The Burst of Bloom (Part III)
[Paris]
“Like the soil, mind is fertilized while it lies fallow, until a new burst of bloom ensues.” (John Dewey)
Without being an adept guitarist, still I joyfully practiced
chords and songs in my Paris flat. With a cool breeze coming through the window,
the street noise soothed my anxiety about learning. For hours we’d try songs we
both knew; singing and reminiscing about each one’s importance; forging the
kind of connection that led to a greater one, later. Music’s power moved us to
experience different feelings, its primitive elements combined to reflect our
own artistic predilections. These times playing guitar together fostered concord in our relationship, although we were hardly aware of it.
We also read together and discussed the state of our interests.
By the hidden interface of fellowship through art’s revelation, we shared our
personality struggles and became closer to each other’s quest for a new kind of
beauty.
Eventually it became possible to articulate how and where each of us sought validation. My gut told me that God sanctified mathematics through Gabriel, using his imagination as a soul-force. He would humbly remind me that a poem is not a legal argument, and that I could grow beyond my American biases and idols.
Eventually it became possible to articulate how and where each of us sought validation. My gut told me that God sanctified mathematics through Gabriel, using his imagination as a soul-force. He would humbly remind me that a poem is not a legal argument, and that I could grow beyond my American biases and idols.
Once I read a passage that struck for us a note of
truth:
“Art celebrates with peculiar intensity the moments in which the past reinforces the present, and in which the future is a quickening of what now is;” Dewey continued, calling art’s qualities: “commemorative, expectant, insinuating, and premonitory.”
This
resonated between us, with a fervently mutual hope that the art would be such
things, as our intensity grew.
