FAMILY TIMES
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Judy Gibson
Dells Events
October 27, 2001
Two occasions of truth and beauty brought tears to my eyes in the space of two days last week.
The first was the sight of the valiant, inexperienced whooping cranes, nearly the last of their kind, following a little noisy plane over the river, learning how to migrate between Wisconsin and Florida.
I waited along with a small group of people on the Wisconsin River for a good look at the cranes that lift off first thing in the morning. I thought of all the effort and the money being spent to try to save these stunning birds from extinction. But that wasn¹t what made me cry. I cried when I saw them in the sky, coming out of the mist, following as they are born to do in that V formation
Even geese, plentiful as they are, flying in that formation high in the sky makes me catch my breath. I’m not sure what it is although it may be the perfect integrity of the natural world combined with the beauty and grace of the birds flying in a flock, their own extended family, doing together what they could not do alone.
This time that feeling was multiplied by a hundred as these historic birds soared above on a mission they were unaware of.
How fragile is life.
The second occasion was in stark contrast to standing out at dawn on the river My son lives in Chicago and this gives me an excuse to visit the wonderful art museum there. The next day after the cranes, I stood in front of Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, “The Starry Night.” Of course I am very familiar with this painting of swirly pattern around the moon and dots of stars in the sky over the south of France.
I have loved this painting, but nothing compares to standing a few feet away feeling an impact of the beauty and almost painful tenderness. Van Gogh painted this toward the end of his life, he killed himself not long after, and he painted it while he was in an asylum. The exhibition was so well done, illustrating the friendship and competitive artistic relationship between Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.
Van Gogh was so excited about Gauguin’s coming to stay with him that he painted something just to hang in the room he furnished to please him. Van Gogh was much less sure of himself and it was agony to keep his own integrity in the presence of Gauguin. It was also when his own mental health was crumbling. Then, out of that pain and near the end of his time on earth, he painted this pulsing masterpiece.
I found myself tearing up there, ignoring the crowd of other people moving around me. My son said you could feel the energy coming out of the painting.
It felt just like when I saw the cranes.