Fifty-Two Cards

Art, Cards, and Life ♠️♦️♣️♥️🃏

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We celebrated Hannah's birthday at the Cheesecake Factory. She was ecstatic and delivered several heartfelt speeches about how glad she was for everyone around the table. It was cute and sweet and completely Hannah. We'd invited Dee Dee to come with us. Dee Dee, or Jack's grandma, sat across from me with my husband and son between them. Hannah's at the age where she's finding common sentiments or expressions funny.

"You know what doesn't make sense?" she said as she looked across the table. "People say that life is too short, but how is that possible? It's the longest thing you'll ever know!"

"Sometimes it's too long," Dee Dee quipped. Both she and Jack started laughing. Hannah was confused, Quincy was trying to sleep on the bench, and I was wondering if my husband's hinges were still securely attached based on how darkly funny he found the whole thing.

I mentioned the Arte Museum in Las Vegas a few posts back. I plan on taking Jack and the kids to see it in a few weeks, but even if I weren't, I think I'd still be ruminating on it. I think all art, but especially modern art, is a lot like the mirrors the exhibit I went to used—whatever mindset you have walking in will likely be found reflected back at you. If I'd gone into the exhibit with the expectation of it being pretentious or boring, I have no doubt that's what I would have found. My expectations were low in that I mostly was just curious and wanted to explore the concept of whatever the artist who created it wanted to show.

The theme was "Eternal Nature," and it used mirrors as a way to help illustrate it throughout much of the exhibit and to contemplate about different parts of life. Part of the exhibit also had a tribute to Las Vegas play on the walls, starting off with desert landscape and the beauty found in it. But it transitioned away from the natural and became more about the city.

Mirrors reflected the digital images throughout the large room as poker chips rained down, slot machines kept spinning, and of course cards snapped faceup. A starry night sky often makes me feel small, but I wasn't expecting cards to do the same. At the time, it felt a little eerie while still holding me captivated. It seemed overwhelming and endless, but a well-done tribute. I didn't think much of it then, except for it being a cool concept included in the exhibit, but now I wonder if that was on purpose. I'm fairly certain it was.

There are fifty-two cards in a playing deck, and likewise there are just as many weeks in a year. Looking back at the pictures I took, the sound of cards flipping over in what felt like an endless loop immediately fills my head, as well as how perfect it plays into the idea of eternity. Cards aren't natural, but the passing of time is. Suddenly including the tribute to Las Vegas made sense, at least when I looked at it that way. Weeks pass quickly, flipping over and over until a year has passed before starting the countdown over again. I love the fact that no two shuffled decks of cards are ever the same. No year or life will ever be repeated either. I want to go back and sit there on the bench facing the screen, and really absorb the way the cards zip across in front of me and in the mirrors crowding the space. I want to force myself to be still and watch the symbolism of what I normally just feel. Even the spinning of the slot machines until they land on different pictures seemed to reflect the passing of time and lives.

People like to say "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," but moments in our lives only exist when they happen and can only be held onto in memory as time never stops. I think it makes the city more poetic, and a normally flippant expression into one with a lot more significance.

Players bet their money on hoping for the right cards, while I think many people make the best decisions with what has been dealt to them in hopes that it also pays off.

I didn't realize, until I started looking more into it, that a simple deck of cards has other symbolism associated with it as well. The four suits correlate with the seasons in those fifty-two weeks, the black and red are reflections of day and night, and the thirteen cards in each suit can symbolize either the roughly thirteen weeks in each season or the thirteen lunar cycles of the year. What also tied in well with the exhibit was how the four suits can also be represented of the four elements: fire, earth, water, and air.

Even the way the cards are sold in the city seemed fitting. People treat a year passing like it's nothing, while a barely used deck of cards can be bought for a dollar or two in a casino gift shop. They sold a deck of cards in the museum's gift shop too. I might buy one when I go back. What a deck of cards can represent was everywhere in the "Eternal Nature" layout.

I'm not going to go through each of the different sections of the exhibit, but there were a few that stuck with me. One was a room with a floor to ceiling screen that looped the image of giant waves crashing against glass. The waves felt as if they are ready to crash down on me as they crested and then crashed against the 'glass' repeatedly while never reaching. The sign outside of the room read, "Face the enormous waves crashing towards you and experience their resonance full of paradox. The waves undulate as if they are about to swallow the space, but they are trapped in an uncanny space created by the anamorphic illusion."

