Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Tuesday, October 15, 2013 -- Mattie died 213 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2008. This has to be one of my favorite hospital photos of Mattie. It was taken by his preschool teacher and our friend, Margaret. Margaret came to visit us on a Friday. I know it was a Friday because Mattie was participating in the chemistry club's experiment. Chemistry Club always visited on Fridays! Mattie looked forward to it and he really liked Chris, the President of the Club! That day Chris brought in roses, and as you can see Mattie was holding a rose and smelling it! He did not realize Margaret was watching him when she captured this photo. The experiment that day was to drop a rose into dry ice and then throw it on the floor. Chris demonstrated and showed the kids that dry ice instantly freezes objects and when thrown on the floor, the rose broke into thousands of pieces. Mattie was fascinated by what he saw but he did not want to try the experiment and part with the rose he received. That rose came into our room that day, despite the NO flower policy in the PICU.


Quote of the day: Often it isn’t the initiating trauma that creates seemingly insurmountable pain, but the lack of support after. ~ S. Kelley Harrell

My morning began with a deer sighting. However this time I did not need to venture far to see one. I literally walked down the stairs in my pajamas and looked out the window. I was stunned to see a deer eating my parent's rose bush. This LA Cappuccino (which is the nickname I have given to the black tailed deer that live in the hills that surround my parent's house) wasn't startled to see me, in fact he just kept walking around the yard. So I ran back upstairs for my camera. When I came down, he was clearly on the move and therefore this resulted in a blurry photo. Yet I think you get the gist of what I saw. A deer sighting in a residential neighborhood seems SO odd to me and unnatural. After all, I live in the heart of DC, where this never happens! When I saw this deer, all I could think of was what in this picture doesn't belong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

My mom and I had an adventure today to an extraordinary museum called the Getty Center. Living in DC, I have access to some of our Country's best museums. Yet, I would have to say the Getty Center may be my all time favorite museum I have ever been to. Why? The museum is tucked away high above the hills. This makes it special, scenic, private, and serene. Honestly the beauty inside the museum is well matched to the beauty that surrounds the museum. The museum has breathtaking gardens, panoramic views, fountains everywhere, and space to sit and take all of this in.

I snapped this photo on the museum's tram. Literally you park your car at the bottom of the mountain and then you take a tram up the side of the mountain to the top. It gives you an amazing view of the city on a clear day, like today. Keep in mind that a trip to the Getty is FREE, it is paid for by the Getty Foundation. It is a true gift that J. Paul Getty has left behind to our Country.

In this photo you can see the rails of the Tram, the 405 freeway, and as we kept on climbing by tram, we left the traffic and chaos behind for peace, quiet, and beauty.

This is the entrance to the Getty Center. Though it is a very modern structure, it is not cold or uninviting. On the contrary, the expanse of the space, along with the sound of the water provides instant relief to stress and anxiety.

Once on top of the mountain, it is hard to know what to look at first. The Getty Center is surrounded by mountains, vegetation, and it has gardens that capture your attention immediately.

Today was such a clear day we could even see the island of Catalina, the land of the flying fish, from the Museum. This is a rarity since with LA's typical smog, it is hard to see into the distance. But today was crystal clear and beautiful.

One of the Gardens!

We toured around the Museum today and saw several photography exhibits, but at 1:30pm, we took a guided tour of a special exhibit entitled, Canterbury and St. Albans. This exhibit featured stained glass windows and a prayer book. That may not sound so special, but these are items most people will never get to see in their life time (especially the prayer book which is typically not on public view). The windows and prayer book share only the following three things in common: they are from England, they were constructed in the middle ages, and both are being conserved. Photos were NOT allowed inside the exhibit, so instead, I went on line tonight and downloaded several photos for you to see from Getty's website. I hope you enjoy these incredible sights from the 12th century!

