Midlife Meditation

Starting in September, I'll be teaching here. I felt it Monday morning when I woke up: a slight increase in the gravitational field holding me to my bed, coupled with a tightness in my throat. The pull of the bed I put down to still recovering from a bad fall I'd had Friday while out on a run, the throat scratchiness to the flurry of floral procreation going on throughout the Willamette Valley. Bruises, allergies--yeah, that's what's up. I shaved, showered, had breakfast, packed my lunch, kissed Amy, and headed off to my last full week of school. Five hours later, the teaching portion of my day complete, I stepped into the cafeteria to do lunch duty, and within a minute, knew I had to go home. I checked with the vice principal to be sure she could handle it by herself, notified the secretary I'd be leaving early, then spent 45 minutes contradicting myself by ensuring everything was in place for my sub, and headed for home. That night, I had a fever of 100.8...

Actually, I do know a thing or two about art; certainly not as much as my art major brothers, but enough to appreciate the good stuff, even the stuff that turns off casual museum-goers who prefer even a mediocre Norman Rockwell to anything by Jackson Pollock. I know enough to realize how much I don't see when I stand in front of a masterpiece: how the colors work together to achieve the overall effect, the role composition plays in it, how even the brush strokes matter to the final product. I know it would take me years to develop an eye for these things, years that would be well spent, but which are not part of my plan for the rest of my life. I walk around museums considering great works, sometimes being entranced by what I see without being able to put in words what has drawn me to this abstraction or that photo-realistic work, just savoring the experience, taking it in the same way I look up through trees at sunlight filtering through and feel my sou...