Water Lilies

I couldn’t help myself today as tears came to my eyes in a Chicago art museum. I was captivated by the lilies and flowers floating in the light and water of Monet’s mind. I sat on the bench across the room to regain my composure, but wished I had the courage or craziness to just let it all break loose and flood my eyes blind and blurry. I reapproached the painting and read the information posted on the wall beside it. This painting was one of a series of more than eighty. The commentary goes on to explain that at this point in his work, paintings constructed from remembrances were indistinguishable from those painted outdoors in the garden. In capturing the light and color of a lily pond, everything becomes a remembrance in a very short time. I wondered to myself about the importance of such a distinction and what it was I saw in that pond. I sat back down on the bench to lull in the sweet reverie of a painter, a pond of lilies and his imaginings of the garden on that day. My heart softened and opened; the tears came again. I choked them a bit in my throat and searched my heart for the what and why of life that had led me here—a weepy middle-aged lady in a city of strangers surrounded by the visions and creations of Rodin, Degas and Monet. When we let the present moments pass unnoticed, there is nothing to life but remembrance. When we exist in the present, we are offered a chance to live and love deeply. The world is revealed to us as never before, changing and passing like swirling currents above deep water. Remembrance does not enter, but informs as it should from a distance.