Yesterday, I finally saw the Rothko Room at Tate Modern in London. I won't bother you with the back story, but suffice to say, I've been waiting four years to see these paintings.
I expected to not be disappointed by them but I probably should have brought my expectations down. After all, I had big, big expectations. See god, these sorts of things. I wandered around looking for them, and finally came to the room they are tucked away in now.
I was not disappointed. More than not disappointed. I was shocked by how incredible they were. Much bigger and hazier than I expected them to be. I was surprised as you stare at them how you get the sense that you are trying to look past them. It's like looking into the void and being obstructed. You think as you would expect about death and eternity and Rothko killing himself. I left elated, in a depressed sort of way: a feeling similar to the one I had upon finishing War and Peace last year. A kind of intense satisfaction. An epiphany in the most appropriate sense.
I walked back to London Bridge thinking about all the things London has given me, how just four years ago Yoko and I and Naomi had been on the other side of the Thames, and I had marvelled about how being there was a kind of a miracle. Last night, in the fog, the iconic fog, the bridges lit up... The things that have come my way have been inexplicably good--my life has been marked by serendipity in the most profound ways. Always another story, another path to, as a mentor once said to me, unfurl like a flag.