The Madonna of Port Lligat

I was really hoping to have something to post today, but as the keyboard rattled away I found that every line I typed just opened a larger can of worms. Well, maybe not so much a can of worms, I know in my heart what I was trying to say. Today it was a matter of tripping over the words until there was a big jumbled mess of incoherence. I find words to be funny things. I spent the majority of my college career reading, writing and studying them and I still have no control over them. Although they are our primary means of communication I find that often times there are so many important things, call them concepts for lack of a better word, that words can’t even begin to express. More specifically, nothing in the human communication arsenal can express, I just happen to use words more often than anything else.

What is it about the driving forces in life that make them impossible to describe? I guess all in all I am glad that we lack this ability. It is through our striving to describe things like love, joy, peace etc. that our most beautiful art is created; an attempt to describe the indescribable results in our music, poetry, literature, architecture, sculpture, visual arts. Heck, even most of our science and technology is driven by these concepts.

As I was tangled in my jumbled mountain of words I remembered being at the Dali exhibit at the High Museum last summer. I have a standard physical reaction when I wander through a museum; my heart beats a little faster, I feel a noticeably heavy weight in my chest and I have to make a conscious effort to hold back tears. It is pretty annoying, but I guess it stems, as do many physical reactions, from fear. As I wander through museums I know that at any minute there is a chance that something is going to kick me in my metaphysical head, and I am going to turn into a ball of mush in a very public place. That is exactly what happened at the High. I was standing in front of the Madonna of Port Lligat, surrounded by school children (gotta love a school that will take tweenies to see a Dali exhibit!) and I just couldn’t hold it back anymore. The Madonna of Port Lligat was never one of my favorite works by Dali, but standing in front of the enormous painting I felt an overwhelming sense of love and compassion emanating from the canvas. I know, sounds a bit daft, but wow! I think I stood there in front of the painting for a lifetime. As the children tittered and tatted around me I just let the emotions fill me up. Once I knew there was no more room I let the emotions go, composed myself and moved on. I had no idea what triggered Dali to create that particular painting, where he was on his path through life, but I did know that Dali had a vast, compassionate and open heart and was willing to bare it and show his vulnerability to the world. Awesome! As I left the museum and wandered to the MARTA station to catch the train back to the airport I felt comfort and lightness and knew in my heart that no one is ever really alone.

So, I was trying to find the words to describe the fear that drives us to fulfill societal expectations and my bumbling and stumbling through the English language brought me back to the High, and the fact that not everything can or even should be put into words. These indescribable places are the places that we have to find on our own. The glimpses that these phenomenal people like Dali are able to share with us are not meant to describe what is inside of us, they are more akin to a confirmation that although we are often alone on our chosen path we are joined with all of humanity on our journey.