For several days I have had a rather nagging worry that I would not make it onto my return flight to Atlanta from London, to the degree that I was even sleepless a couple of nights. Quantum physicists have been confirming for a good while now that time is anything but linear. Plenty of theologians in many religions long ago figured this out. Some of us are slower at this than others. Today I got yet another lesson in the reality that the human spirit is not bounded inside of linear time. It was a little over a year ago that the pain of Harold’s suicide blasted into my consciousness two hours BEFORE he decided to exit this world. My lesson today on the nature of time was one I don’t wish to repeat any time soon.
After four rather grand weeks with Hans and Yne in the beautiful Brabant region of the Netherlands, it was time for me to pack it in and give them their house and lives back. It was thus with mixed feelings that Hans dropped me off at an airport roadhouse to spend the night before a flight the following morning to London. Hans has been like a hybrid brother/father of unbounded generosity to me, and this has been a delight beyond words and of great consolation to one who has never known a real father. His dear wife Yne cooked me all those fabulous meals of happy times I never knew as a kid. I really didn’t want to be in this hotel eating by myself. It was too much like my ‘normal’ life.
After a somewhat fitful and expensive night of sleep, I did manage to get to the Schipol airport in time for my flight to London. I arrived early enough to buy breakfast in the airport, a meal that almost proved to be my last supper. The plasma screens indicated the London flight was delayed and a mist of apprehension passed over me. Eventually we loaded the plane, which had finally arrived from wherever, and I took heart in the fact the clouds in the sky looked fluffy and friendly, and not mean.
I always ask for a seat far forward on the leading edge of the wing, thus having a combination of a clear view forward of the wing and the best possible ride without paying the king’s ransom for the front cabin. I figure all the seats arrive at exactly the same time so never could justify the cost of paying 2-300% more for the hot towel and extra leg room. The wine and food is free even in the cheap seats. And so it was that I was in row eight directly next to the right engine intake of a 737 twin jet. After an ordinary acceleration run and seeing the Dutch landscape drop away for several minutes, I wistfully thought of what I was leaving behind, those things all the king’s treasuries would never gain me. We headed out over the North Sea.
I was instantly snapped out of my introspection by an explosive noise. After some six hundred rides in every conceivable kind of commercial aircraft, I know what the normal sounds are. This was certainly not one of them. Neither was the acrid smell that came into the cabin. After 9/11 and the myriad terrorist bombings of the past three days, I suddenly entered into another dimension of time. The cabin attendants rushed down both aisles pulling down all of the overhead bins looking for evidence of an explosive device. The fellow next to me muttered something about soiling himself.
Surprisingly, the plane maintained attitude and the pilot came on the PA to calmly comment on the fact that we were going to attempt to return to the airport. He calmly said the engines still seemed to be working from what he could tell ‘up here’. ‘Back here’, I knew that something bad had happened in that turbine six feet from me. We slowly circled the North Sea, presumably to dump fuel so there would be less Jet-A kerosene to add to the excitement if the landing proved less than normal. The whole world learned on 9/11 what Jet-A kerosene used incorrectly does. I, and I suspect everyone else, held our collective breath to see what would happen when 200,000 pounds of aluminum and humans are reunited with earth at high speed in less than optimal circumstances.
That Boeing 737 did manage to make it back onto the ground. That turbine did not blow out of its casing and we were able to avoid seeing the fields beyond the end of runway. We were kept on the plane while it was determined that a very large bird had been sucked into the turbine outside my window. I will spare you the physics and possibilities that can occur when one throws a three-kilogram object at three hundred miles an hour into a very fast-turning jet turbine made of very brittle hard alloys. If one blade is bent or broken it can set up a cascade and the whole of the turbine assembly can in a second completely disintegrate, with catastrophic results for the airplane attached to it.
Life is astounding in how tenuous it is. One of the most precision-made and delicate inventions of mankind did not blow apart when six pounds were thrown into it. I did make it back onto terra firma. I was not in Chechnya or Saudi Arabia, yet hundreds of others this week did not experience a safe passage through time in those places. I sit here in Paris at 4:30 PM Thursday afternoon, astounded that I am here. It is the last place on earth I ever dreamed I would have been today. People come to Paris to climb the Eiffel Tower, gawk at the smile on the Mona Lisa, fall in love. They sure don’t come here to ruminate about physics and why they are still alive while others are not. But so it is. I did not become fish food in the North Sea today.
I have not felt so far from home since the time when I was in the occupied Jordan desert in 1971 and had the experience of having two fighter jets making a bombing run near some ancient archeological excavations I happened to be. Fighter jocks in wars don’t worry about things like tourists looking at old bones in ancient monasteries. Those of you that know me well know that flying is a bit like a crap shoot for me. I do it because it is the only way to get to paradise sometimes. I sit here on the opposite side of the planet knowing that I am going to have to take a very deep breath, turn around and climb back onto two more of those aluminum and titanium catapults, and face my inner fears.
Here goes.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Neo-Gothic Transcendence in a Baroque Context, Antwerp, Belgium
The weather forecast was like those often given at home – quite wrong. We had expected heavy rain and near gale force rains. We instead received a cerulean day with bright cottony clouds and no rain threat whatever. Capitalizing on this, we headed south to Antwerp in Belgium, the home of the great painter, Peter Paul Rubens, stopping to pick up Margaret, whom we found standing in the street waiting for us outside her apartment block.
The reality of the European Union has become obvious for me in the past weeks in that political boundaries between the European nations are less apparent than the boundaries between the American states. At American state boundaries one can count on seeing a weigh station for truckers and a large colorful sign next to the roadway, and a couple miles further along a well-maintained visitor information center, well stocked with material on every conceivable attraction within the state. Generally the people working in these places seem happy to expound on the virtues of their realms to newly arrived pilgrims. The only thing one sees between European nations is a small blue sign with the country name and the symbol for the European Union and one has to know precisely where to look for these signs.
It is a long ways from the days when border checkpoints could consume hours of one’s day. I have in the post-NAFTA era spent three days attempting to cross from the United States into Mexico, only to be turned back out of the country after driving thirty miles into the desert. I can’t ascertain if this seamless amalgamation of European countries is good or not. I can’t but wonder if these countries will lose their cultural distinctives over time, with an unpredictable result, not unlike the sometimes unhappy results from mixing several artists’ paints.
In the meantime we ended up in Antwerp, which gave me a lifetime’s worth of visual imagery compressed into a single day. Like all the other cities and villages I have been in during the past weeks I have been stunned at how much of life is lived outside in public spaces. Antwerp provided the grandest experience of this yet, thousands of people in the bright sunlit plaza framed by the baroque facades of bygone centuries. This city somehow managed to avoid total devastation sixty years ago.