I couldn't quite put it into words then. I just sat there and tried to focus on the constant movement seemingly rushing towards me. Now I think I know what I was feeling. Or how I feel about it now, at least: It felt like the future. Never touching me, but overwhelming at times, constantly rushing forward with mounting momentum and feeling like it is too much to deal with it. But like the wave hitting the glass, the future isn't present and it's all a threatening illusion that in reality can't hurt me because it isn't here.

I think the present itself is more like the feeling of a real wave on the beach. I can stand there and watch as the water rushes over my toes and climbs further up my ankles to my calves, but it moves so fast that before I know it, it's now gone like the past. I can see waves coming when I stand on the beach, and if I'm paying attention to the tides and what is coming, I can get myself in a better position so I'm not overwhelmed by what's coming. But that illusion of a wave beating against the glass? I don't think I've seen the abstract concept of the future better displayed.

There was a Jungle portion too. "Meet the jungle animals whose colors and patterns change according to the environment and light," the sign read. I didn't care much for that section as much as the others, but now rereading the sign I'd taken a picture of, I think I do. Light and time are tied together, and I think memories and my life are similar. I think depending on where I am in my life, memories and how I think about personal events can take on different meaning or significance, while my feelings about what transpired can also change as I learn, grow, and reflect.

I like finding meaning in things or examining concepts in new ways. One of my favorite short stories is a novella titled, "A Short Stay in Hell," by Steven L. Peck. I never felt scared by the idea of eternity, but that story sure changed that. 'Hell' is a library, and the only way you get out is if you find the story of your life. It proves to be much more difficult than that. In my opinion, I think the story is a brilliant depiction of time, much like the exhibit in the museum also illustrated. It made me think what is scarier? Eternity? That this is it? Or do either really matter if at the end I've lived a life of no real meaning?

I don't know if there's life after this one. I've come to the conclusion I don't really care. I think like the wave, there are paradoxes. You shouldn't live for tomorrow, but only living in the present isn't the best way either. I don't know what comes next, but I do know what is now. I think living my life for both the present and the future in a way that I hope results in a life I'm proud of. For me, I want a life of meaning. But there's more to life than just that, too.

I can't count the number of times people have asked me if I have any fun plans. Did I have fun on my trip? When can we have some fun again? Is there anything fun to do? Las Vegas is a city known for being fun. I think people are dismissive of it for that reason. I think the pursuit of fun is viewed as frivolous, while also craved for like sugar. I now think it's a city more than that. It's a successful city in the desert—not an easy accomplishment. And it's largely successful because it is fun. I don't think wanting fun means being shallow, but maybe rather the desire to keep going. I think people flock to a city in a desert because it's not a mirage, but a place where it's own existence continues with a determined perseverance hidden behind bright smiles and promises of a good time—all in an environment that would normally kill a person. I don't think that's something to so easily dismiss.

I think sometimes people think of nature as separate from us, when really that's not true either. We are as much a part of the natural world as anything else, and walking through the exhibit at the museum is a form of living art that has its own beauty to it. It only takes maybe an hour or hour and a half to walk through the display exploring a concept about how cyclic life is, including those who walk through it in moments of time that slip quickly into memory.

I don't think any city other than Las Vegas could have been a better fit for an art exhibit depicting nature and the constant motion of time it lives in.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Arte Museum again. I know they've added to the "Eternal Nature" exhibit since I visited. I'm excited to see what was added. I know what to expect, and I think that will allow me to engage better with it mentally, which is the whole point of art—besides the beauty of it. And I'm sure I'll have fun, and I'll get to enjoy my kids' excitement as we play in the city. I like the fact that as time goes on the experiences we have will turn into memories, and as time continues rushing forward faster than what I'm prepared for, that it will also take on different meanings I think for all of us. I'm going with my family in the pursuit of having fun, but I also believe it will turn out to be something more. Or at least think I'll find something more there, if I'm open to it.

As years keep passing, I hope there is fun, but for me it doesn't matter if there isn't also meaning.