Don’t have a lot of time to compose this post today because the wife and I are heading off to the Denver Art Museum, with another couple of friends, to see the Claude Monet Exhibit. It’s so popular you need tickets which have a specific time of viewing. So I have a limited amount of time here. Oh boy, should be fun.
And yet, and yet…
I heard a very nice description of “leisure” as the ability or attitude or life rhythm that allow us to “give something the time it deserves.” Here in my maturity, I’m still learning this very basic attitude, this very basic life rhythm.
Suzy, my wife seems much more able to give things the “time they deserve.” I myself always seem rushed, needing for some reason to get on to the next thing. Suzy patiently paints, or sews, or cooks, makes the bed or talks with kids and grandkids, somehow giving each the “time they deserve.” I’m more of the , “let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” mindset.
But I’m learning, here in my dotage. Suzy helps.
When we have a particular time demand—be at Monet Exhibit at 1:15 pm.—we are not a necessarily able to give the chores of the morning the “time they deserve.” And yet, is it time, or mindset that we’re talking about?
The question naturally arises whether Monet himself gave his paintings “the time they deserve” to come to completion, or whether they were “hurry, hurry, hurry, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” onto the next painting.
I suspect Monet had learned to give each painting the time it deserved. That’s why people are coming from around the country, one hundred years after Monet’s death, to view his work.
Do we—can we—give the making a tuna casserole the same, “time it deserves,” tp make it into a masterpiece?
I wonder if I’ll be able to give each of the Monet paintings the “time it deserves” to appreciate? I’ll need my whole lifelong learning, not only of art but “be here now” meditation, to do that. Hope I’m up to the task.
Love itself, of course, is instantaneous, since it is in fact eternal. But expressed in the moment, love gives each the time it deserves. Or at least, that’s my IMPRESSION. (Get it? Impression, Impressionist?)
Okay, you’ve given this post as much time as it deserves. Me too. On to different loving activities…