In gawking tourist mode, I marveled at the grand facades, the immense train station with enough glass to build a thousand greenhouses. The reception spaces and cafes of the station felt more like something out of a museum or palace – gilded ceilings, baroque plastering on the walls, grand clocks, crystal chandeliers. I think back to the grand stations in America, most long lost to ‘progress’. The grand station in Birmingham was reduced to a weedy field for decades and now its long-faded memory is covered with an interstate. The present train station in Birmingham is nothing but a very small room and hallway covered with gray tile, exactly like the public toilets of the older parts of the London subway. Fortunately, Britain did not ‘progress’ and yet retains all of its grand train stations and theaters. I wonder if ‘progress’ is a synonym for ‘regress’.
In proper Dutch fashion we took cake and coffee in the gilded café of the central station before setting off for a walking tour of the old city. Belgium was once part of the Netherlands, and like Holland, it continually surprised me. We turned a corner and ended up in a small plaza dominated by something that looked like it came from Renaissance Italy – the magnificent west front of the St. Borromeo’s Church – a finely preserved Romanesque church filled with enough paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and his associates to make the museums of the world green with envy. As it turns out Rubens lived and worked here in Antwerp and filled many a church, public building, and palace with some of the 2,500 paintings attributed to his studio. The scale of his house and studio made it clear that his work was highly prized in his day and he profited rather nicely from it. It didn’t hurt that he hung out with guys like Anthony Van Dyck who was an instant celebrated success in his day.
The centerpiece of this city has to be the grand Cathedral of our Lady, a white stone spire that emerges nearly four hundred feet out of the center of the old city. The largest gothic cathedral in the Low Countries, it took 166 years to construct. This imposing structure is built on the plan of a seven-aisle basilica and is the beneficiary of a massive restoration project just completed in 1993. The neo-gothic movement of the late 19th century resulted in this cathedral having much color and ornamentation added to a magnificent edifice that had once been near to complete ruin and which had been completely stripped after the French Revolution. The present result is one of the lightest and airiest cathedrals in Europe. The cathedral is filled with the numinous sounds of a Schyven organ containing 90 registers and 5,770 pipes. It too is a repository of some of the grandest art in the world
Unlike most major cathedrals, the town is built right up to all the cathedral walls excepting for the transept entrances and the west front. The church is nearly invisible from any close aspect, except the west front, which is on a large plaza – a curious phenomenon. The North Tower and the onion dome crossing tower are readily visible from the city once one is a distance away from the cathedral. Happily, this church does not feel like a museum and perhaps will continue to provide a point of gathering for seekers for another thousand years, as has already been the case on this site.
The reality of the European Union has become obvious for me in the past weeks in that political boundaries between the European nations are less apparent than the boundaries between the American states. At American state boundaries one can count on seeing a weigh station for truckers and a large colorful sign next to the roadway, and a couple miles further along a well-maintained visitor information center, well stocked with material on every conceivable attraction within the state. Generally the people working in these places seem happy to expound on the virtues of their realms to newly arrived pilgrims. The only thing one sees between European nations is a small blue sign with the country name and the symbol for the European Union and one has to know precisely where to look for these signs.
It is a long ways from the days when border checkpoints could consume hours of one’s day. I have in the post-NAFTA era spent three days attempting to cross from the United States into Mexico, only to be turned back out of the country after driving thirty miles into the desert. I can’t ascertain if this seamless amalgamation of European countries is good or not. I can’t but wonder if these countries will lose their cultural distinctives over time, with an unpredictable result, not unlike the sometimes unhappy results from mixing several artists’ paints.
In the meantime we ended up in Antwerp, which gave me a lifetime’s worth of visual imagery compressed into a single day. Like all the other cities and villages I have been in during the past weeks I have been stunned at how much of life is lived outside in public spaces. Antwerp provided the grandest experience of this yet, thousands of people in the bright sunlit plaza framed by the baroque facades of bygone centuries. This city somehow managed to avoid total devastation sixty years ago.
In gawking tourist mode, I marveled at the grand facades, the immense train station with enough glass to build a thousand greenhouses. The reception spaces and cafes of the station felt more like something out of a museum or palace – gilded ceilings, baroque plastering on the walls, grand clocks, crystal chandeliers. I think back to the grand stations in America, most long lost to ‘progress’. The grand station in Birmingham was reduced to a weedy field for decades and now its long-faded memory is covered with an interstate. The present train station in Birmingham is nothing but a very small room and hallway covered with gray tile, exactly like the public toilets of the older parts of the London subway. Fortunately, Britain did not ‘progress’ and yet retains all of its grand train stations and theaters. I wonder if ‘progress’ is a synonym for ‘regress’.
In proper Dutch fashion we took cake and coffee in the gilded café of the central station before setting off for a walking tour of the old city. Belgium was once part of the Netherlands, and like Holland, it continually surprised me. We turned a corner and ended up in a small plaza dominated by something that looked like it came from Renaissance Italy – the magnificent west front of the St. Borromeo’s Church – a finely preserved Romanesque church filled with enough paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and his associates to make the museums of the world green with envy. As it turns out Rubens lived and worked here in Antwerp and filled many a church, public building, and palace with some of the 2,500 paintings attributed to his studio. The scale of his house and studio made it clear that his work was highly prized in his day and he profited rather nicely from it. It didn’t hurt that he hung out with guys like Anthony Van Dyck who was an instant celebrated success in his day.
The centerpiece of this city has to be the grand Cathedral of our Lady, a white stone spire that emerges nearly four hundred feet out of the center of the old city. The largest gothic cathedral in the Low Countries, it took 166 years to construct. This imposing structure is built on the plan of a seven-aisle basilica and is the beneficiary of a massive restoration project just completed in 1993. The neo-gothic movement of the late 19th century resulted in this cathedral having much color and ornamentation added to a magnificent edifice that had once been near to complete ruin and which had been completely stripped after the French Revolution. The present result is one of the lightest and airiest cathedrals in Europe. The cathedral is filled with the numinous sounds of a Schyven organ containing 90 registers and 5,770 pipes. It too is a repository of some of the grandest art in the world
Unlike most major cathedrals, the town is built right up to all the cathedral walls excepting for the transept entrances and the west front. The church is nearly invisible from any close aspect, except the west front, which is on a large plaza – a curious phenomenon. The North Tower and the onion dome crossing tower are readily visible from the city once one is a distance away from the cathedral. Happily, this church does not feel like a museum and perhaps will continue to provide a point of gathering for seekers for another thousand years, as has already been the case on this site.
