A PLACE TO STOP, THINK AND WONDER, PART III

The Denial of St. Peter, Gerard Seghers (1591-1651)

Museums are such wonderful places.  I've written about them before.  So many people agree.  School groups, singles, parents and children all wandering about looking.  A place to stop, think and wonder.  But I hadn't paid enough attention to the museums close to home.  The North Carolina Museum of Art is a mere 1/2 hour drive away.  Because my brother is an artist we decided to go there when he came to visit.  What an enriching experience! Look at the light in this beautiful painting, how it shines on the faces, how St. Peter is illuminated. Of course I wanted to read about how this was achieved.  I learned that the luminosity and plasticity of the oils gave new color and realism to the Renaissance paintings. Before that frescoes had been painted with tempera--somewhat like the chalk paints we use for furniture today.   

The Museum was also having a Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) show, juxtaposing her work with younger artists influenced by her.  She is of course known best for her outsize flowers. She said about flowers, 

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. 
We haven't time and it takes time--
like to have a friend. 

Isn't that a wonderful comparison, that taking time to see something as fragile and wondrous as a flower is like taking time for friendship?  Because I am now deep into my Mindfulness and Meditation course this resonates with me.  Seeing, paying attention whether to our friends or to nature.  Being aware, being present.

O'Keeffe didn't only paint nature, but I didn't know that before.  I'm an art novice.  This is one of her early portraits, Woman with Apron (1918), described as "whirling washes of saturated color."
 

Woman with Apron, O'Keeffe, 1918

This next one too is of pure saturated color and was maybe my favorite of hers in the exhibit.  It seems like the expression of an emotion.  I could look at it everyday. Do you like this sort of painting?  So different from her famous flowers.  

Evening Star No. II, O'Keeffe, 1917

But what I really loved was being introduced to the paintings of Anna Valdez (b. 1985).  Valdez, I learned, paints natural forms along side domestic objects.  Like O'Keeffe, her work is characterized by rigorous observation.  I love the floral forms and decorative patterning.  They're almost like illustrations. Yet every inch of the canvas is filled with color.  Different from the simple swaths of color in the O'Keeffe paintings.  What do you think?  Would you like to look at something like this when you woke in the morning?  Or came home from work?  Would it cheer you, make you happy?  Intrigue you?  I think it would me.  

Deer Skull with Blue Vase, Valdez, 2017

Study-ing, Valdez, 2015

Sometimes it seems like a museum won't provide enough entertainment or stimulation.  We're so used to speed and instant gratification.  But a museum is always worth a visit.  We look beyond ourselves into the creative minds of others.  I'd like to do this more. 

GETTING AWAY MAY BE ALL WE NEED--FALL IN THE ROCKIES

Aspens in Fall, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Sometimes we have to get away, even if just for a day.  Surviving two hurricanes and with my own surgery and rehab looming, I knew that was what we needed.  A few days away from everyday cares.  Visiting our national parks is high on my list.  There are enough for anyone's lifetime. Sixty in fact, in twenty-eight states plus the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. I looked it up.  California, Alaska, Utah and Colorado have the most.  With enough credit card miles and a direct flight, I picked Colorado for us.  The Rockies!  

No where is America more beautiful than in our national parks. They belong to us all.  To drive through, hike, camp and canoe, horseback and bike ride, fish, swim, raft. . . .  So many people have been to more of our parks than I have. Eighty-four million visitors a year! 

So I found a cabin on a river--no lodge, no fancy meals, just the same cooking I do at home.  But there was elk and bison from the Safeway to grill, and Filet Mignon at  prices we've never seen in North Carolina.  The first day we saw the bright yellow aspen in full fall glory.  The second day the elk were everywhere.  We were so excited!  

Bull, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

And the third day it snowed!  We walked around Bear Lake then lit the fire in the cabin and settled in.

Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park

Funny how even a trip of 4 nights can be a trip of a lifetime.  And planned on no notice.  Just make up our minds and go.  I see so many lessons here.  The "Just Do It" slogan of Nike, for one.  That kind of thinking can propel us to grab the chance to make a difference in our lives.  Being in nature, feeling awe, standing before majesty, these experiences are not so hard to come by.  Tomorrow I can't get on a plane, but I can go outdoors at dusk and wait for the stars to come out.  I can get up in the night and see the moon.  I can walk Mr. Wiggles before the sun comes up and feel the chill of autumn.  

Maybe you're somewhere special right now.  Or maybe you're at home and that's special.  Maybe your pansies are blooming, or your mums, and your trees are turning, or the first snow has fallen, or the berries are on your cedar trees.  Something good is happening in nature.  Whether near or far, something good is happening.  Let's enjoy it.  Let's just do it!  Nina Naomi

HOW OLD ARE YOU? DOES IT MATTER?

 

Picasso, "The Mother," 1901

There's some conventional wisdom about age, about the difference between being young, middle-aged or old. The young do more, the old know more, so they say.  The middle-aged do a little less than the young and know a little less than the old. Still, it's considered by most to be the prime of life. 

Where being young ends depends on our age, doesn't it?  Our parents always seem old, even though my mother was 44 at my wedding and thought she was pregnant!  I didn't smoke because my parents did.  How could anything they did be cool?  Our children always seem young even though they may be middle-aged themselves.  My grandsons can't sign a contract, buy a car, support themselves, really do much besides homework.  But they think their mother is old and their father even older.  Their mother bristles at jokes about her age, but their father takes it in stride.

Within my family I'm old (and loved) because I'm the grandmother.  But as a wife I'm just me, no age at all.  When my husband and I go to bed at night we don't think, well here we are--two grandparents.  

As professionals, as each of us ages we become more experienced and high-priced.  As consumers we have more disposable income.  And of course with our friends we are all ageless.  Same with our interest groups--yoga, biking, book club, kayaking. . . age is not relevant.  

The question is, is it ever relevant?  

Every day we are both young and old--the oldest we have ever been and the youngest we will ever be.  So said Paul Simon (b. 1941) in "The Boxer." 

I am older than I once was

And younger than I'll be 

But that's not unusual.  

No, it isn't strange 

After changes upon changes

We are more or less the same

After changes we are

More or less the same

                         

There are so many quotes on aging--"Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age."  Who said that? You would think a comedian, like Nora Ephron.  Instead it is Victor Hugo (1802-1885), the creator of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. 


Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014), Nobel Prize for Literature 1982, wrote: "Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega.  An end in itself."  

Edouard Vuillard, "A Seamstress," 1892

I had a great grand-mother who used to sit by the window in her bedroom.  The window was upstairs over a front-porch roof, so she couldn't see the people passing on the sidewalk.  But she could smell the trees and hear the leaves rustle and the rain fall.  She could hear the thunder and feel the air.  She was nearly blind.  Thin, frail, skin drawn over sharp bones, white hair pulled back from her face.  This is my memory.  A daughter lived with her, my great-Aunt Lillie.  I wish I knew if Aunt Lillie helped her dress, brushed her soft hair, creamed her hands and face for her. She must have. I picture this done lovingly.  My great grandma had none of the sights or smells that sometimes children associate unkindly with old age.  She was soft and sweet-smelling, her bony hands just slightly chilled, her eyes blue with cataracts, her house-dress clean and crisp.  We loved her. 

When my mother died and I wrote her obituary, my father said, "I never thought of her as 82."  Seeing it in writing surprised him. 

Robert Frost says, "The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected."  In my own mind now that my father has died too, I must be in the afternoon.  Still, younger than I'll be.  That's not unusual. It isn't strange.  After changes upon changes I am more or less the same.   Do you feel like that?  Are you happy with yourself no matter what your age?  I'd like to stay that way.  Our inner lives eternal. That could be a prayer.    With affection, Nina Naomi