Saturday, June 9, 2007 B
"A Day of Rest"
3:14am
My feet ache! My knees ache! My butt aches! And I discover the complaint is from my hip joints! Who knew there were hip joints and that they could complain so loudly?
I fear we may need to take a day of rest! Always, before, I have never taxed myself physically no more than two days. Oh, I was intellectually stimulated, but for nice sit down gatherings to hear presentations and such!
I hate being old! But what alternative is there. I shall make best possible use with this frail vessel I possess.
I am still achy, but not with the 'joints afire' sensation I had last night.
Knowing that art is a comfort, I fill a page of this journal with an intuitive drawing:
BE HERE NOW
Today is a day for being 'here'. I am grateful that 'here' is such a beautifully decorated room and not the cookie cutter blandness of boring, but dependable hotel chains. Still, there's something to be said for 'boring and dependable'. I would not to be laid up in a certain unforgettable 'hostile hostel'. No private toilet, no gentle classical music to soothe me...
Still, it was an adventure, and that's part of the fun of travel, coming across the unexpected.
While it was unexpected that we could not receive entry Thursday into the tall monument, we also had an unexpected delight that day. Due to construction, the bus let us out in a different spot than in those carefully saved maps I'd printed. But it allowed us to discover the Albert Einstein memorial. A huge bronze of the old sage posed sitting on the ground delighted us. Seated so, he was more approachable than we would be sternly posed in a 'throne' or standing tall and proud. Down to earth, his statue proved a friendly place to children:
A dozen or so of them clambered all over the statue. The adult with them let them all have their frolic, and then gathered them up for their next adventure. I didn't mind waiting for my photo opportunity:
Click to view larger
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I took note of the many quotes around the outer curved wall. I think I remember a few of them well enough to identify at a quote source:
I've always tried to give total report of all aspects of Truth that I uncover. Mostly, I've succeeded. Another quote was about the beauties of nature and the infinite mysteries:
Part of those beauties are those which come from the arts. Wagner is playing on the radio, WETA is the station. Julia said she could receive it when she lived in Towson. It reminds me of WMFT which I loved from the Chicago broadcasts that I could hear when I lived in Joliet. Always the 'disc jockeys' have those calm, well modulated, but soft spoken voices. ('Disc jockeys', can one call them by a name reserved for purveyers of pop music?) Well, I am doing so!
 The music soothes...
10:21am
And I took time for another little drawing, immortalizing a lamp detail:
 Gold open work 'flower', black 'stem'...
5:37pm
After a short while spent sitting in a mini park, we went home to TV surfing. At first random bits, the last bit of Johnny Depp's delightfully twisted Willy Wonka, then game shows. But then Julia flipped the channel to Book TV - CSpan2, where Walter Isaacson, an author of a book on Einstein expressed his concepts of this scientific thinker. What synchronisity, as we chanced earlier on his memorial statue! He told us how Einstein was a more visual than verbal thinker, considered 'slow'. False, that he flunked his class, but definitely 'slow'. As I understand so well what it is to have a 'slow mind', I have hope. It is really because we are processing so much data. Thus we are slow to learn and slow to talk. "Questioning every premise" takes time. Also, Einstein was a non conformist. Isaacson stressed that Einstein's lessons to us involve the 'awe and wonder' and 'really being curious' regarding the 'underlying principles', the WHY of everything. As some say, "Seek the Mysteries - Reyn til Runa," indeed!" While listening to Isaacson speak, I took the chance to draw his feature...
 It's hard to draw a moving mouth ;)
Sunday, June 10, 2007
 Not depicted: shell shaped indentations for soap!
Dual Purpose: Rest Feet and Let Some Art Out:
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