Sonic Voyages – A Russian Night, Eindhoven, Brabandt
To those of us living in North America during the 1950s and 1960s era of the Cold War, Russia was little more than a military threat with a lot of atomic weapons, little impulse control, and a funny little man who pounded his shoe on the table and said, “We will bury you.” My experience of the Cold War and thoughts about the Soviet Empire as a child were rudimentary at best and consisted of unannounced atomic bomb drop drills in school and wondering if there was any place in the house that would be safe from the fall-out and fire blast of a thermonuclear device. My knowledge of physics was obviously delayed in its development in thinking that we could find safety in a wood frame house from an atomic bomb. We moved forward in our knowledge of atomic fission and became paranoid enough to popularize the building of bomb shelters and for a number of years they were the rage.
Twenty years ago Stephen Lawhead wrote an articulate pair of science fiction novels that elegantly describe how paranoia about another society becomes myth, legend, and finally an immutable reality in the minds of those victimized by their own paranoia. In the case of Lawhead’s story, one culture, Fierra, was truly benevolent and allowed all its citizens equal opportunity, yet in the minds of the totalitarian Dome, Fierra was nothing but an atomic monster bent on the destruction of Dome. In a novel it is possible to write enlightenment into the plot and eventually Fierra was able to bring the paranoid Dome to its senses just before Dome had a chance to launch a nuclear holocaust.
In our real world experience, both Americans and Russians, in cabinet offices and on the street, were convinced that the others really were the bad guys. A nuclear arms race ensued that consumed an incredible portion of the public resource of both nations. Today the former Empire is a military and economic shadow of itself, paradoxically reduced to such a state without the firing of a single bullet by the Americans, or anyone else. As in the case of Jericho forty centuries ago, walking around the walls with just candles proved sufficient to bring down the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. Once the mystique behind the curtain was removed; we discovered that most Russians were exactly like most Americans, dreamers who wanted to raise their kids in a better world than the one they had been raised in, to sit in a park and have conversation with good friends, to have a sense of personal security.
In a world in which Russia and America still have enough atomic weapons to immolate a hundred planets and a dozen other nations have scurried to develop these fissionable nightmares for themselves, we remain in continual need of reminders of those things that are good in all cultures – music, art, literature, food, and spiritual wisdom. I have the great fortune of being in a position in life of being able to experience these reminders often and it really does pay to know the right people. Last night was no exception. Hans had sorted out a fast-forward expedition into the heart of Russia.
For six hours in the Frits Philips Musiek Centrum we were given an intense sonic excursion into what is so very good about Russian culture. From 6 PM until after midnight some seven hundred of us (mostly Dutch with a few Russians, Germans, Brits, and Americans mixed in) went on a compressed eight-station multi-media pilgrimage into classical Russian culture under the Tsars and post 1917 totalitarianism. Our arrival at the pink granite Centrum found it to have been decorated in the grand colors of Russia – gold foil shrouding the entrance, crimson carpets guiding our way. Intensely colorful displays of Russian Orthodox icons, votives, elaborate candle stands, and carpets provided a visual sensibility of the role Russian orthodoxy played in adding color and dimension to a culture that was nearly extirpated.
Our first discovery on this compressed pilgrimage was that Stroganoff is not a name that Betty Crocker came up with for quick-fix boxed noodle dinners in the 1950s. The Stroganoff name actually belonged to a prominent family in St. Petersburg, Russia and the stroganoff dinner served in the grand reception spaces of the Centrum was clearly not of Betty Crocker origin. My good friend Yne proves to be a walking encyclopedia of history and she was able to fill in a lot of gaps about the Stroganoff name. Being served a meal on linen within the spaces of a concert hall is certainly not done in America or very many other places for that matter. I am finding that the Netherlands is filled with a lot of rather pleasing surprises. None of use expected to receive a full meal in the Centrum.
On six occasions we were invited to enter one of the several magnificent concert or recital halls for a sonic adventure. Certainly the performance of the Polovtsian Dances of Borodin by the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Netherlands was a powerful reminder of the intense romance to be found in the creative spirit of any culture, especially those cultures under duress. A new friend Margaret, sitting next to me, was wiping away tears during these dances. It was during the nightmare years of the Revolution, Stalin, and Lenin that Sergei Rachmaninov was writing his stellar classics including the infamous ‘Rac 3’ that remains the Mt Everest for pianists. Shostakowich was writing his haunting lieder during the totalitarianism of the 20th century, a mere boy of eleven when the Revolution swept over the land and dying 14 years before the candles in the street brought down the walls. For those with classical inclinations, the heartfelt performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony was a total immersion in the vast creativity of a short life that produced musical dance epics such as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, and a hundred other musical treasures. It was beyond stunning to watch one of the flutists wiping away her own tears during musical rests in her part. As beautiful as any note played during the evening was the generous gratitude shown to the performers. The Dutch are well known for generosity of applause and ovations in their concert halls and performers relish invitations to play in this country. It was easy to see why.
During one of the six intermissions, Hans and I played chess on a board some fifteen feet on a side with pieces two feet high, moving pieces with our feet while hold wine and programs in our hands. I wondered if Boris Spasski or some other giant of the chess world would show up during the next interval to critique our game.
I could get use to this country very quickly.
Twenty years ago Stephen Lawhead wrote an articulate pair of science fiction novels that elegantly describe how paranoia about another society becomes myth, legend, and finally an immutable reality in the minds of those victimized by their own paranoia. In the case of Lawhead’s story, one culture, Fierra, was truly benevolent and allowed all its citizens equal opportunity, yet in the minds of the totalitarian Dome, Fierra was nothing but an atomic monster bent on the destruction of Dome. In a novel it is possible to write enlightenment into the plot and eventually Fierra was able to bring the paranoid Dome to its senses just before Dome had a chance to launch a nuclear holocaust.
In our real world experience, both Americans and Russians, in cabinet offices and on the street, were convinced that the others really were the bad guys. A nuclear arms race ensued that consumed an incredible portion of the public resource of both nations. Today the former Empire is a military and economic shadow of itself, paradoxically reduced to such a state without the firing of a single bullet by the Americans, or anyone else. As in the case of Jericho forty centuries ago, walking around the walls with just candles proved sufficient to bring down the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. Once the mystique behind the curtain was removed; we discovered that most Russians were exactly like most Americans, dreamers who wanted to raise their kids in a better world than the one they had been raised in, to sit in a park and have conversation with good friends, to have a sense of personal security.
