Today my daughter Eden is six months old. One half of one year. Unbelievable. I feel inordinately blessed. This weekend a man I know, a husband, a father of four, died from throat cancer. It's a strange world where one person can feel so inordinately blessed and someone else so ... it's not cursed, but it's something beyond sadness, I think. I've been thinking about death a lot lately; it happens every fall for me with the changing of the seasons. But this fall I've been thinking a lot about life too. And I guess I just wanted to put it out in the universe (that is, after all, the point of blogging right?) that I know I'm inordinately blessed. I'd like to say we all are, just by inhaling and exhaling, but that sure does simplify things too much, doesn't it?
Sarah and Eden and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art on Saturday. We had never been; if you live in the Twin Cities, you should go, they have tons of great art and 90% of the museum is free. We, haplessly, went in order to see the other 10%. Sarah lived in Germany for four years as a kid and loves Europe. I love the English language, so the idea of us moving there someday is a difficult one for me, but I'm pretty sure she would do it in a heartbeat. Anyway, I figure any opportunity for her to get a chance to see a piece of Europe is one we should jump at. So the MIA has an exhibit right now full of work from The Louvre in Paris and I saw it in the paper and we thought we'd go check it out. So we got there and found out it was $16 per person to get in. Now, I would have paid it for Sarah. But not for me. I'm just not a visual person - I'd rather spend $16 on books or music. Not that I do really. Anyway, we told the girl at the front desk we were gonna walk around the museum for a while before we decided about going in. Meanwhile, Eden was happy as a clam, making faces and smiling at the girl, who was exclaiming that she was the cutest baby ever, and in a nice, high pitched voice, perfectly fit for more infant smiles, and she pipes up that she tries to let two people in for free everyday and today we could be those people because we had the cutest baby in the whole world. We agreed (I know, we're biased) and thanked her over and over and set out to find the Louvre exhibit. We got there, paid some money (we'd gotten in free after all) for a guided tour mechanism with headphones attached to what looked like a fancy walkman and waited for the doors to open for our entrance. First let me point out: if you have a cute baby, use them to your advantage. I don't mean that you should sell them or something crazy like that, but cute babies can get you awesome stuff like museum entrance fees completely waived. Sarah has yet to decide whether being pregnant or having a cute baby gets you more good stuff, but, being that I was not the pregnant one, I'm going with the latter of the two. Second let me say: Until this point, Eden had been great all day. Happy and smiling and strangers and ... completely quiet. So the doors open up and we walk into the four (maybe five) room exhibit, where everyone is walking quietly, most of them listening to their schnazzy walkman things, enjoying the art, which is themed around the definition of a masterpiece. (Apparently there used to be measurements for this and now - well, now the Earth is flat and there is no absolute truth, so all beauty is only in the eye of the beholder. Actually, I'm not sure about any of those things. Or maybe I'm sure about some of it, but I was being facetious. Or maybe we can never be sure because the absolute truth thing was the true thing. But wait...) ANYWAY, from the moment we set foot inside the exhibit room, Eden decides she will test her voice on the high ceilings and wooden floors. We're trying all kinds of things, from a bottle to giving her a blanket to chew on to the always-tried-never-worked hand over the mouth thing, but she's not having any of it. She's not sad or angry or crying or anything, she just wants to holler. And she apparently got my volume. I finally know what it's like to be one of those parents in church when your kid won't stop - except I'm in a room with people who paid $16 dollars to look at art that the world considers masterful (I think you could read that as a sly knock on church, but I didn't really mean it.) Finally, in a moment of self-sacrifice and because I know I'll never enjoy all of it as much as her, I offer to take Eden out into the rest of the museum, or maybe outside, or maybe out of Minneapolis altogether (because she is LOUD.) So we leave and Eden continues to talk at a ridiculous volume as we walk from room to room trying to find someplace where we won't bother people but when your building is founded on the idea of open space and under the direction of some guy who loves high ceilings and you have an almost sixth month old that is hollering nonsense - anyway, you can't find a place where you won't bother people. But as I'm walking and Eden is shouting, all these kind people are smiling and some of them are stopping to tell me how cute she is or to translate her yelling into comments about the art or to let me know that baby's hate when people wear black (that was an elderly woman who apparently thought Eden was yelling at her). And one kind woman stops me and says, "Well, you have your own little masterpiece there."
(I'm getting to the point, I swear I am. If you've stopped reading because you think this is just one of those "wow, my kid is cute" stories, I don't blame you, but you're gonna miss when I bring it on home here.)
I guess what I would like to say is most things are a matter of perspective. How cute a baby is, how loud a baby is, world renowned masterpiece art, absolute truth, kindness, faith, happiness, blessedness, sadness. I've found myself so happy this weekend that I've found it hard to take moments to grieve for this man I know and for his family and for all his loved ones. And I feel excruciatingly selfish about it. And maybe I am being selfish. Can you take two perspectives at once? Can I feel pain for him and his family and joy for me and mine? I think so. I think I do. And if anything, I sure am a lot less angry about waiting 25 extra days to move into a house. Those are 25 DAYS. And we're lucky for that right? Or blessed. Or whatever. But I hope it's a positive word, I hope the idea of breathing in and out has a positive light attached to it. That's a matter of perspective too. I read this quote somewhere that said, "The path to happiness is happiness." Or maybe it was the road and not the path. Either way, it's a matter of perspective, I guess. Anyway, I carry that with me, which isn't to say I'm superb at remembering it, but I do think there is a lot of truth to it.
So this guy, the one who has passed on now (death is easy to write about when it's fiction; when it's reality even the word "died" is difficult), he had cancer for a while and was trying all these different things for it, experimental treatments and stuff, and I can't imagine how crappy he must have felt most of the time but I can imagine how much I would have whined if it had been me in that situation. Anyway, for a while, he was a facebook addict, always updating. And I was always struck by the happiness in his words. He would drop little hints that he was sick, but mostly it was about spending time with his family and seeing people he hadn't seen in a long time and being glad about being alive. He took a trip to the Boundary Waters a few weeks ago and his comment said something about a couple of days of rain, but some really beautiful weather and good fishing and if you've ever been to the Boundary Waters and it's rained or if you've ever been camping and it's rained or if you've ever been outside and it's rained or sometimes even inside, you know how hard it is to keep a positive perspective about it. But I read write over the rain and through to the parts about how much he enjoyed it. I hope there's some way I can keep that happiness inside me. He was a testament to how perspective or attitude or whatever you want to call it could lead to a full, fulfilling life.
So I've been thinking about death. And about life. And, in that, about legacy. These guys and gals, these people that created this art that landed in the Louvre because it attained masterpiece status, they worked hard, sometimes for their whole lives to create something new and unique and astounding. They pushed the boundaries of art and tradition and creation and function and form and all sort of things to make what they did, to cement for themselves a legacy that would live on long past their death. This guy I know - Scott - he did that too. And I'm not sure anyone will ever attach a walkman thing to a lanyard and wear it around their neck to hear about his masterpiece, but that doesn't cheapen it at all. I love the idea of creation taking on many forms. We tend to box it in to visual art, written word, music, acting - but I think people make masterpieces everyday. This suddenly feels super cheesy, but really I don't care. If you think it's cheesy, then I think you need to change your perspective. Sometimes I wonder if we can't divide everyone up into two categories: Creators and Critics. But I suppose that a matter of perspective too.
