Standing Still in Time

A couple of days ago I went through some prints my father left me of the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden, who was born in 1400 in Tournai and died in Brussels in1464. I was thinking specifically of his exquisite portraits of noble women, enchanting because of their peaceful atmosphere both in the rendered detail of dress and accessories and character depth. I was sitting outside, working on an embroidery piece of a family of red-eyed tree frogs, my hair being teased off and on by a very warm breeze, and smiling contentedly at the concert of happy birds all around me in the backyard trees. The sky was bright blue, with bright white puffy clouds. I was sitting at the glass table on our deck, partially shaded by a huge canvas umbrella, and our ranch style red house, quiet, together with the peace of the day, reminded me of some of the back ground scenery in Rogier van der Weyden's paintings, like the one surrounding Marie-Magdalene. I felt like time was standing still, a sensation enhanced by the stitchery project I was working on, and the quiet all around me, with the outdoor absence of any mechanical noise. Often, by 8 o'clock in the mornings on weekdays, the white noise of the freeway 15 minutes away is very audible in our back yard, but as it was Saturday morning, the familiar noise was blissfully absent. Noise was replaced by sound, very pleasant sound at that, of breeze, and rustling leaves, and buzzing bees, and singing birds. Time seemed to be taking a nap somewhere under one of our fruit trees. I felt outside of time, yet part of it in a larger sense, in a sense of time already spent, and time yet to come, but with a perspective of experience, history, not the urgency of having to press on. It was a delightful feeling, full of possibilities and space. I breathed contentedly the fresh, sweet air that was permeating my hair, my clothes like a fragrant incense floating all around me. I was not necessarily just me, I was a timeless woman, any where in time, working in her garden on an embroidery, in a quiet street, in a quiet house, surrounded by sun and birds, much like a woman might have been doing on a Saturday morning in the Flemish part of Belgium more than 600 years ago. The realization filled me with a deep sense of peace. For a couple of hours, I was standing still in time, free from cell phone, computer, television, car, stereo, laundry machine, dishwasher, land line phone messages, noise of overhead plane or helicopter. And as much as I appreciate these comforts that to even a wealthy woman would have been pure fantasy and science fiction, if not witch craft 600 years ago, I was truly enjoying my timeless morning without them.