In a world in which Russia and America still have enough atomic weapons to immolate a hundred planets and a dozen other nations have scurried to develop these fissionable nightmares for themselves, we remain in continual need of reminders of those things that are good in all cultures – music, art, literature, food, and spiritual wisdom. I have the great fortune of being in a position in life of being able to experience these reminders often and it really does pay to know the right people. Last night was no exception. Hans had sorted out a fast-forward expedition into the heart of Russia.
For six hours in the Frits Philips Musiek Centrum we were given an intense sonic excursion into what is so very good about Russian culture. From 6 PM until after midnight some seven hundred of us (mostly Dutch with a few Russians, Germans, Brits, and Americans mixed in) went on a compressed eight-station multi-media pilgrimage into classical Russian culture under the Tsars and post 1917 totalitarianism. Our arrival at the pink granite Centrum found it to have been decorated in the grand colors of Russia – gold foil shrouding the entrance, crimson carpets guiding our way. Intensely colorful displays of Russian Orthodox icons, votives, elaborate candle stands, and carpets provided a visual sensibility of the role Russian orthodoxy played in adding color and dimension to a culture that was nearly extirpated.
Our first discovery on this compressed pilgrimage was that Stroganoff is not a name that Betty Crocker came up with for quick-fix boxed noodle dinners in the 1950s. The Stroganoff name actually belonged to a prominent family in St. Petersburg, Russia and the stroganoff dinner served in the grand reception spaces of the Centrum was clearly not of Betty Crocker origin. My good friend Yne proves to be a walking encyclopedia of history and she was able to fill in a lot of gaps about the Stroganoff name. Being served a meal on linen within the spaces of a concert hall is certainly not done in America or very many other places for that matter. I am finding that the Netherlands is filled with a lot of rather pleasing surprises. None of use expected to receive a full meal in the Centrum.
On six occasions we were invited to enter one of the several magnificent concert or recital halls for a sonic adventure. Certainly the performance of the Polovtsian Dances of Borodin by the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Netherlands was a powerful reminder of the intense romance to be found in the creative spirit of any culture, especially those cultures under duress. A new friend Margaret, sitting next to me, was wiping away tears during these dances. It was during the nightmare years of the Revolution, Stalin, and Lenin that Sergei Rachmaninov was writing his stellar classics including the infamous ‘Rac 3’ that remains the Mt Everest for pianists. Shostakowich was writing his haunting lieder during the totalitarianism of the 20th century, a mere boy of eleven when the Revolution swept over the land and dying 14 years before the candles in the street brought down the walls. For those with classical inclinations, the heartfelt performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony was a total immersion in the vast creativity of a short life that produced musical dance epics such as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, and a hundred other musical treasures. It was beyond stunning to watch one of the flutists wiping away her own tears during musical rests in her part. As beautiful as any note played during the evening was the generous gratitude shown to the performers. The Dutch are well known for generosity of applause and ovations in their concert halls and performers relish invitations to play in this country. It was easy to see why.
During one of the six intermissions, Hans and I played chess on a board some fifteen feet on a side with pieces two feet high, moving pieces with our feet while hold wine and programs in our hands. I wondered if Boris Spasski or some other giant of the chess world would show up during the next interval to critique our game.
I could get use to this country very quickly.
Spectral Visions from the Past - National Park De Hoge Veluwe, Otterlo
Having another day of absolutely perfect spring climate, we drove some one hundred kilometers across many of the towns and rivers I have learned of so intensely in the past two days. What took the Allies many months to accomplish in the Second World War at an unimagined cost, we accomplished in ninety minutes by car. Only four hours ago I was in the town where the German Capitulation was put on paper in 1945. For certain, town names have taken on a haunting new dimension for me. Seeing the name Arnhem on the directional road signs was unsettling. Fortunately, the mission today proved a far happier one – a visit to a 10,000-acre national park in which is set an astounding museum and twenty-five acre sculpture garden.
In some respects the Kroller-Muller Museum is the closest thing to perfection that can be attained in the museum world. The building itself contains many elements of Frank Lloyd Wright and I am certain that research would reveal a connection between the architect of the museum and Frank Lloyd Wright. The building, all on a single level, provides an exquisite uninterrupted visual connection to the emerald oasis of the sculpture gardens while not distracting from the artwork inside. The sizes of the galleries were perfect and the amount of artwork placed in each just right. Somehow, the ceiling panels created a color spectrum similar to northern indirect sunlight, which made the viewing quite pleasing. And what was on view was astounding – ninety-one Van Gogh paintings and an equal or larger number of his drawings.
The drawings revealed an entirely different aspect of the artist I had no prior knowledge of. So often the only thing we think of with respect to Van Gogh is some madman who was good with a paint brush who then mailed his ear to his girlfriend and then blew himself away at age 37. The reality is that Van Gogh clearly had highly developed perceptual skills and was intensely interested in the lives of ordinary people doing very ordinary things. He was anything but mad. It is conjectured that Van Gogh may have well been tormented by a brain tumor and or tinnitus. My own experiences with tinnitus make it easy to relate to his daily challenges. His letters, drawings, and paintings suggest something far more substantial than this unstable madman stereotype. That he produced what he did while suffering so, is only further validation of the depth of his creativity. Amazingly, all of Van Gogh’s prodigious output was completed in a mere ten years. One can only conjecture what would have resulted if he had lived another forty or fifty years.
Mixed in with this vast store of creativity from one tortured soul were Mondrians, Seurats, Gaugains, and Picassos, three generations of Toorop, Leger, and a number of older Dutch masters. This whole museum was the result of the vision of an industrialist’s wife. Helene Kroller-Muller became a true patron and supporter of the arts. It certainly did not hurt her efforts to be married to the richest man in the country at the time. It would not be a stretch at all to suggest she may be personally responsible for Van Gogh’s work becoming the most valued objects on earth. She and her husband bought up anything by Van Gogh that came to auction during the thirty years following his death. Sadly, Van Gogh left this world with no knowledge that an angel would come to care for his genius visual creativity so intensely, conserve it, and imprint it permanently on the public domain of this world.
Helene proved to be an example of good stewardship of the privilege of a high position in society and giving back to the masses. Her husband donated the whole of the estate in 1934 as a national park along with the museum, its contents, and a hunting lodge that alone is worth a several hour drive to see.
Even seventy years after Helene’s death she has continued to fulfill her mission, giving to this visitor, through her visionary efforts, a much-enhanced sense of the creativity that is so abundant in this unpretentious beautiful land and more specifically that of the Dutch painter Vincent.
