6/10/2007

Streams of Consciousness or Why We Should Live Another Day

I have so much on my mind and so often I have the desire to set it down in writing (old fashioned term for typing on keyboard), but the moments are fleeting and the desire gets thwarted by time restraints and daily diversions. Yet, I am here. This is something.




My thoughts range from relationship issues to self esteem to my recent trip to Italy to Dante Alighieri to work to summer activities to books and reading to current and future status of marriage to plays to The Sopranos to friendships to aging to hair color, style and comfort to body image to heat and pervasive sweating to sex to music and on it goes.......yes, the mind is a swaggering, swelling swirl of mush and potential brilliance. But with all these thoughts racing daily through my head, it was this morning's CBS program on TV, Sunday Morning, that made my heart race enough to motivate me to sit down and write (I'm 55, so I will continue to call this "writing").





Almost every segment interested me (which is not always the case), but the segment that most excited me was the one entitled, ART: Edward Hopper. I feel obliged to add that BILL GEIST's: That’s Amore, Steubenville’s Native Son – Dean Martin was a close second and warrants a blog post of it's own, what with the reminders it provided me of my childhood, my brother, Michael, Dr. Silverstein and a prominent dream I had just last night, involving all of the above, with the exception of Dean Martin). I also really enjoyed the segment called, OUR MAN IN PARIS: David Turecamo on the endangered cafes of Paris and the artist, who sits in one Cafe drawing the myriad of French faces he sees there (despite my best efforts, I was unable to find his name on the Sunday Morning website or that of Mad Magazine, for whom he also works). Ben Stein's take on the recent media craze with Paris Hilton was interesting as was the cover story on Lieing and how often we do it and the segment called, Brian Dennehy Keeps Looking For The Truth. Like I said, the entire program stirred my thought juices and engaged my emotions.





Anyway, I previously posted about Edward Hopper in September, 2006. The significance for me here is the reminder that every once in a while, sometimes even when you least expect it, but most need it, something new (or at least new for me) comes into one's life, whether from reading about it in a book, magazine or in this case an email, hearing about it on the news, seeing it on TV or in a movie or from a discussion with a friend or acquaintance. When this happens to me, just thinking about it makes me feel excited and alive and the things that normally trouble me, seem less important. So it was this morning, that a segment on a valued weekly TV program initiated for me this phenomenon. Thinking again about Edward Hopper and his paintings and how they make me consider light and space and that a painting can elicit what makes us human and realizing how I'd never even heard of the artist before a little more than a year ago, when, poof, today he reappears in my little sphere and I am reminded of how much I would like to see his work in person and then find out there is an exhibition of his work this summer in Boston, a mere hop, skip and (well, maybe long) jump from my residence in New Jersey, well, what can I say, "LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL" and there's a reason to live it another day. It is just that simple and that profound!