Continuing Education-There Was a Child Went Forth

Thursday, February 18 was an expansive day:  a day in which I was able to share in the happiness of my children while also experiencing my own wide-eyed wonder in the world around me.  I continue to revel in the opportunities that are available to me during this New York visit and I am slowly developing a continuing education curriculum for what I want to learn in the years that I have in front of me.   (I sure wish I could learn to blog  in the active voice without using the egotistical "I" all the time.  But since this is my egotistical blog I will mention that during the day Ted called me with news that he had been accepted into Yale and Princeton for the English PhD program).

Once again, I planned a full day in Manhattan book-ended by a concert rehearsal by the New York Philharmonic and a seminar on Walt Whitman in the evening.  The morning was filled with the "Open Rehearsal" of four pieces with a dance theme guest conducted by David Robertson from the St. Louis Symphony.  This was a fine selection but if I damn with faint praise you must remember that I have been feeding myself a very rich diet of classical music.  My favorite selection was the ethereal "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" by Debussey which "Mr Robertson conducted (in) a beautifully nuanced interpretation that highlighted the languourous, shimmering textures..." One advantage of attending an open rehearsal is that the orchestra will  replay sections and I was able to hear the bulk of this piece more than once. 

After the concert I walked a mile and half across the wintry Central Park (lots of snowmen, sledding and snowball fights) to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I had four fantastic hours at my disposal.  I bought a membership to ensure future visits, had a wonderful lunch overlooking Central Park and shopped for a while to make sure I took advantage of my one day only 20% discount at the Met's store.  The highlight of the afternoon was the one hour tour on Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.  The guide took us chronologically from the Academie's juried Salon shows to the decision by rejected artists (who networked at the Cafe Guerbois)  to start their own Salon de Refuses (Salon of the Refused) and the work we now call Impressionism began to be seen by the general public.  We learned about  this art movement by examining about 10 paintings: Manet, Renoir, Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Seurat.  We ended with Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Cypresses which was a beautiful transition to my evening lecture on Walt Whitman.

In the evening I attended a 3 hour seminar by Helen Vendler of Harvard on Walt Whitman at the 92nd Street Y (which is known for its concerts and lecture series).  I wanted to read more Whitman while in New York because I always associate him with Brooklyn.  This blog was named The Eagle's Eyrie for two reasons: to suggest the view that I have of Manhattan from our 11th floor penthouse and to suggest that I would like to become a writer and observor as Whitman was (and he was the editor of The Brooklyn Eagle).  The lecture was a bit disappointing (see, dear reader, I'm not going to rave about everything) but I certainly enjoyed the additional exposure to Whitman.  So I am going to bore you with two excerpts that I believe tie into today's experience.  The first reflects my feelings as I embark on the second childhood or retirement:

There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,

Or for many years or stretching cycles of years

The second is from the moving When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd .  As we read these lines I thought of Vincent Van Gogh's cypress tree which Van Gogh associated with death and yet he strove to resurrect himself through the living movement of the wheat fields:

From the deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.

And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.