In some respects the Kroller-Muller Museum is the closest thing to perfection that can be attained in the museum world. The building itself contains many elements of Frank Lloyd Wright and I am certain that research would reveal a connection between the architect of the museum and Frank Lloyd Wright. The building, all on a single level, provides an exquisite uninterrupted visual connection to the emerald oasis of the sculpture gardens while not distracting from the artwork inside. The sizes of the galleries were perfect and the amount of artwork placed in each just right. Somehow, the ceiling panels created a color spectrum similar to northern indirect sunlight, which made the viewing quite pleasing. And what was on view was astounding – ninety-one Van Gogh paintings and an equal or larger number of his drawings.
The drawings revealed an entirely different aspect of the artist I had no prior knowledge of. So often the only thing we think of with respect to Van Gogh is some madman who was good with a paint brush who then mailed his ear to his girlfriend and then blew himself away at age 37. The reality is that Van Gogh clearly had highly developed perceptual skills and was intensely interested in the lives of ordinary people doing very ordinary things. He was anything but mad. It is conjectured that Van Gogh may have well been tormented by a brain tumor and or tinnitus. My own experiences with tinnitus make it easy to relate to his daily challenges. His letters, drawings, and paintings suggest something far more substantial than this unstable madman stereotype. That he produced what he did while suffering so, is only further validation of the depth of his creativity. Amazingly, all of Van Gogh’s prodigious output was completed in a mere ten years. One can only conjecture what would have resulted if he had lived another forty or fifty years.
Mixed in with this vast store of creativity from one tortured soul were Mondrians, Seurats, Gaugains, and Picassos, three generations of Toorop, Leger, and a number of older Dutch masters. This whole museum was the result of the vision of an industrialist’s wife. Helene Kroller-Muller became a true patron and supporter of the arts. It certainly did not hurt her efforts to be married to the richest man in the country at the time. It would not be a stretch at all to suggest she may be personally responsible for Van Gogh’s work becoming the most valued objects on earth. She and her husband bought up anything by Van Gogh that came to auction during the thirty years following his death. Sadly, Van Gogh left this world with no knowledge that an angel would come to care for his genius visual creativity so intensely, conserve it, and imprint it permanently on the public domain of this world.
Helene proved to be an example of good stewardship of the privilege of a high position in society and giving back to the masses. Her husband donated the whole of the estate in 1934 as a national park along with the museum, its contents, and a hunting lodge that alone is worth a several hour drive to see.
Even seventy years after Helene’s death she has continued to fulfill her mission, giving to this visitor, through her visionary efforts, a much-enhanced sense of the creativity that is so abundant in this unpretentious beautiful land and more specifically that of the Dutch painter Vincent.
T.G.I.F.? Musings From Mierlo, Nederlands, Friday, April 18th
It was 10:30 AM when I awoke after a good sleep. The climate continues to be surreal with about 75 degrees and clear skies. It gives a rather magical sensibility to the emerging new spring life. This wonderful house is very connected to the outer world with lots of fine glassed-in spaces. Hans and I spent most of the day playing with computers and building back-ups of his indexing databases. He seemed most pleased with this. We also played a good bit of music on his ultra high-end stereo.
I found it actually safe to get emotional in front of Hans and he described a number of episodes where he had been brought to tears, often tears of joy. While playing for him the CD that Betsy had used during Cursillo, I nearly lost it, just describing the palanca experience. It does seem to me that Dutch people are more open to intensity of life experience and conversations. Hans described an experience where he was alone in the Taj Mahal at night alone with a single guide under a full moon. He described being overwhelmed by the silvery platinum sense of all that marble.
Hans had told me by phone more than a month ago to plan to attend the magnificent J.S. Bach’s St John’s Passion in the evening for Good Friday. I had expected we would end up in some non-descript little community church center somewhere with a few dozen people. We drove to Eindhoven about 7:00 PM, not to some small community center, but in fact, to a vast Restoration Catholic church built of uncounted millions of small red bricks. The 250-foot spires of this church in the aureate sunlight of very late afternoon were stunning beyond belief. The interior of this vast brick edifice illuminated by high clerestory windows, with the late sun making them dazzling, was almost more than my visual cortex could assimilate.
Inside were hundreds of people assembled to hear what proved to be an epic production of the St John Passion, given in the original German. Arranged in the crossing of this vast ecclesiastical space were the performers. I was amazed that I was actually able to follow the German lieder and make sense of it. The chorus and orchestra were well balanced and as good as any professional assemblage would have been. Somehow, being lost in the music in another language in another country in this incredible structure with good friends was almost beyond processing. I felt very far from the familiar but it was a very good sense of distance. It was not a sense of being exiled, rather more like the anticipation of an explorer. As Chesterton wondered in his poem, I again was wondering how it was that I was being granted the opportunity to yet experience another day, and in such a grand manner.
As the Passion moved towards the extinction of Jesus on the Roman Cross, the brilliant late sunlight gave way to total darkness, as if on cue. Adding to the imagery of the Passion, a priest came out and removed the fine violet fabric from the brilliant white cross at the exact point called for in the lieder. At the exact point indicated he returned and extinguished the Easter candle. A small tendril of gray smoke drifted up into the ebony darkness of the seemingly infinite vaults of the crossing. I wondered about how it is that humankind so often destroys the most magnificent of things - the Iraq Museum, Joan of Arc, the great library at Alexandria, Jesus of Nazareth - so often leaving nothing behind but tendrils of smoke. A bit later the priest returned to place a crisp white fabric on the cross. In silence the Passion ended. I waited with baited breath for someone to applaud at the end of the performance. No one ever did, to my great relief. This is not an area that attracts tourists that indiscriminately clap at anything. People merely stood quietly to offer appreciation of the performers. They then drifted away.
I found myself wondering about the lives of the choristers, soloists, and musicians; how they ended up in this amazing space, singing this incredible tale of sacrifice. I wondered if they knew just how extraordinary it is for them to have been there, performing in that space, to live in a visual paradise. Does familiarity breed contempt and is this just an ordinary place to those who live here? I will never really know.
The day was not over by any stretch. A physician living in the next house was having a birthday party and we were invited over. This proved a rather pleasing event. I found the group most hospitable and engaging. Most people here function in English so I was able to have good conversation with a number of them, despite my total ignorance of the mother tongue. One of the physician’s sons had done a portrait of his father and stepmother as a birthday present, just today. It was astoundingly good and only the third painting he had ever done. I found it rather pleasing to talk with him about art.
The physician proved inspiring in that he has only one arm and has allowed this to be no limitation whatever. He gives no sense whatever of being disabled. I learned later that he lost his arm to a grenade as an infant during war. He reminded me of how Itzak Perlman had said that we have to learn how to play our best with what we have left, this after having played a whole concert on a violin with three strings; one having broken just barely into the program. It would seem that some people actually turn disability or loss into a major asset. I suspect this physician has done so. I understand that he works with people recovering from major disability and in need of rehabilitation. He apparently did a lot of the physical work on renovating his house. He made choices in life that made him a better person and it certainly shows even in his grown children who were rather pleasing articulate individuals that respect and care for their father.
