I first saw the Thomas Cole collection entitled “Voyage of Life,” years ago, during a field trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
At the time, the four paintings in the collection were displayed in an area, off the beaten path of our field trip that day, and I just so happened to see it in the corner, while trying to corral my group of 6th graders and head back to the bus. The art collection grabbed my eye and my imagination, and has never let go.
In my own journey through middle life, as it is for most people I know, the “trials and tribulations” represented in the third photo of the collection are especially poignant, along with the faith and prayer represented to sustain the traveler through the turbulent rapids ahead, in the small open vessel. I connected with that painting the most on that field trip but probably not for obvious reasons. Standing there with my students, closing in on the age I once was, I vividly remembered, somewhere in the Great State of New Hampshire circa 1983; a canoe trip and tipping over in very similar rapids filled with rocks. It was a little terrifying.
Much to my delight, I was able to locate an online image; courtesy of public domain and the National Gallery of Art website. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.52452.html
In recent weeks, I decided to pick up an old hobby again and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of finding simple and familiar songs, fumbling through chord changes, singing along and building callouses again on my left hand, in my best efforts at playing the guitar.
Life is funny sometimes, because it was the act of picking up a guitar again that made me think of the field trip and Thomas Cole paintings for the first time in a long time, and inspired a blog post.
I haven’t really played more than a few chords in about 25 years and I’m not really sure why. Perhaps the memories of the sounds of my childhood, through the beautiful music of the guitar played by my father were too much in the immediate years following his untimely death, even as my own playing was never with the same expertise and command of the instrument. Marriage and babies and kids and teenagers and a career change and five years of graduate school pretty much filled up the next two decades from that point.
Ole’ Dad barely made it to Thomas Cole’s “Manhood” stage represented above when he just skipped it altogether and went directly on to the scene above “Old Age.” https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.52453.html.
I do recall in the final months of his relatively young life he decided to try his hand at the trombone and well, it wasn’t bad. I’m pretty sure Glenn Miller was the great inspiration and Dad had a long way to go but he really seemed to enjoy every minute trying. In my periodic visits home and subsequent travels through the living room, watching him struggle with the instrument, quite profoundly at times, I couldn’t quite figure out why he didn’t just stick with the guitar, banjo and mandolin.
Now, I understand.
Learning or re-learning a new instrument to play your own accompaniment music through the rapids of middle life is actually quite delightful. On some mornings when faced with the stress of the day, I can definitely represent the tumultuous waters in the Thomas Cole painting with an aggressive strumming pattern, and then, find a softer sound to represent the placid waters and reminder of faith, at the end of the day.
Joy.
