In October of last year I e-mailed my friends & family updating them about my life...one of the things I stated was that I wanted to go to China in 2008. I had the idea for a year or two. The Great Wall and the TerraCotta Soilders were the two things I really wanted to see. I mostly dreamed of the soilders after studying art history and being impacted by the enormity of these thousands of larger than life sculptures, each one with a unique and individual body & face. They say it took 700,000 craftsmen to create the scultpure army...and that the ruler of China of the time was searching for an elixer to immortality. 

As time went on last year my mother was invited to China, and she invited me as well. I marked my calendar tentively with a "China?" during the second week of May as we thought we might go. More time passed. The trip didn't work out. More time passed...politics, the Olympics...Tibet. It began to seem as if China came to me, rather than me going to China.

A month or so ago I was flipping through AAA magazine and came across an add showing the TerraCotta Soilders coming to a museum in southern CA!!! I tripped out when I looked at the dates and saw that the opening showing was during the same time I marked my calender "China?" so long ago.   

A few weeks later I went to a concert with a friend and he asked, "Have you ever been to the Bowers Museum?" I looked at him funny and had a feeling he was talking about the same museum. I said no then he told me the soilders would be there, that he had already bought the tickets, and would I like to go? Heck yeah, I've only wanted to see them for years.

So, for Memorial Weekend we went to the museum and my Partial dream came true. I didn't go to China, China came to me.

The Bowers Museum outdoors:

Inside the permanent exhibit:

Inside the TerraCotta exhibit we were not allowed to take photos...this is a pic out of a book of a Kneeling Archer soilder. It was an awesome exhibit. I sat down on a bench in front of the Kneeling Archers and just was. A young man came and sat next to me, fumbling with his sketchbook. A desire came over me and I asked for a sheet of paper. I didn't know if I would write a poem, draw, what...then I started sketching his brow, face...worked my way down and found myself in a state of timelessness. I haven't rendered a still life in probably 6 or 7 years. It felt good to blend a new-found passion within and realize I still had all that old technique. It was interesting to observe people who stood right in front of me and the sculpture, not a clue to their overall surroundings, I just sat patiently and waited for each one of them to move as it occured. Some people were noticing my sketch, commenting and complimenting. I was so focused I didn't even really respond to them, I didn't want to. I could feel people pointing me out to others then coming over to look. People sat on the bench next to me, they came and went...I don't know how many. It felt really good to be that focused again. It said in the description of the sculpture that this warrior was from the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) and was considered to possibly be a "tai chi fighter" they called him. His hands are in odd positions because of the weapon he once held. I smile thinking about that ruler who did find his immortality. There we were thousands of years later admiring his work. The soilders weren't found until 1974 and blew the socks off of art historians & archeologists. The soilders are considered the 8th Wonder of the World.

My partial dream came true. I say this because I realized while there I'll still have to fulfill the real dream...I still want to go to China and see the real deal, the enormity of the army standing there together. It's funny, I realized another partial dream recently. I've always told people I'd like to live in a cabin in the trees not far from the ocean. It occurred to me that I already do. I live in a bedroom lined with redwood in a home surrounded by trees about a half hour from the beach...yet someday, my own whole cabin, in a real, large, rustic forest....maybe even closer to the beach is where I'd like to be...we'll see what happens...