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Note: Off my posting schedule this week. Oh well! This one still needs some work but I hope you get something from reading it anyway! I have three more chapters planned, then the rewrite begins. I now have a designer for the book! Suddenly this feels real. Enjoy!  Ellie

We leave Etretat with a plan to stop in Le Havre en route to Honfleur. Le Havre, a city with a population of approximately 165,000 is situated on the estuary formed at mouth of the Seine. We intend to visit the art museum there. Reputed to have a few Monets and good collection of other Impressionist art, it’s in keeping with the theme of our trip to check it out; typically, Roo is more enthused about going than I am.

I also hope to find a place where I can buy watercolor paper so I can continue making paintings. Now that I’ve found a good rhythm, I want to make sure I have what I need to sustain my practice. I’ve Googled an art supply store that appears to be located on the outskirts of Le Havre and as we approach, Fifi directs us to the address, a suburban residence which shows no indication of being a shop of any sort. Aborting this attempt, we go directly to the museum.

Musée d’art moderne André Malraux (MuMa) occupies a steel and glass structure built across the street from Le Havre’s industrialized waterfront and has the advantage of free entry. I’m happy there’s a small gift shop. The volunteer behind the counter writes down some directions to where there might be a place to buy art stuff, but she’s not sure. Emerging from the shop, I cannot fail to notice the open space of the main floor reeks of fresh paint. A bunch of scaffolding has been erected there and the area has been wrapped in plastic; nothing, however, can disguise the odor of the renovation project in progress here. I hope the galleries on the second floor won’t smell so toxic.

Roo and I go our separate ways to look at the exhibit. Almost immediately, just as I come upon two Raoul Dufy paintings I like, I begin to experience the visual distortions that precede a migraine headache. Disconcerted, I look for and find a chair nearby, sitting with closed eyes, I wonder how long before this will pass. In the past when I’ve occasionally experienced these symptoms, I’ve just stopped what I’m doing, closed my eyes, and slept until the symptoms resolve; I might take aspirin to stave off any headache that could be lurking. But I’ve never had symptoms in a public place before, and I’m aware how strange it must appear to others that I’m sitting with my eyes are closed in a place where one usually goes to look.

The sudden arrival of any kind of unusual symptom interests me more than it scares me; I tend to mine symptoms for intuitive clues. I’ve had pre-migraine visual distortion only a handful of times, so why here? Why now? By now, it’s no secret that museums are not my favorite places—in this case paint fumes seemed to be the proximal cause, but in a larger view, on this trip, at least, I’ve realized I generally find it difficult to look at art in public places. I’m not sure what that’s about, but now it seems my body may be colluding with my unconscious avoidance strategy.

After a few minutes I become aware that the paint fumes from the main floor have invaded this area of the museum and am certain that this is what my body is reacting to. I need to get out of here! I text Roo and, once I’m outside breathing deeply the fresh sea air, the visual distortion fades. I am still woozy and the midday brightness hurts my eyes. I walk around the block and soon feel better.

Later, over a cool mango lassi and spicy curry in an Indian restaurant we discover, Roo and I compare notes. He likes going to museums for several reasons. He enjoys being able to see the originals of paintings he’s seen only in prints or books. He likes trying to identify the lesser works of famous artists. And, he’s interested to learn art history, for example, at this museum, he’s discovered that it was Honfleur native Eugene Boudin who first encouraged Claude Monet to paint outdoors. I believe my husband is representative of many, if not most, who come to museums and appreciate a curated experience. The context provided by placards, audio tours, and other tools is designed to make the art more accessible. And, that’s good thing, right?  

Not for me, apparently. I balk at the notion of curation. I’d rather read a book if I want to learn about an artist. Contemporary culture is already so highly mediated, not only by curators, but social media influencers, podcast pundits, talk show hosts, not to mention AI algorithms, that hen I’m in front of original art, I want to engage it directly. I don’t want somebody pointing out what they think is interesting. I want to find out for myself, how the art itself, not facts about the art, might move me. So, please, give me lots of space and quiet, a place to sit, no crowds, no conversation, no text, no devices, and plenty of time.

My visit to a Mark Rothko exhibit in London in 2015 first awakened me to the difference setting can make. Intending for his work to be meditated upon and not simply viewed, Rothko directed how his paintings should be hung with low light; he requested silence in their presence. In the darkened gallery at the Tate Modern Rothko’s large color field paintings glowed with a light that emanated from within the canvas. Exuding peace, harmony, the art existed in the space as Presence. It was like being in a church, only one without doctrine or dogma to confuse things.

In 2018 when I set out to create BIRDS FLY IN, I kept the Rothko exhibit in mind. What could happen if people took a time-out from the craziness of the world to sit in a secular sanctuary and contemplate themed art and music? Each visitor to the installation was instructed to “Look slowly, listen deeply,” with suggestions for how to do this. By asking viewers to sit quietly and behold the work before them for a certain length of time, many did just that and most reported their experience of BIRDS FLY IN using the words “moving” and “powerful.”  

