My daughters Claire and Morgan for a Christmas gift this year signed their mom and me up with Storyworth an online program that asks you to write every week a new essay to questions proposed by Storyworth. What were your friends like in high school or tell us about your grandparents are the types of questions asked. At the end of the year a book will be produced from the collection of the year’s writing. This week’s prompt was, “What was one of the most beautiful places you’ve ever been?” Below is my answer and accompanying art.

Tough question. I feel as though I’ve experienced beauty throughout my life. Are we talking natural wonders or man made? It matters who you’re with, or your state of mind. The Grand Canyon was jaw dropping, but it was overwhelming; hard to locate yourself, there was an emotional distance. I would need to explore the Canyon over time and let the beauty envelope me. I will focus on experiences of beauty that at the time felt transcendent.

Sunsets can surprise you. You turn a corner and there they are. You try to take it all in, but they move on. In the late fall of 1974 I and a handful of other art students were on the eleventh floor of our painting studio in Greenwich Village. The large windows faced west towards the Hudson River. The Hudson Valley from Manhattan to Albany is rewarded with spectacular sunsets in late fall. It was my first semester, the color theory class that all students were required to take had opened our eyes to the power of color in all it’s tones, from sonorous grays to intense high key hues or quiet whites. The sky was a blaze with fiery reds and yellows that entwined the inky blue violet sky. The rooftops of Greenwich Village with wooden water tanks and fire escapes were silhouetted against nature’s performance. Some of the windows of the village acting like mirrors caught the light and sparkled. Because of the color class our youthful eyes had been trained to see color for the first time. You would think you wouldn’t have to be trained to see color, but you do. We were transfixed.

In contrast to Greenwich Village the high flat plains of South Dakota offer a surreal experience. On our cross country camping trip Nancy, the girls and I pulled off the road to stand in the bleakness. You can’t even call it a landscape. The single line of the horizon flat and straight surrounded you dividing the sun bleached yellow ochre ground from the cloudless cobalt blue sky as you turned. There was no point to fix your eye on. Space ran away from you and simultaneously crashed in on you. The emptiness was beautiful.

Stepping through the doors of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona I entered sacred spaces that literally sucked the air from my lungs. I have been in many beautiful churches but these spaces were truly transcendent. In architecture  you move through the space and become part of it. The Blue Mosque across the wide park plaza from Hagia Sophia had an extraordinary interior of ornate blue tiles but somehow lacked the power of it’s neighbor. While in Istanbul I would sit in the courtyard colonnade of the Blue Mosque when the Imam sang from the minaret ending that days fast during Ramadan. The long shadows of the evening light fell across the stone court and pigeons circled upward to the dome of the mosque as the Imam’s melodious chant circled and floated dance like with the birds. I felt close to Christ there. I can’t explain it. I don’t have to. As I am writing this Istanbul seems to be jumping to the head of my list. My first night in Istanbul a full moon hung over Hagia Sophia as I worked my way down the winding medieval streets to my hotel by the Marmara Sea when I came upon a twirling dervish turning slowly in the moonlit courtyard yard of an outdoor restaurant. The music was plaintive and sincere. There he was floating as if for all eternity under the Turkish moon. The beauty was too complete, I couldn’t take a photograph. 

Yes. Definitely Istanbul.