own temperament. Bergman’s: a piper at the rear, facing backwards, entices any stragglers. Zoe’s: singular beings hold up the sky, cheer the sky, punch the sky, extend to the sky a blurry handshake, a wave, a greeting. Bergman’s: a divided, stark, black and white picture plane. Zoe’s: in one leap, feet clear blue water, dark mountains, gold sun, pink-blue sky. There’s the inevitability of Bergman: plain, clean, sharp, driven-forth. And there, in that line of kids, no one’s leading, no one’s following, there’s no one-thing-to-do or place-to-get-to.  Except up in the air. Suspended. For the joy of it. Year after year. Memento vivere.