| Heya <<First Name>>,
A couple weeks ago, I took a four-and-a-half-day train trip from Seattle to Atlanta.
Near Browning, Montana.
The geography nerd in me was thrilled to:
- pass through three states I’d never been to (North Dakota, Wisconsin, South Carolina),
- skirt the geographic center of North America (coincidentally near Center, N.D.), and
- roll along the Mississippi River one icy morning.
The daydreamer in me was abetted by the endless unfurling landscape and the constant rumbling of the train.
The Sweet Grass Hills, north-central Montana.
And the book lover in me was grateful to have minimal distractions. (No WiFi! Spotty cell service!)
I’d read for a while, look out the window for a while, and then read for a while longer.
St. Paul at dawn.
Time slowed. I felt my capacity for attention expand.
The Mississippi River.
The highlight of the trip came in Chicago. (If this were a book or a movie, I’d call it the “midpoint reveal,” the truth at the heart of the story).
I had a layover for a few hours, so I exited the train station via that staircase from the movie “The Untouchables” and hoofed it to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Elliot Ness was here.
My sole purpose in going to the museum was to spend time with one painting: George Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884.”
“A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884.”
Because I’d left my duffel and suitcase at the train station and checked my backpack at the entrance to the museum, I approached the painting unencumbered.
I’m not knowledgeable about art. I’m not up on the critical arguments du jour. I just wanted to encounter the painting fresh and see what, if anything, I could learn from it.
So I just stood there and looked.
And kept looking.
I thought about which of the people I’d like to hang out with. And I wondered:
- Was it common to keep monkeys as pets in 1880s Paris?
- Was that boat in the distance sinking?
- What was going on with the interior border of the painting, just inside the frame, which was all unresolved dots and blobs?
Interior border, on the left.
Finally, after about 20 minutes of random staring, I noticed the child in the white dress.
How did I miss her? She’s right there in the center of the painting, and she’s the only figure not watching the river. Instead, she was looking directly at the viewer.
At me.
I felt weirdly seen. Like she’d been watching me while I’d been watching the painting. I also felt a strange connection across time — to that child and to all the figures in the painting, all of them now long dead.
Life is so fleeting. How should we live?
For me, the best answer right now is: As attentively as I can.
If this was a story, I think the moral would go something like this … Meaning requires attention. Attention is a muscle. Reading helps me exercise it.
Out of formless blobs, resolution emerges.
Just in time for New Year’s.
Happy reading,
Jeff, Bob, and Claire …
… who believe that reading with kids can change the world for the better. |