We finally called it a day.
I found it actually safe to get emotional in front of Hans and he described a number of episodes where he had been brought to tears, often tears of joy. While playing for him the CD that Betsy had used during Cursillo, I nearly lost it, just describing the palanca experience. It does seem to me that Dutch people are more open to intensity of life experience and conversations. Hans described an experience where he was alone in the Taj Mahal at night alone with a single guide under a full moon. He described being overwhelmed by the silvery platinum sense of all that marble.
Hans had told me by phone more than a month ago to plan to attend the magnificent J.S. Bach’s St John’s Passion in the evening for Good Friday. I had expected we would end up in some non-descript little community church center somewhere with a few dozen people. We drove to Eindhoven about 7:00 PM, not to some small community center, but in fact, to a vast Restoration Catholic church built of uncounted millions of small red bricks. The 250-foot spires of this church in the aureate sunlight of very late afternoon were stunning beyond belief. The interior of this vast brick edifice illuminated by high clerestory windows, with the late sun making them dazzling, was almost more than my visual cortex could assimilate.
Inside were hundreds of people assembled to hear what proved to be an epic production of the St John Passion, given in the original German. Arranged in the crossing of this vast ecclesiastical space were the performers. I was amazed that I was actually able to follow the German lieder and make sense of it. The chorus and orchestra were well balanced and as good as any professional assemblage would have been. Somehow, being lost in the music in another language in another country in this incredible structure with good friends was almost beyond processing. I felt very far from the familiar but it was a very good sense of distance. It was not a sense of being exiled, rather more like the anticipation of an explorer. As Chesterton wondered in his poem, I again was wondering how it was that I was being granted the opportunity to yet experience another day, and in such a grand manner.
As the Passion moved towards the extinction of Jesus on the Roman Cross, the brilliant late sunlight gave way to total darkness, as if on cue. Adding to the imagery of the Passion, a priest came out and removed the fine violet fabric from the brilliant white cross at the exact point called for in the lieder. At the exact point indicated he returned and extinguished the Easter candle. A small tendril of gray smoke drifted up into the ebony darkness of the seemingly infinite vaults of the crossing. I wondered about how it is that humankind so often destroys the most magnificent of things - the Iraq Museum, Joan of Arc, the great library at Alexandria, Jesus of Nazareth - so often leaving nothing behind but tendrils of smoke. A bit later the priest returned to place a crisp white fabric on the cross. In silence the Passion ended. I waited with baited breath for someone to applaud at the end of the performance. No one ever did, to my great relief. This is not an area that attracts tourists that indiscriminately clap at anything. People merely stood quietly to offer appreciation of the performers. They then drifted away.
I found myself wondering about the lives of the choristers, soloists, and musicians; how they ended up in this amazing space, singing this incredible tale of sacrifice. I wondered if they knew just how extraordinary it is for them to have been there, performing in that space, to live in a visual paradise. Does familiarity breed contempt and is this just an ordinary place to those who live here? I will never really know.
The day was not over by any stretch. A physician living in the next house was having a birthday party and we were invited over. This proved a rather pleasing event. I found the group most hospitable and engaging. Most people here function in English so I was able to have good conversation with a number of them, despite my total ignorance of the mother tongue. One of the physician’s sons had done a portrait of his father and stepmother as a birthday present, just today. It was astoundingly good and only the third painting he had ever done. I found it rather pleasing to talk with him about art.
The physician proved inspiring in that he has only one arm and has allowed this to be no limitation whatever. He gives no sense whatever of being disabled. I learned later that he lost his arm to a grenade as an infant during war. He reminded me of how Itzak Perlman had said that we have to learn how to play our best with what we have left, this after having played a whole concert on a violin with three strings; one having broken just barely into the program. It would seem that some people actually turn disability or loss into a major asset. I suspect this physician has done so. I understand that he works with people recovering from major disability and in need of rehabilitation. He apparently did a lot of the physical work on renovating his house. He made choices in life that made him a better person and it certainly shows even in his grown children who were rather pleasing articulate individuals that respect and care for their father.
We finally called it a day.
Remembrance Day - Mierlo 5-4 - North Brabant, Netherlands
The last color is fading from the day and I sit here barely able to see my keyboard for the tears that have occluded my vision. In my inner being, in places I did not know I had, I wail. My throat is constricted with the intense heat of grief. I feel like I have just had major surgery without the merciful benefit of anesthesia. I am stunned at how a tsunami of emotion can simply erupt out of the seemingly quiet waters of a sunny cerulean Sunday afternoon in a bucolic paradise. I can’t but wonder where the epicenter of the shockwave is that blasted into the sea of my life. I can’t but wonder how many other fault lines run through my being, only awaiting the unexpected time when two tectonic plates will slip sideways, turning me upside down.
I am thirty-two days into what has been essentially an intense pilgrimage and I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart, and I am definitely that at present. I worry that I might not find all the pieces and get them back together. It is a very difficult thing to do a pilgrimage very far from home - there being those days when one feels like one’s soul has become nothing but potsherds of clay in the dustbin of antiquity. I have just dropped my pot, inadvertently slipping on a patch of time.
In this beautiful land, on the 4th of May each year, several generations take time from their bountiful lives to remember a time when the brilliant sunshine of liberation shattered the hideous ebony darkness of totalitarian occupation. And so it was that after a magnificent dinner on the terrace, Hans, Yne, and I mounted our bicycles and joined a somber procession of other cyclists and pedestrians and made our way in the last golden light of a magnificent day to an emerald oasis studded with magnificent rhododendron, azalea, and a dozen species of spring perennials to remember the sacrifice and extreme cost of liberation. It was fifty-eight years ago that uncounted tens of thousands of British, Canadian, and American boys and young men paid the ultimate price to give back to the Dutch people their beloved land and cities, and especially the possibility of peace and freedom from years of unceasing terror. Over a period of some nine months the miracle of liberation spread north and east across the Netherlands. The epic film “A Bridge Too Far” portrays the fierce price paid for this miracle of liberation and just how close it came to being lost.
