Art Everywhere, Sunday, April 6

Sometimes it takes a long time to wrangle 5 people out of bed, down to the free hotel breakfast, and onto a train. This process is not helped by an out-of-order elevator and the decision the night before to just “get going when everyone is ready.”  

By the time we made it to NYC today, we were all ready for lunch already. We ate from the food trucks in front of our tourism target, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Two NY hot dogs and three Nutella, banana and strawberry crepes later, we finally entered our first site for the day.

Stepping foot into an art museum of any sort with a family of five distinct personalities is not something to be taken lightly. Here is our family in a nutshell, when it comes to art: two people who don’t really care much for art museums, one who used to go numb at the thought but now has much higher interest, one who loves art of all sorts and is particularly interested in unusual design and modern art, and one who loves art but particularly loves to see art from different cultures.

Well, all of us were well-served by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If you can’t find something interesting there, you have no soul. But finding the parts that are interesting to you can be hard on your soles. It’s enormous! But every time you start to think, okay, I’ve seen enough clay pots or enough daggers or enough statues, you walk into something like the Astor Court, a Ming Dynasty-style Chinese courtyard. Or an Egyptian temple situated in a room that is a slanted wall of roof-to-floor windows.

And the one of us who has the least patience of all for an art museum recently read “The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” by E. L. Koningsburg, a favorite book of mine when I was about the same age as this unnamed art-hater. In that book, a girl and her younger brother run away from home and hide out at the MMoA until all the janitors go home, and then they choose beds to sleep in and bathe in the fountain and solve an art mystery.

This is PROBABLY the fountain Claudia
took a bath in.

As our young art-hater walked into the museum, looking rather glum, I mentioned that we could try to find the fountain that Claudia bathed in or find the bed that she slept in. The transformation was something to behold—immediately we had some interest here. This is pretty much how I got another daughter of mine through the Art Institute of Chicago a few years back—we read a book that centered on the Thorne miniature rooms in the basement, and the knowledge that we would actually see those rooms helped her get through my “Ferris Bueller” moment with the George Suerat painting upstairs, among other things.

The Thorne-room-lover is now perhaps the most diehard fan of the Met. Natalie wanted to see everything from every country. We couldn’t keep up. Andrew and I headed for the European paintings and then the modern art collection. Brian, Natalie, and Andrew loved the medieval and armory section. And Allison couldn’t contain her excitement at the musical instrument collection. Though Natalie was sad to confirm at the end of that section that there were “no didgeridoos and no ocarinas” in much the same way a very young Andrew left the circus sad that there were “no dolphins and no rabbits.”

Eventually we said goodbye to the Met, mainly because I myself could barely walk another step. Have I mentioned I’ve been in physical therapy for my back and hip? Yeah. NYC might not be the best place for someone trying to minimize leg pain. Oh well. I can’t resist this place.

We walked half a block and entered Central Park. I can’t describe the joy of lying on the grass in the sun after such a dreary winter. It is likely the first nice Sunday they’ve had this year in New York, and the entire city was out walking. In fact, they were all out walking their little dogs. Absolute bliss watching the people and the puppies out and about. We meandered the park, looking at ponds, the boats, the trees, the rocks, the flowers (blooming!), and even the people skating on the quickly melting ice.

Heaven on earth. If you’re going to miss church on a vacation Sunday, at the very least spend it in a beautiful place. Thank you Mr. Olmsted for designing such a beautiful place way before we knew how much we would need a break from our computers and our cell phones and fast food and subway stations. If you’ve read “The Devil in the White City” you might recognize the name Frederick Olmstead from his work designing the Midway for the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893.

Lots of street performers were out today: violins and bass players and a bluegrass trio and man with lots of bubbles and a man who danced around as he played his clarinet and saxophone. The variety of people showing the world their skills made me realize that none of my hobbies are really money-making opportunities. You can’t go write a travel blog and then put out your hat for tips. Natalie suggested that I add a Paypal link so that readers can contribute to my next travel experience, but that would take technical skills I just don’t have, so I’ll have to be content with filling my friends’ Facebook and Twitter feeds for a week at a time.

With the light starting to fade, and the need for supper starting to call, we finally left this glorious place and made our way back to the train station via Times Square, where tonight Chewbacca was making an appearance, and Batman was paging through a zealous young man’s Bible, helping him find the verse that Batman wanted to hear. This was Natalie’s all-time travel highlight, though she says it’s a toss-up between this moment and the time I tried to drain spaghetti while camping and dumped it all on the road, and then served it to us all.

We got home with enough time for Allison to hit the pool, which was actually open tonight (whew!). Unfortunately, this caused an issue we did not see coming. She needed other family members in the pool WITH her. Brian and I did not even bring swimming suits. Andrew and Natalie were not interested in going in the small hotel pool with her. After some cajoling and attempted bribery, Natalie agreed to swim with her for 15 minutes. When that time was over, Natalie climbed out of the pool, and an existential crisis began.

Being the youngest child by 4 ½ years myself, I can completely empathize with the feeling that everyone is leaving you behind. In spite of what some oldest or middle children will tell you, it is not always easy to be the youngest child. Any of you who are parents to a friend of Allison can look forward to having us relieve you of your child in a few years, when the older two are off to other pursuits and we need someone to keep Allison company!

Even going to bed can seem like a beautiful thing. We’ve enjoyed the artwork of artists and curators, the fruits of landscapers, the talents of street performers, and the gifts of hotel cleaning staff. Now it’s time to enjoy the beauty of sleep.