Act Your Age… Enjoying the View

As I wrote in last week’s Act Your Age, I am very goal oriented when being a tourist on vacation. I have a check-list of the things I want to see in each city. As I see each site I often get more enjoyment from crossing the item off my list than from actually experiencing it. It was a running joke throughout my recent Europe trip that I spent more time looking at my lists than at any of the wonders we saw. And we certainly saw some incredible things: the Coliseum in Rome, the Eiffel Tower and Catacombs in Paris, the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, and the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City to name a few.

But it’s one thing to put something on a list and another to experience it. At the beginning of the trip, I don’t think I realized that. There is a church in Barcelona called the Sagrada Familia. We went to the very peak of the church tower and looked across the city from its highest point. The city sprawled out in front of us, but I was hungry and looked forward to our next stop, Spanish McDonalds. Days later, we went to the top of Mount Tibidabo. At the peak of this small mountain is an amusement part with swings that seem to almost throw you off the edge of the mountain. It was an incredible view, but I was distracted by the next stop on our list; the roller coaster. I hate roller coasters and I was thoroughly distracted.

This sort of distraction continued throughout the trip. That weekend, we took an hour train ride out of Barcelona to Montserrat, a monastery at the top of a mountain. Our group took a ten-minute cable car to the monastery, a funicular (basically a train that goes diagonally up a mountain), and then hiked for an hour to reach the very peak of St. Jerome, which is 1,236 m above sea level. The view was breath-taking, without a doubt, but at the time I didn’t really know what breath-taking meant. Certainly staring out across the world, the winds billowing around us, I was moved by the view. But I also knew if we didn’t leave within five minutes we’d likely miss the last cable car down the mountain and be stuck at Montserrat overnight. So I took my pictures and rushed down.

My girlfriend had already seen Rome, so during our week in the city I had purposefully looked into doing some side trips so she could see something new. During my research I found Capri, which is a resort island known for its lemon flavoured liquor and so-called breath-taking views.

We arrived at the ferry terminal early after leaving our hostel. I was coming down with a cold and admittedly wasn’t in the best of moods. Sprawled out across three seats, I slept for most of the ferry ride and before I knew it we had arrived at the Marina Piccola on the island of Capri. Departing the ferry, we were met with postcard views of mountains, greenery, and a sandy beach. We dipped our feet in the Mediterranean before taking another funicular to the town of Capri. After having a quick lunch of over-priced cheeseburgers, we decided to take a bus further up the steep island. I had read that the bus ride to Anacapri, the island’s other town, was filled with sharp turns and narrow roads, which made the experience quite harrowing.

The four of us crammed into a bus and were forced to stand, holding tightly onto both the hand-railings and each other. My girlfriend stood in front of me facing the window, while my friends stood to either side. The bus’s engine roared to life and started to zoom along the narrow streets, swerving up the mountain and regularly making 180o turns.

Being the smartass I am, I joked, “Are you guys harroweded yet?” They weren’t impressed.

At one point, the bus made yet another sharp turn and suddenly we seemed to be at the very edge of a cliff looking down to the marine port we had just left. From my girlfriend, I heard an audible gasp. I chuckled and asked her if she was scared.

She didn’t turn her head; her eyes stared across the mountains and ocean. My jaded girlfriend then said the one thing I did not expect. She whispered, “It’s just so beautiful.”

I looked over her shoulder and out the window and indeed it was beautiful. But my breathing remained consistent. She had had her breath literally taken away by this incredible view, but for the life of me I could not feel that same wonder. It was just one more view in a string of incredible views. Trying to understand it all, I looked down at her.

She was staring out the window. Her mouth, open because of her dropped jaw, was surrounded by her red pouty lips and her blue eyes, which often looked green or grey depending on the light, darted back and fourth across the scene before her. Her sun-freckled shoulders held up her black summer dress with pink polka dots, which was tied tight across her slender stomach. And as I looked at her in all her stunned appreciation and stunning beauty, I felt my heart skip a beat.

That’s when I learned to enjoy the view and it’s a lesson that we can all appreciate. Sometimes the view you have to take time to enjoy is from the top of a mountain. But sometimes, if you’re lucky, the only view you need is the view of the face of the person you wake up across from every morning.

