Hearts and Flowers (Make that Water Lilies)

[kelly_chambliss]

Today my partner and I went to the Museum of Modern Art.  MoMA is a romantic place for us, because nine-and-a-half years ago, in the summer of 2000, we met in the real world for the first time (after having been friends on-line for about a year).  I came to NYC for academic research and asked her (nervously, and allowing her plenty of chance to decline!) if she'd like to get together.  She said yes!  I was thrilled and anxious, and my mother made everything better by sending me clippings about people who'd arranged face-to-face meetings with strangers they'd met on-line and then were horribly murdered.

Anyway, we went out for dinner on the first night and then agreed to meet the next day at MoMA (it being a Monday, when all the other museums are closed).  I honestly don't remember what we saw in the way of art, but I vividly remember sitting with her and the child (it was one day before his fourth birthday) in the MoMA garden on an astonishingly hot afternoon while protestors (no idea what they were protesting) shouted and banged on the metal garden gates with metal kitchen tools.  We were awash in heat and sweat and noise, and it was one of the most romantic moments of my life.

Today was also romantic, but in a different way.  It was much colder, for one thing, and there were no protestors.  We saw Monet's "Waterlilies" and a special exhibit about Bauhaus, and then we ate lunch in the cafe.  I find Bauhaus fascinating (form!  function! modernism! design!)  They had examples of various fabric prints that had been created using the Os and lines on a typewriter; it looked like a lot of binary code.  "These were people just waiting for the computer to be invented," my partner said.

The Monet was interesting, too, although I'm not generally a fan of Impressionism -- partly, I think, because it has been so over-reproduced.  By the time you've seen the waterlilies on a thousand greeting cards and two-pocket folders and tote bags and even umbrellas, they lose their impact.  But seeing these huge, paint-heavy works in the originals is quite a powerful experience.

Tomorrow I fly back to my brother's house and then, on Saturday, I'll drive back home.  Yes, the holiday is over; now I'll have to give up my  vacation schedule of staying up till 3:00 a.m. and playing in HP fandom for several hours a day.  Life is hard.  /g/  But it's been a wonderful break!

Comments

[tetleythesecond]

That sounds so wonderful! And how thoughtful of your mother... /g/

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

And how thoughtful of your mother

/g/ She could imagine catastrophe scenarios better than anyone I knew. We always told her she should have written scripts for 1970s disaster movies.