The Tears of God

Last night the sky opened up. I was asleep in my bed when I heard the loud rumble that indicates thunder. But it was the bright electric flash of lightning that actually opened my eyes. It burst through the blinds in my bedroom, and through my closed lids and I almos gasped with how sharply I was taken out of sleep. But then I calmed down and still dreary I watched the storm through my window. 

Because of the blinds I could only see the sharp blue flash illuminate pieces of the sky and then recede into darkness. The shadows in my room unfurled, their jagged edges stretching across my walls, climbing along my ceiling and then folding back into the blanket of black. 

When I was a small child I was told that the rain were God's tears. I didn't understand. Why would God be crying so much? With selfish, childlike understanding I thought He was crying for my pain, when I got a scrape or bumped my knee. Then as I got a little older I believed that His tears were not just for me, but for the pain of others, the world. I couldn't help but think, God must be sad a lot, it feels like He cries all the time. 

Now as I lay awake watching, listening, I recall my childhood thoughts. I wondered what I would have thought if I had experienced this storm when I was young. This was more than mere sorrowful raindrops falling to the earth. This felt...angry. As if God were opening up the heavens to scream at us all. Maybe he was angry about the wars, about our descent into the comfort of our ignorance and intolerance. Maybe He would scream at us to look at ourselves, to see that we have divided ourselves based on the flimsiest attributes that make us different, rather than the majority of similarities uniting us all. Maybe this was a warning. 

Or a plea. 

Lightning flashed in quick succession. I watched blue crack through black. I watched the sky brighten for the second before darkening. I thought to myself, eons of darkness crumble with just a flicker of light to shine through it. Thunder rumbled, I could swear I heard a cry beneath it. 

Art as Release.

Lately I've discovered the wonderful feeling of expressing myself through painting. I'm a writer, I've always loved the written word. There's something cathartic about taking a pen to paper or even the rhythmic sound of the keyboard tapping under your fingertips and watching words come to life on the page or screen. I love the books and their ability to weave words and worlds. It's my first love. 

But lately, while writing I've had a desire to try something new to exercise my brain and help my creativity flow. So I took a brush to canvas. And I fell in love. I'm no Picasso by any means. But creating a visual image with the colors available to me gives me a sense of pride that I find to be really powerful. And the act of brushing along the canvas, creating lines and shapes and making something coherent or emotional moving with the direction my brush is gliding on the surface is exhilarating. I look at each piece I've made with great pride. It's a happy experience. I'm gonna share some of the paintings I've made right here with you! 

I did Van Gogh's "Starry Night" for my older sister. She wanted a triptych painting (which is a three part painting) so this is part one. 

And here's part two: my "Starry Night Cityscape". 

And here's part three: my "Starry Tree". 

What do you think? Personally I love them and I'm proud of my creations. I'll definitely be doing more in the future. I feel like they are beautiful pieces of me painted onto canvas. They make me happy. 

A Visit to The Cloisters

So a few weekends ago I was able to take something off of my bucket list that I wanted to do before I turn 30. I visited The Cloisters. Ever since I've heard of the place two years ago I've been obsessed with going there. I'd look it up online. I'd tell friends about it. I wanted to experience this place that houses medieval religious art. It was set up like a kind of monastery and I knew I had to go. 

So finally on a beautiful Sunday afternoon my boyfriend and I took the trip to Washington Heights and visited The Cloisters. We walked a bit through Fort Tryon Park (I will revisit Fort Tryon in detail and talk about it in Project Parks. The place is beautiful) and soon we were on the path to The Cloisters. 

Even though it's part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it's not located anywhere near it, which was a little confusing. However, upon entering the place I could see why. All the artifacts and sections of monasteries needed a place all of it's own. There's a good deal to see here. I'll show a few things that I loved about this place. 

I think some of my favorite parts were looking at the various gardens and outdoor space The Cloisters provided. There's nothing more amazing to me than the feeling I get when I walk through a pathway or architectural structure and it's as if I've stepped into another world. It's like I've fallen through the rabbit hole 

Again...

And again.

Look at this doorway. All the detail and care is just lovely to behold! 

When I saw parts of the building from this angle it reminded me of a castle. 

And then there was the sunlight shining through the windows. So mystical. 

And the stained glass was quite a treat to look at. 

This is another garden area in The Cloisters. For some reason it reminds me of ancient Egypt. 

The Unicorn tapestries were intricate (some were graphic with scenes of the unicorn being attacked) but each tapestry held its own beauty. 

Another outdoor area!

When I saw this dragon paiting I nearly fell over. It's gorgeous! Look at the colors and the serpentine bend of it's tail. 

The Virgin Mary and Jesus. 

This triptych painting took my breath away. The colors were so rich!

My experience here was calming as I surrounded myself with all the artwork and sculptures and beautiful gardens. If you've never been to The Cloisters, please do yourselves a favor and go. 

To Be Carefree

I'm trying to remember what it meant to be carefree. It seems like an act of pure will now to exist in this world and just let things be. I just can't seem to manage it. It's like something that only children can master, the art of enjoying everything in the moment as it is without fear or worry or the burden of what the next day brings. I envy those little beings. They are able to laugh and cry without any shame. They don't care if you're staring at them or judging them. They live. And in that living there is something freeing, because they don't let the things of this world worry them. They are in the moment. This moment. Right now.

My moments consist of memories. Every single act I make reminds me of another time. It's like constant deja vu. For example, reading in the sunshine always transports me back to my childhood where nothing existed except for me and my books. I could remember the smell of them clearly, earthy and deep. The feeling of anticipation as I turned the page back then felt almost haunting as I'd turn the page of my current book in the present. It was as if I've been transported back in time and I was 12 years old again, with nothing but the end of the story stretching along those hot summer days.

Or I'd walk through a neighborhood in Brooklyn where private houses stood on either side of the street like quiet soldiers and I'd remember the many walks home from school. I'd find myself staring at the shadows of the trees on the sidewalk, jumping on the patches of sunlight that the leaves permitted to shine down. For a moment, I was weightless. My life is constant nostalgia, constant parallels. I live in this world and the next, the next being a world of events already gone by, already lived. They appear like mirages in my vision and I succumb to them, aware of how this life mimics the one of long ago. Except for one main thing. I've forgotten what it means to be carefree, to skip in the patches of sunlight that the trees provide or to laugh and be silly without the self consciousness that comes from caring what others think. Always, always I would turn and look around, worried that someone had caught me in a moment of reverie. I've forgotten how to let things be. Even though the memory sits upon my heart pulsing with each action I take, a mirror of a childhood that follows me wherever I go.