On Friday we arranged to go to the Baltimore Museum of Art with the preschool. I have never been to an art museum. Just one of the many things that gives me away as a country bumpkin.
On a side note, I marvel at the many things my children can see, do, experience, the options for schools, places, sites, history, and culture here in Baltimore. I also feel saddened by the the many things they will miss out on by not growing up in a town where the best thing it had going for it was a stellar pizza place (Pete's rocked back in the day). O, how I miss New York pizza. How I miss the pitch black nights and the trees, the mountains on the horizon, the sharp springs and bright falls.
I can tell it is almost time for a visit!
I didn't take any photos at the museum. As I so often do, I forgot my fancy-pants new camera in the hustle of packing snacks and diapers, the stroller, and then the children. Hard enough to shush the boy child and remind him not to run, not to put his fingers on the glass or lean upon the holy walls all while keeping the girl child from the ancient Chinese vases and antique furniture.
Not to say we didn't enjoy it. My god, art. I love art. I love how each room was like stepping into another part of some exotic house. The bright walls, pillars, mosaics, the geometric patterns of iron encased windows, and the many plaques I wish I had time to read. The children also enjoyed looking, seeing and experiencing the museum. But children and art museum are a strange mixture. The quite, reverence broken by the mad dash of exuberant child feet and curious, greasy fingers.
Their favorite part was surely the outside: the paths and steps and statues that they could run laps around and hide behind. I noticed the too early, foolish tops of tulips and the purple flush of blossoms in a lone tree. Too soon. Too eager. The children's hands cold but ignored and their cheeks slapped red by the cold.
I could feel a part of me noting how much I would love this place alone. Wondering the halls, the stone paths, taking my time, reading about the works, daydreaming about things I could write, stories unfolding--knocked into the present by shrieks, laughter, the quick dart of my eyes counting one--two. There they are.
Art captures just a fragment of this life and freezes it. It can't feel those moments. Neither can a camera. Nor can these words express what can only be lived and appreciated fully right in that moment.
Leave a comment