Let it be

Les Disciples Jean et Pierre Courant au Sepulcre Le Matin de la Resurrection, Eugene Burnand

I brought the postcard of this painting home from the Musee D'Orsay. It sits on the shelf above my desk and my heart pings a little every time I look at it. According to my rusty college French, the title translates to something like The Disciples Peter and John Rush to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection. Look at those faces, that simultaneous hope and anxiety. Rushing but almost reluctant. Please let it be.

Today I read a post about "the wild, tender place between knowing and not knowing" and I glanced up at my postcard tilted there on the shelf and thought, Yes.

I had a rush of understanding about paths and inspiration. I can feel fear and anxiety (those disciple faces! I recognize them) about things I feel nudged to do and yet still be headed in the right direction. Just because I wonder how shall it be doesn't mean I'm not confident in the outcome.

Even if I'm whispering a mantra of Please let it be under my breath and clasping my hands as I walk into the wind.

 . . .

Oh, hello, grateful November! Today I'm thankful for Costco and babies in the air and art postcards and closing lines and illustrative graphs and The Beatles' Let It Be.

Glass ceilings and mockingbirds

What a fun & full weekend! On Saturday we met my parents at the MFA & saw the Chihuly Glass exhibit (amazing! look at that ceiling in the big photo below!)

But the real reason we went was to see Hey, Boo!, a feature-length documentary about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird. Definitely see it if you get the chance. It was surprisingly emotional for me and, judging from the sniffling and wiping away of tears around me, I wasn't the only one. (Obsession alert! I've also written about Harper Lee here and here)

A few take-aways:

1. I always thought that To Kill a Mockingbird sprung sort of fully formed from the mind of Nelle Harper Lee. But it actually took a LOT of work and two years of grueling rewrites even after she finished the initial story. 

2. Two friends (a married couple by the name of Brown) believed so heartily in her talent as a writer that they gave her a Christmas gift of enough $ to support her for a year so she could quit her job as an airline reservations clerk and dedicate herself to writing. She said it was not so much the $ but their complete faith in her that carried her through the creation of the book. What fantastic friends, definitely fifth business material.

3. She started law school but quit to be awriter. Sometimes quitting is good.

4. Atticus is based loosely on her own father, A.C. Lee, who was a member of the state legislature, an attorney, and an editor for Monroeville's newspaper. (I just found a great LA Times article about Lee's last interview and some of her influences here.)

4. While the character of Scout definitely embodies Lee's characteristics as a young girl, over the years she has come to feel more akin to Boo Radley as the media and well-meaning, curious fans have sought to bring her out of her private isolation. "Know what'd happen then? All the ladies in Maycomb includin' my wife'd be knocking on his door bringing angel food cakes. To my way of thinkin', Mr. Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great service an' draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight – to me, that's a sin. It's a sin and I'm not about to have it on my head. If it was any other man, it'd be different. But not this man, Mr. Finch...Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough."  Although meeting her is one of my dreams, I suppose reading her book is enough for me, too.

. . .

Click here for a clip of the documentary, a portion of the section on Scout.

Going solo

So you see, imagination needs moodling -- long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering. 
~Brenda Ueland 

Last week I found myself with a weekday night completely free of obligations and an empty house. It was all the encouragement I needed to dash into the city to see the Museum of Fine Art's brand new Art of the Americas wing. It was my version of moodling: just following my own whims for an hour or two. I dawdled around the art exhibits and had soup and salad in the new courtyard. Lovely! It also allowed me a few Mrs.-Basil-E-Frankweiler daydreams of living in a museum.

They've done a beautiful job with the new wing. Instead of segregating the furniture and the objects and the paintings into different exhibit rooms, they've mixed everything all together. I loved it. Gorgeous color combinations and textile patterns, great lighting, and of course the art. 

 

^Love this one. Those vases are the actual ones used in the portrait. Cool, huh? 

Once in a while, it's really refreshing to do something solo. (As you know, I'm not against going to a movie matinee once in a while by myself either.) What about you? When was the last time you did something on your own? (Showers and bathroom time don't count, y'all!)

Bruegel Christmas

See that woman in the middle?
The one alone
With the white hat and broom
Head down, sweeping
Or digging, maybe.
That has been me.
Focused on the depth of snow in front of me
And my need to dig out.

Oblivious
To the boisterous gathering over there
And to the snow-stuck wagon behind me,
Where my broom could be put to better use.
Unaware of the simple miracle
of a young woman on a horse,
almost hidden by winter clothing
and seeking a place,
The holy significance lost in favor of
Bristles and snow.

I'm putting down the broom

And looking up.

Join me?

____

The last final is handed in and the big paper was submitted this morning.  I feel so grateful for the lightened weight from my shoulders! I'm ready for a simple, enjoy-the-moments Christmas week with the family, aided by the coming snowstorm and cancelled events.

 ____

{Painting: Bruegel's The Census at Bethlehem.  Click here for last year's Rossetti Christmas.}

Creationism

I remember the first year that I (well, we) served as Santa for our little family, our distant east coast outpost celebration so far from the rest of our clan. Up until then--even as a married couple--I had gone to bed at a certain point so I didn't have to see Santa do his work. I just didn't want to see behind that curtain, even though I knew what was there.

So that first year was both thrilling and, well, a little empty. I was used to being a consumer of the magic. Not the magic creator. It was daunting and humbling. I realized just how much my own parents had done through the years to create that magic that I hungrily lapped up.

I'm feeling that all over again, the distinct difference between consuming and creating.

Over the last few weeks, I've been working on writing down some stories that have been swirling around my head. Now, I've always been a reader. I love to get immersed in a great book, to be on the receiving end of that literary magic. But. I'm newly daunted by the creation of that magic, suddenly humbled and appreciative of all of those manymany thousands of pages I have gobbled up. On one level I knew it was work. Now I know it on another level. I want to write to each of the authors or visit them and bow at their feet and apologize for how lightly I took their seeming effortlessness.

So I pull out my favorites, hoping their magic touch of dialogue~setting~characters~details will seep through their pages to my fingertips and out to my own writing. Thank you Harper Lee, Justin Cronin, Susan Minot, Wallace Stegner, Anne Lamott, Kent Haruf, and others for being my pantheon of writing gods. I aspire to your magic and I'll probably never get there.

* * *

Speaking of creation, I've been wanting to share a few artists that I've been admiring lately.

Photographer Julie Blackmon

photos via her website

* * *
Painter Paul Ferney

paintings via his website
* * *
Painter Nathan Florence
(& disclosure: he's my second cousin)

paintings via his website
* * *
Painter Claerwen James

images via Flowers East Gallery

I think if I could go back and ask for a talent, I would hurry over to the painting line. Or the broadway singing one.