We were in New York a few weeks ago.  Saw two shows and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art squeezing into two exhibits: Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty and Van Gogh’s Cypresses. The exhibits and the shows were radically different: Parade – about the Leo Frank lynching somewhere outside of Atlanta in 1915 and A Beautiful Noise – the story and music of Neil Diamond from Sweet Caroline to Coming to America. We can talk about Parade in a different post.

Eileen and I were captured by A Beautiful Noise; loved the music; you could sing it; loved the glitter and the sequins; felt so good, so good, so good. Things I did not know: unlike many contemporary actors and performers, Neil Diamond never changed his name. He was born Neil Diamond and still is. He didn’t pick up the guitar till he was 16. Many of his songs are deeply personal mirroring different stages of his life. And so much of it is about acceptance and loneliness. I hear his music differently now: self-reflective and even soul searching. You got to get past the façade of bright lights and shiny costumes. Just like when you love someone you love not only their persona but also the person they are within, with all the beauty marks and all the flaws, with all the strengths and weaknesses. You see, I am not a music critic, and I am not a psychoanalyst. “I am I said, to no one there and no one heard at all, not even the chair…” We all want to be heard, noticed, felt that this one life we have is impactful.

Some of us sing; some of us tell stories; some of us write; some of us nurture; some of us teach; some of us provide; some of us heal; some of us listen, some of us create; some of us grow things; some of us paint. And some of us struggle and can’t find the road back. It might be ridiculous or ludicrous to pair the two but the Van Gogh exhibit at the Met wants “in” to these words. The image at the top of this is Van Gogh’s “Country Road in Provence by Night”. He was obsessed with these cypress trees. He calls them “flame like” and even writes, “no one has yet done them as I see them.” Maybe it’s the loneliness theme. I often wondered do you have to be lonely or besieged to be creative. Is suffering the secret ingredient in the paint on the palate?

The painting isn’t as famous or as intense as Starry Nights, but it speaks to me about the life we have been given and the road we all are invited to take – one that winds through and by the trees. There are probably many paths, and they change as we grow, age, mature, become. The challenge is to recognize it, stay on it, celebrate it, affirm it, walk it with as much joy as we can muster no matter what God/Life/Chance/Luck bring us. Van Gogh died of suicide. Neal Diamond has Parkinson’s. What do we really know?