Life's masterpieces

We went to New York City this weekend. It was my Mom's 65th birthday, so we did the whirlwind tour -- drive down Friday p.m., spend Saturday with my Mom, brothers, sister-in-laws, and neice/nephews/cousins, and drove back Sunday a.m. It is a funny transition to go from Peacham to Manhattan back to Peacham so quickly, but we had a ball.

Oddly enough, one of the places I found myself Saturday morning was strolling through an exhibit at the Metropolitian Museum of Art. It was an exhibit that featured a bunch of works from Paul Cezanne, and between keeping an eye on Waverly, and not wanting to lose the rest of my party, I looked up at one point and saw this canvas that had always grabbed me when I was an art student in college. The picture is one in a series that Cezanne did, and is not considered one of his big famous pieces, but for me it brings so many things together that I have always felt the painting just radiated some kind of spiritual energy or something. I was quite startled to have my 3 year old chasing, Mom visiting, big city, drive drive drive weekend unexpectedly interrupted by seeing this picture in the flesh. I just stood and stared at it for several minutes. It took me back 15 years, and then forward 15 years, and shot me all over the cosmos in between. For me, it was one of those moments of beauty that occasionally come down the highway of life and almost runs you over. And that is the thing about those moments -- it is hard to know when they are coming, so you can't really plan them.