Act Your Age… Appreciating Art

How I ended up sitting in front of Picasso’s painting Science and Charity in a museum in Barcelona, Spain is a bit of a long story. Needless to say, on my travels this month through Europe, I’ve ended up walking along streets crawling with cockroaches and witnessing mountain top views that literally take your breath away. But I digress. Today I’m telling you about my visit to the Museu Picasso de Barcelona with three of my best friends, including my girlfriend, to see some Picasso paintings.

To be honest, it was not my idea to come to the museum. While seeing some original Picasso paintings intrigued me in the sense that I could later say I had seen the pieces, I had no real appreciation for the art itself. Were I to see the paintings in a book, I would likely flip past them without further thought. However, because I was making an effort to see the things that my travelling companions were interested in and because I write Act Your Age about my experiences trying new (for me at least) activities, I agreed to find the museum. I would not be disappointed.

It was down a cobblestoned alleyway that we found the entrance to the large cold museum. The brick wall to our left opened up into a grand arch and we made our way through. After paying a small admission fee and delivering our bags to the coat check for safe keeping, we entered into the first gallery of the museum.

There were a range of Picasso’s early works in the first rooms. A few oil paintings and a variety of sketches hung on the walls. I walked past them all making empty glances at them. It was almost as if all the paintings were items on my “To Do” list and I had to just check them off by seeing them. Oil painting. Check. Sketch. Check. Portrait. Check. Another sketch. Check.

I wasn’t really appreciating any of the art. Certainly I was seeing it. My primary goal of saying I had seen Picasso’s work was being met. But was I getting anything out of the experience? Not at all. I found myself well ahead of my group of friends and with sore feet I plopped myself down on a bench.

Growing bored, I looked up and began to analyze the painting in front of me, which as you can now deduce was Science and Charity. The painting, which is the size of a large rectangular kitchen table, was painted by Picasso in 1897 when he was only sixteen. It depicts a man lying sick in his bed. To the man’s left is a doctor seated in a chair, staring at his watch, and taking the man’s pulse. On the other side of the sick man is a nun looking down at him comfortingly, while offering him a drink and holding his child.

When I had first walked past the work I had certainly looked at it. Big oil painting. Check. But I hadn’t really seen it. Now as I sat staring at it, I began to take it apart with my eyes. As its name described, the painting contrasted the doctor’s cold calculating treatment of the sick man with the nun’s warm comforting care. “What was Picasso trying to say with this painting?” I wondered to myself. Was the fact it was a nun important; a comment on religion’s ability to comfort the sick and dying? Were a male doctor and a female nun reflective of the times or a comment on gender stereotypes concerning emotionless calculating men and emotional caring women? Was the child with blond curly hair supposed to suggest that “charity” would look after the man’s child or was the child supposed to be Jesus? Maybe I was reading too much into it.

My girlfriend caught up with me shortly and sat next to me on the bench. With a bachelor degree in cultural studies and with a few art history courses under her belt, she began to point out aspects of the painting I’d overlooked. She observed that the shadow on the left side of the doctor’s face suggested a single point of light, but the fully lit nurse suggested that even the light had something to say. She also noted the painting was likely painted from the inside out.

The other two in our group finally caught up and I proceeded through the rest of the museum in my usual fashion, observing each painting as another trophy for my eyes. Picasso’s Blue Period. Check. Picasso’s nudes. Check. Picasso’s abstract portraits. Check.

But it was Science and Charity that stuck out in my mind. When I entered the gift store at the end of the tour I sought out the painting in its postcard form. Thus, I accomplished my retirement activity of the week. Appreciating art. While I didn’t take the time to appreciate all the paintings in the museum, the ten minutes I spent in front of that one spoke to me. A stagnant century old canvas became dynamic as I spent time trying to understand, and if not understand then appreciate, the piece. And there is certainly merit to that.

While I can’t specifically suggest that you fly to Barcelona to see the Museu Picasso de Barcelona, I do suggest going to one of your local museums or art galleries and sitting or standing for a few minutes in front of a piece that speaks to you. They all won’t, but find one that captures your imagination and try to find its story. Talk about it with your friends and see what you come up with. Even if you’re as artistically dense as me, you may be surprised with what you come up with!