In this emerald oasis, with ultimate reverence, I walked down aisles of white marble testaments of the young men who forever left behind dearly loved wives, children, and parents. Slowly and gently as possible, I walked across the green turf, feeling a shearing pain and grief tear across the inside of my soul. I found myself wailing for the lives that never got lived, the children that never knew their daddies, the wives that never again felt the loving arms of their husbands. It is hard to imagine a more sacred or civilized place than this war cemetery that marks the lives of the six hundred sixty-five donors of freedom who a mere six years before my birth liberated this beautiful village from the jackboot of the Third Reich. Hans and Yne both lived in the darkness of that slippery time on which I just fell. Yne describes being sent to the country as a child because the Dutch cities were starved out by the Nazi monsters. They know what it is like to come home from school and cry at the door for fifteen minutes to be let in – only to learn the Nazi machine had taken their parents further into the darkness of a man-made hell. Hans grandfather was shot. Hans father wore a yellow star. His mother lived in stark terror for uncounted years. Hans and his father both faced the possibility of extinction every day.
I joined that procession expecting to be little more than an observer. Once again, I was jerked by a short chain into another role. I was no longer the journalist, the traveler, instead a rather grief-stricken pilgrim, a mourner of lives truncated by the great darkness that swept the world. Suddenly, there were names and faces, dear to me, emerging from the odious shadows of hell. I was no longer a historian, rather a participant stumbling on Ida Fink’s A Scrap in Time.
It being far more important to remember in our hearts and souls than on paper, the true cost of freedom, it seemed decidedly crass to even think of taking a camera to this assembly of memory. Forever I will remember the spectral brilliance of those spring perennials bursting forth with color in the last rays of the aureate sun, embracing the bases of those marble testaments of short lives lived well, that we might live well and long, in freedom.
As long as there are those that remember, there is hope. As long as there are mayors who back slowly away from floral displays on white marble and bow imperceptibly, there is hope. As long as there are grandparents who bring grandchildren to remember, then perhaps we might not forget to put things where they belong, to take care of other people and their things as if they were our own. Perhaps one day we really can beat swords into plowshares.
We are promised in the Revelation that one day we will enter into a place where there are tears no more. I only can hope that those six-hundred sixty-five souls marked in stone will one day know the brilliance of eternal day. For today, my tears will water the flowers of remembrance.
How much this world desperately needs the gentle rains of life-giving love.
I am thirty-two days into what has been essentially an intense pilgrimage and I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart, and I am definitely that at present. I worry that I might not find all the pieces and get them back together. It is a very difficult thing to do a pilgrimage very far from home - there being those days when one feels like one’s soul has become nothing but potsherds of clay in the dustbin of antiquity. I have just dropped my pot, inadvertently slipping on a patch of time.
In this beautiful land, on the 4th of May each year, several generations take time from their bountiful lives to remember a time when the brilliant sunshine of liberation shattered the hideous ebony darkness of totalitarian occupation. And so it was that after a magnificent dinner on the terrace, Hans, Yne, and I mounted our bicycles and joined a somber procession of other cyclists and pedestrians and made our way in the last golden light of a magnificent day to an emerald oasis studded with magnificent rhododendron, azalea, and a dozen species of spring perennials to remember the sacrifice and extreme cost of liberation. It was fifty-eight years ago that uncounted tens of thousands of British, Canadian, and American boys and young men paid the ultimate price to give back to the Dutch people their beloved land and cities, and especially the possibility of peace and freedom from years of unceasing terror. Over a period of some nine months the miracle of liberation spread north and east across the Netherlands. The epic film “A Bridge Too Far” portrays the fierce price paid for this miracle of liberation and just how close it came to being lost.
In this emerald oasis, with ultimate reverence, I walked down aisles of white marble testaments of the young men who forever left behind dearly loved wives, children, and parents. Slowly and gently as possible, I walked across the green turf, feeling a shearing pain and grief tear across the inside of my soul. I found myself wailing for the lives that never got lived, the children that never knew their daddies, the wives that never again felt the loving arms of their husbands. It is hard to imagine a more sacred or civilized place than this war cemetery that marks the lives of the six hundred sixty-five donors of freedom who a mere six years before my birth liberated this beautiful village from the jackboot of the Third Reich. Hans and Yne both lived in the darkness of that slippery time on which I just fell. Yne describes being sent to the country as a child because the Dutch cities were starved out by the Nazi monsters. They know what it is like to come home from school and cry at the door for fifteen minutes to be let in – only to learn the Nazi machine had taken their parents further into the darkness of a man-made hell. Hans grandfather was shot. Hans father wore a yellow star. His mother lived in stark terror for uncounted years. Hans and his father both faced the possibility of extinction every day.
I joined that procession expecting to be little more than an observer. Once again, I was jerked by a short chain into another role. I was no longer the journalist, the traveler, instead a rather grief-stricken pilgrim, a mourner of lives truncated by the great darkness that swept the world. Suddenly, there were names and faces, dear to me, emerging from the odious shadows of hell. I was no longer a historian, rather a participant stumbling on Ida Fink’s A Scrap in Time.
It being far more important to remember in our hearts and souls than on paper, the true cost of freedom, it seemed decidedly crass to even think of taking a camera to this assembly of memory. Forever I will remember the spectral brilliance of those spring perennials bursting forth with color in the last rays of the aureate sun, embracing the bases of those marble testaments of short lives lived well, that we might live well and long, in freedom.
As long as there are those that remember, there is hope. As long as there are mayors who back slowly away from floral displays on white marble and bow imperceptibly, there is hope. As long as there are grandparents who bring grandchildren to remember, then perhaps we might not forget to put things where they belong, to take care of other people and their things as if they were our own. Perhaps one day we really can beat swords into plowshares.
We are promised in the Revelation that one day we will enter into a place where there are tears no more. I only can hope that those six-hundred sixty-five souls marked in stone will one day know the brilliance of eternal day. For today, my tears will water the flowers of remembrance.
How much this world desperately needs the gentle rains of life-giving love.
Pink Blizzards - The Quintessential Experience -Mierlo, Brabant
It was in May of 1993 that a rare set of climatic conditions resulted in the deposition of 68 inches of snow on Mount Pisgah in North Carolina, setting a North American snowfall record. What was astounding about this snowfall, aside from its amount, location, and the season of its fall was the blue color it possessed, exactly the same hue as seen in the icebergs calving from the faces of the glacial flows which empty into the inside passage of Alaska. The beauty and wonder was without comparison.
Life can be an odious nightmare for so many of us here on this smallish sapphire planet we call home. For far too many people life is about survival, not about beauty, yet unexpectedly, as Yancey so aptly said, pleasure can wash up on the shores of our lives as grand remnants from Paradise. Blue snow in May was paradise that had washed up on our shores. Adults forgot their cares and romped as children in its crystalline magic. My response was to take friends and a picnic lunch to the top of that mountain and serve fruit compote in stemmed glasses and deli ham as a main course.
