I wasn't sure whether it was a compliment or not.
But you know when it comes from the mouths of babes and all that, it may not necessarily be complimentary, but it will most definitely be true.
A boy aged about eight, was asking me about a picture I have on my wall of Ludwig van Beethoven. I am a bit of a fan of his music and, in my hey day, used to play a lot of his sonatas on the piano.
There is something uniquely comforting about the classical music era, filled as it was with rules and cadences and harmonies that blend and sound rather magnificent, predictable that they might be.
But I digress, it wasn't the wonderful music that this little fellow was referring to,
He told me, instead that I looked a bit like Beethoven.
To make things quite clear, I should point out that the picture in question is a line drawing and a little abstract. The boy, for example was unsure whether the person's face was a boy or a girl, such was the fashion of the day with both hair and outfit.
On further questioning it turns out the comparison wasn't about the gender, nor was it about any facial feature. The comparison was all about the hair.
Apparently Beethoven and I share the same unkempt, busy appearance.
My husband gently berates me for not owning a hair brush, nor using the usual feminine beauty contraptions such as a hair dryer or curling wand or straightener. I think he feels he has missed out in some way without a well coiffed wife.
My choice of hair fashion is to go to bed with wet hair and get up in the morning, hair fashionably styled by my pillow, tidying up the final look with a bit of a toweling, a hand run through and a bit of shake. My husband mentions various animals when he sees the well practised shake. He is not complimentary.
Which gets me back to the matter of Beethoven and I. I did check to see if the boy had any idea of the genius of the composer and was slightly miffed that there wasn't a deeper side to the statement. I was hopeful it was a shared level of genius he was discerning.
Oh well, if I can't be likened to what is in the great man's head, what's around it will have to do, thank you very much.
- Linda Muller