Around 900 years ago, if you were a European peasant or serf, you were almost certainly unable to read. But you were expected to be a good Christian anyway—which meant knowing the basic stories and scriptures and characters of the bible. How did you manage?  Well, it has a lot to do with the art of the European Middle Ages—in fact, that was what most of the art of that time and place was for. As one early churchman put it, “The pictures are the poor man’s bible.” The stories that were preached every Sunday were draped across your vision in the hues of stained-glass portrayals in the windows that surrounded you in church. It was said that “Each picture is a lesson to the viewer."

Commentary from the Exhibit's designer:

On the surface, Canterbury and St. Albans: Treasures from Church and Cloister seems like a simple exhibition to design. There are just two artworks in the show, stained glass from Canterbury Cathedral and a single book, the St. Albans Psalter. The reality is that this was one of the most complex exhibitions I’ve ever handled as an exhibition designer. Canterbury and St. Albans is the result of a rare coincidence. One 12^th-century stained glass window nearly fifteen feet tall, two partial windows, and two centerpieces had been removed from Canterbury Cathedral and would be loaned to the Getty. The St. Albans Psalter, on loan from the Cathedral Library in Hildesheim, Germany, had been disbound for conservation, which presented the opportunity to show nearly seventy of its pages simultaneously. For me, what was most intriguing about this pairing was that the monumental paintings of the stained glass and the intimate illuminations of the psalter share the same drawing styles and gestures. The overarching goal of the exhibition would be to allow visitors to look at the pages of the book and the stained glass at the same time and notice these remarkable similarities.

These surviving 12th-century windows from Canterbury Cathedral (6 out of 43 are displayed) representing the ancestors of Christ are among the oldest panels of stained glass in England. They are significant examples of what was at the time a relatively new art—monumental stained glass. Depicting male ancestors of Christ, the images constitute a series that was originally housed in the top section of a wall ringing the eastern end of the cathedral. Made of colored glass with details of the faces and costumes painted on the surface, the windows show imposing, life-sized seated figures that are considered to be among the most famous works of English medieval painting. Normally installed high in the walls of the cathedral, the figures are displayed at a lower level in this exhibition, allowing visitors to get a rare close-up look at the glass and a fuller appreciation for the skills of medieval glass painters.

NOTE: We learned that to get the paint to stick to this glass they achieved this goal by using either wine or urine!!! Quite a commentary no?

The St. Albans Psalter is one of the most extraordinary manuscripts produced in 12th-century England. Written in Latin, the St. Albans Psalter contains more than two hundred initials with pictures that give visual form to the accompanying prayers. Letterforms teem with human figures, animals, and demonic creatures that provide a literal illustration of particular lines from the psalms. Completed within a decade of 1130, the book is prefaced by an extended cycle of full-page pictures of Old Testament scenes and events from the life of Christ. Forty luxuriously painted, full-page illuminations serve as a preface to the written prayers in the St. Albans Psalter.

Note: It was thought that this beautiful book was created as a gift for a nun by the name of Catherine Markyate of St. Albans! Clearly a very special woman who was known by those in her town to have a special calling and later deemed a saint.

As we were driving home from the Museum, I snapped a photo of "The Valley." When I moved to LA with my parents in the 1980s, LA was famous for its valley. In fact, the term valley girl was big back then. In theory I was a valley girl because I literally lived in this valley, but naturally I never sounded or looked the part! Normally the valley is a basin of smog. But today it was crystal clear, so clear you could even see a plane flying in (left hand speck at the 9pm position!).

Over dinner tonight, we shared the highlights of our day with my dad. We talked about all sorts of things and then my dad happened to ask me about the challenges of a PhD program. He wanted to know if I still remember the stresses of the experience. Particularly he wanted to know what are obstacles students run into. There are plenty I assure you, and many of them are not even academic in nature! It takes political savvy and determination to get a doctorate, and I know why many students never complete the degree. In fact, after I graduated I spent several years researching this and also lecturing and mentoring female students through this daunting nightmare. So the answer to my dad's question is..... yes, I will always remember the blood, sweat, and tears it took to get my degree, but unfortunately I can put even that nightmare of an experience into context. My viewpoint is much different now, now that I have experienced the trauma of Mattie's diagnosis and death, all other things seem to pale in comparison.