It is only April, yet today I experienced a blizzard of another hue - a soft fragrant pink one on an eighty-degree day at one foot above sea level. It was in the stunning beauty of the Canadian Rockies of Western Canada eight years ago that I met my good friends Hans and Yne. We met in a time of crisis. Today we experienced magic, eight years and eight thousand miles away from that first encounter, yet again in the midst of life's sometimes severe challenges. Today I learned of the suicide of a dear friend's sister. For a time I felt winded, knowing the blow to my friend would be unbearable. Hans has a strong intuitive sensibility and he suggested a walk.
Under a ceramic blue Dutch sky with china white clouds, the three of us set out for a walk in the miraculous unusually warm climate, which has caused an intense spectral eruption of spring color - vibrant orange lily tulips, crisp white hydrangea, cobalt blue grape hyacinth, and lavender rhododendron. Magic again washed upon my shores. While walking under the sky in a landscape that gave Vermeer and Rubens the inspiration to create their breath taking views of the world, a tuft of gentle spring air loosed a blizzard of pink petals from the cherry trees lining the serene herringbone brick streets of this bucolic village and sent them swirling around my head. The sidewalks and curbstones were filled with these pink fragments of Paradise that had just blown into my life. I have swiftly learned that in the Brabant province of the Nederland, gentle surprises are to be found at nearly every turn. Perhaps the message of the Brabant is to not question why life sometimes has exquisite pain, rather instead to with gratitude wonder why it is that remnants of Paradise wash up on our shores, or swirl around our heads. I have certainly had more than my share of these precious remnants wash up in recent days.
Walking down the brick streets with their pleasing herringbone patterns, we were immersed in exuberant life - families out for leisurely strolls, young lovers riding their bicycles, middle-aged couples enjoying a Heineken at the sidewalk café, and enthusiastic young parents challenging their adolescent sons to push themselves to their limits. It so happened that we came upon the start of a bicycle race in which several dozen Dutch boys pushed themselves through twenty-seven kilometers of a bricked-line labyrinth. It was while watching this quintessential Dutch experience in bicycle heaven that a gentle whiff of new spring air encased me in pink magic, reminding me that Paradise is but a breath away. We happily watched those boys give it their all for thirty-five circuits. As far as I was concerned they were all winners, having been given good health, good bikes, and the opportunity to live in virtual paradise. I was a winner in that I am able to continue a pilgrimage that includes walks along the seashore of life that includes cherry blossom petals swirling around my head and the chance to see happy people out loving life in a place out of one of Rubens' paintings. I only wish that my friend and her sister could have had a cloud of cherry blossoms catch them by happy surprise in time to know that life is a miracle always worth embracing.
I sit here listening to the Brandenburg Concertos #4,5,and 6 as the last aureate sunlight of a luminous day begins its slow fade to indigo. The indigo will give way to the platinum of a full moon. I am in a place that defines home. Yne is in presently working culinary magic in the kitchen. Hans and the tulips are on the terrace soaking up the last of the golden day. The clouds are just beginning to turn the color of the cherry blossoms.
It is a wonder that I have been granted another such day.
Life can be an odious nightmare for so many of us here on this smallish sapphire planet we call home. For far too many people life is about survival, not about beauty, yet unexpectedly, as Yancey so aptly said, pleasure can wash up on the shores of our lives as grand remnants from Paradise. Blue snow in May was paradise that had washed up on our shores. Adults forgot their cares and romped as children in its crystalline magic. My response was to take friends and a picnic lunch to the top of that mountain and serve fruit compote in stemmed glasses and deli ham as a main course.
It is only April, yet today I experienced a blizzard of another hue - a soft fragrant pink one on an eighty-degree day at one foot above sea level. It was in the stunning beauty of the Canadian Rockies of Western Canada eight years ago that I met my good friends Hans and Yne. We met in a time of crisis. Today we experienced magic, eight years and eight thousand miles away from that first encounter, yet again in the midst of life's sometimes severe challenges. Today I learned of the suicide of a dear friend's sister. For a time I felt winded, knowing the blow to my friend would be unbearable. Hans has a strong intuitive sensibility and he suggested a walk.
Under a ceramic blue Dutch sky with china white clouds, the three of us set out for a walk in the miraculous unusually warm climate, which has caused an intense spectral eruption of spring color - vibrant orange lily tulips, crisp white hydrangea, cobalt blue grape hyacinth, and lavender rhododendron. Magic again washed upon my shores. While walking under the sky in a landscape that gave Vermeer and Rubens the inspiration to create their breath taking views of the world, a tuft of gentle spring air loosed a blizzard of pink petals from the cherry trees lining the serene herringbone brick streets of this bucolic village and sent them swirling around my head. The sidewalks and curbstones were filled with these pink fragments of Paradise that had just blown into my life. I have swiftly learned that in the Brabant province of the Nederland, gentle surprises are to be found at nearly every turn. Perhaps the message of the Brabant is to not question why life sometimes has exquisite pain, rather instead to with gratitude wonder why it is that remnants of Paradise wash up on our shores, or swirl around our heads. I have certainly had more than my share of these precious remnants wash up in recent days.
Walking down the brick streets with their pleasing herringbone patterns, we were immersed in exuberant life - families out for leisurely strolls, young lovers riding their bicycles, middle-aged couples enjoying a Heineken at the sidewalk café, and enthusiastic young parents challenging their adolescent sons to push themselves to their limits. It so happened that we came upon the start of a bicycle race in which several dozen Dutch boys pushed themselves through twenty-seven kilometers of a bricked-line labyrinth. It was while watching this quintessential Dutch experience in bicycle heaven that a gentle whiff of new spring air encased me in pink magic, reminding me that Paradise is but a breath away. We happily watched those boys give it their all for thirty-five circuits. As far as I was concerned they were all winners, having been given good health, good bikes, and the opportunity to live in virtual paradise. I was a winner in that I am able to continue a pilgrimage that includes walks along the seashore of life that includes cherry blossom petals swirling around my head and the chance to see happy people out loving life in a place out of one of Rubens' paintings. I only wish that my friend and her sister could have had a cloud of cherry blossoms catch them by happy surprise in time to know that life is a miracle always worth embracing.
I sit here listening to the Brandenburg Concertos #4,5,and 6 as the last aureate sunlight of a luminous day begins its slow fade to indigo. The indigo will give way to the platinum of a full moon. I am in a place that defines home. Yne is in presently working culinary magic in the kitchen. Hans and the tulips are on the terrace soaking up the last of the golden day. The clouds are just beginning to turn the color of the cherry blossoms.
It is a wonder that I have been granted another such day.
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