Last night I watched a pbs show about Marilyn Monroe, which was just fascinating.  Watching her do photo shoots was really cool.  She had this vulnerability, intensity, honesty.  She was so available and so openly expressive.  Then they showed her without makeup, and the narrator said she really wasn't that beautiful without  it.  A photographer said she had 'terrible elbows' and beautiful feet.  Another photographer didn't like her nose, they had to put lots of makeup on to make it look more like they wanted it.
  The photographs of Marilyn without her makeup, sitting there in the Actor's Studio, looking 'terrible' were not terrible, they were stunning.   Without makeup her skin had texture, there was so much to study about her face rather than the uniform, spotless version.  Something was more delicate, or less.  Something was more raw, both more and less fragile. 
  An old friend, Susan, has the most beautiful house I've ever seen.  It's off the paseo and 51st.  Not particularly big, not new, no fantastic architectural features.  But an artist lives there and the house thrives with the influence of her artistic eye.  She has an old chair.  It's tattered and incredibly worn, an old fabric pattern, it probably wouldn't get picked up off the curb very quickly.  And it's incredibly beautiful.  One day we were laughing, she said, I must really be an artist, because I love that chair.
  When Marilyn was sitting there, bare skin and all, was there anyone who loved her and saw her beautiful as that old chair?  Not that she was old, and not that aging has anything to do with it.  But when people look at each other, loving, and there's no flaws, because love for the person is all there is, that's the most beautiful thing ever.  I hope that she found that. 
  What was it that was missing?  She was terribly sad.  Was it that she weighed too much on what other people thought?  I doubt that's what it was.  She was real with her presence even as a movie star, she showed her many moods, she showed her serious side, etc..  We're not talking about Cameron Diaz, or Kelly Pickler, who just seem to thrive on being cute.  We're talking about an incredibly sensual, sexual, insightful and complex woman.  There were people who recognized her depth.  Unbearable as it must be to not be understood, as isolating as that would feel, even to be seen wouldn't be enough.  What if there's no one there who is similarly baring their soul?  What if you are so vulnerable, so open, that to find someone to match that degree of sharing was incredibly difficult?  There would be no communion.  It would be this one-way expression of self and love and experience, and there would be no one drinking from the same cup.  And yet if you're the kind of person who thrives on vulnerability, who loves expression, who is constantly seeking to understand and grasp beyond the surface of the world and of people...wouldn't the lack of a sharing with a similar seeker be enough to bring devastation? 
  Maybe Marilyn did find that kind of connection.  She was married to Joe DiMaggio, who I doubt provided that.  He couldn't stand watching her stand there being photographed, which just shows that he didn't really understand the point.  It wasn't that she was thriving on being a sex goddess.  She was thriving on being able to be that open.  He didn't get that, I don't think.
  She was married to Arthur Miller, the playwright.  If you look at pictures of them standing on the bridge, you can see the look of love in their eyes.  He was 'softened' by her.  The world previously saw him mostly as a stark intellectual, unreadable, unreachable.  Then you see them together and there was something.  Did it just not last?  Was it never deep enough?  Was there ever the true give and take between them?
  Obviously I'm doing a lot of speculation here.
   I'm not fascinated with a whole lot of celebrities, not in the 'let's watch Entertainment Tonight!' sense.  However I do find Marilyn Monroe very interesting, as well as Princess Diana.  There again, another very sad woman.  She struggled with depression and eating disorders.  Her first marriage was just an utter disaster, he never really was all about her, and she only thought that she was about him.  Married for the wrong reasons, the pull of the royalty had been there since she was very small, everyone thought it was a great match, and together they didn't work at all.  Dodi (do I have his name right?) was probably the only man who made all the bells and whistles go off and truly felt that way about her.  Diana seemed only a little bit comfortable in her own skin, but she was comfortable with her vulnerability.  There's photos of her with her head down, looking up, very coy.  Comfortable with wanting and being wanted.  Less comfortable with herself.  Was it the pressures of the day?  The toll of being the most photographed woman in the world? Having people like the queen critical of her decisions?  The sum of it all, is that what brings us to grief?
  How much of the grief was just from being at the top?  There's an ee cummings poem that talks about Jesus, filled with nothing but loneliness.  I wonder if that's usually true.