like a candle to the sun

I thought it right and proper that I should post something here before I leave town again for a week. I’m not sure what exactly I plan to say, but I’ll just say it as it comes.

Sometimes when you anticipate something, and you attach high hopes and expectations to it, you’re almost bound to experience a bit of disappointment, simply because life rarely follows in the path of our well-laid plans. But sometimes . . . ah! those adorable sometimes! Sometimes the thing itself meets and surpasses the expectation, and we go along as in a dream, amazed that the reality danced circles around the imagination.

Seattle. While the rains drenched Texas, the skies over Seattle seemed determined to break any previous records for depths of blue. I felt like the baby bear. Everything was “just right.” The days unfolded at a pleasant pace of productivity, and my notebook (and camera) gradually filled with fascinating information about people and places. The person I just so happened to ask would be the person with just the expertise I needed.

So it was wonderful. On top of my research, I got to hear Grace sing “Be Thou My Vision” in a wedding, accompanied by piano, violin, and cello. Music for the heart. The reception was one of the most fun I’ve ever been to. We danced the night away.

I also got to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. It was surreal to stand within inches of these famous masterpieces. The paintings on display were purchased beginning in 1906 by Helene Kroller-Muller, owner of the largest private collection of paintings and drawings by Van Gogh. She also collected Seurat, Signac, Denis, Redon, Toorop, Mondrian, Van Doesburg, and Van der Leck. In 1938 she opened the Kroller-Muller Museum, which holds one of the greatest art collections in Europe, yet remains unknown to many Amercians because of its remote location in the Hoge Beluwe National Park in rural southeast Netherlands.

Van Gogh. Such a gifted individual with such a tormented soul. I had three favorites:

Olive Grove, painted in 1889. The trees almost dance off the canvas along with the swirling sky and gypsy grasses. Wild and wonderful.

The Garden of the Asylum at Saint Remy. Psychological turmoil drove Van Gogh to check himself into the asylum. While there he painted this scene of the garden with a firework of color in the treetop. The grasses seem to sway like waves of water–a common theme with Van Gogh.

Cafe Terrace at Night, painted in 1888. This was probably my favorite of all. A night sky with brilliant starbursts of yellow and white contrasts with orange light spilling into the street from a cafe in Arles, France. Pale aqua tables, pine green shutters, people in the streets. Van Gogh said he used paint like a poet uses words to evoke a sense of eternity . . . to make a poem with color in the same way a composer says comforting things with music.

It was lovely. The exhibit. The trip. All of it.

Tomorrow we leave for Colorado. A week in the mountains observing God’s masterpieces. Life is art, no?

I love you. Be well.

EZ