Ideally, I tell Roo, this is how all art should be experienced. I rant on. Roo has patiently heard my complaints about the art world before and I am myself tired of my own “should” and “oughts.” Many of the judgements born of my idealism pain me. I have so many requirements for art, especially my own, it's little wonder that I’m disappointed and, in this case, sickened when I go to a museum. I can’t—or won’t—see what may be good or enjoyable in  the “what is” that’s right in front of me.

How did this variety of perfectionism become an habit? Perhaps it started in childhood, with my futile hope that if I was good enough, my depressed alcoholic father wouldn't drink. Or maybe it has to do with the number of what Abraham Maslow described as “peak experiences" that I've had when, without warning (or psychedelics), a perfectly wonderful shift of perception would reveal how everything is connected, penetrated with love, and deeply beautiful. Most of these spontaneous, meaningful alterations of consciousness occurred  when I was much younger, in the first four decades of my life. These events resembled the mystical experiences described in my seminary reading about saints, although, certainly, I was no saint.

Lasting only a few minutes—similar to but far more enjoyable than my pre-migraine distortions-—the impact of these 4 or 5 remarkable experiences remained for much longer. They opened me to the God of my understanding—an unshakeable knowledge that there is Something More than meets the eye. I longed to live in that reality more of the time. This desire was at the root of my commitment to ministry. I wanted this experience for myself and I wanted to lead others to a similar Promised Land. I believed this was my job!

Mostly I consider these experiences to have been a gift, a blessing. Now, I wonder if these sublime experiences haven’t also spoiled my appreciation of what most people find enjoyable. Along the way, I seem to have developed a kind of Messiah complex. I believed that others should and ought to want what I saw was possible for them, even when they clearly didn’t. As an unintended consequence, my combined vision/ idealism made for exciting Sundays in church, but also alienated more than a few congregants. And I was disappointed that so few wanted what I was offering.

When I backed off from ministry and started painting, I wasn’t clear about the job description. Art seemed like an extension of ministry, but one in which my paintings would interface with people, not my messianic personality. Yet, inevitably, people who were inspired by my story and artwork wanted me to teach them. These students wanted to learn oil painting but I had loftier ideas. I wanted to hook them up—not with the basics of oil paintings—but with the Source of Art Ideas Within.

I could see how my art, their art, all art could be a portal through which anyone would access Something More. That could happen and the idealist insisted that it should happen. In visionary mode I seem to be able to intuit possibilities that might manifest over time; as an idealist however, I seize hold of those good ideas and, like someone forcing a flower bulb out of season, insist that their potential can and should be realized now.

I am beginning to understand how the effort to make things like BIRDS FLY IN happen has exhausted me. And, it’s no wonder I haven’t attracted students of late. I expect—no, demand—too much of myself and others. Since no one, including myself, can possibly live up to my ideals, I’m always disappointed. It’s like viewing life not as it is, but through whatever is the opposite of rose-colored glasses.

I hope that observing how I’ve become mired in the muck of my despond could be a first step. I don’t know what to do about my propensity for peak highs and those disappointing lows, but here I am, seeking balance. I want to find a way to envision and entertain good ideas without attaching to a particular idealized outcome. I take heart from the way a lotus or water lily takes root in muck and emerges beautiful anyway. Monet apparently didn’t avoid the messy muck. He worked away at his waterlily pond paintings for his Grande Decoration twenty years, building his home and life around the monumental vision he had. He was unwilling to relinquish either vision or ideal and didn’t seem to mind that it made his sponsors furious! I am far more careful not to displease.

Now, finishing up with a bite of warm syrupy gulab jamon, we pay for our meal and head into the center of Le Havre. Having been devastated by bombs in the war, the buildings are modern and, like the museum, lacking charm; however, following signs we discover the funicular that runs up a steep hill the haute ville. For 1€ each we ride to the top to enjoy the view of the city and back down again. A funicular works because the two cars are counterbalanced—one car goes up while the other comes down—and there’s fun to be had both in going up and going down. The problem with a duality is its either/or-ness. I try to take the funicular’s practical lesson to heart.

Back in the city center, we discover a frame store that carries the kind of watercolor paper I want to paint on, as well as a bookstore that’s well-stocked with all kinds of art supplies. I’ve gotten what I need. Satisfied, we depart via the Pont de Normandie, a suspension bridge built in 1995 that spans the estuary at the mouth of the Seine for 1.3 miles, enjoying Roo’s enthusiasm for the spectacular engineering feat that produced it. When I was a small child, whenever my father drove over a long bridge he’d tells us kids, “Hold your teeth!” and we’d squeal with both fear and delight.

Now, instead of my teeth, I’m trying to hold onto this elusive insight, balancing both vision and idealism, delight and fear, and sensing a measure of relief from my dim, possibly distorted view of the world. Reaching now the marsh land on the other side, I’m wonder what other intuitive clues Honfleur might have in store for the last days of my pilgrimage.