The MET

Yesterday was possibly one of the most extraordinary days of my life. I got to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time. If you know me, you know I love art, but maybe not how much I love art. I can only say that I'm not often at a loss for words but that museum left me speechless.

The afternoon started when we took a subway to Central Park and then walked through it to get to the Met. Central Park is very big and beautiful and similar in some ways to Golden Gate Park, only it has this amazing skyline framing it. When we got there, my little boys were less then thrilled to go inside. As we started dragging them through the Egyptian "Hatshepsut" exhibit, they were dismayed to find they could neither climb on the ancient sculpture nor run through the tombs playing hide and seek. It didn't seem like the Mister and I would be getting much out of our visit. But we persevered determined to get our money's worth.

Upstairs we went through the Japanese and Chinese Art galleries. I was amazed by the ancient porcelin and it made me antsy to start another ceramics class. Next I dragged the boys to what I knew would be my favorite area: the European Paintings and Nineteenth-Century European Paintings and Sculpture. Sure enough, when I found my first Vermeer, I could have cared-less that 20 different docents had already shushed my boys. They were told by Dad to get on the bench in the middle of the gallery, and stay on it so Mommy and Daddy could look at the paintings. I've never seen a real Vermeer up close and it was awesome. They had on display one of my favorites: "Young Woman with a Water Pitcher" which D-bug bought me a print of so we can hang it in our new house.

Next I found some Van Gogh's which, in their original form, have the power to get me teary eyed. They're just awesome and seem to exude his angst, genius, and love of beauty all at the same time. The Renoir's, Monet's, Manet's, Rodin's, and Dega's were also amazingly beautiful as well as a works by a bunch of other masters.

After dinner in the Museum Cafeteria, my kind, thoughtful, selfless husband, took the boys to a park down the street and left me to wander unhindered for a few hours. When I entered the Medieval Art area, it was like stepping into a million books I've read and getting to see the art, architecture, and costume in real life. Just a few days ago I finished reading a novel by Tracy Chevalier called "The Lady and the Unicorn". It is a fictionalize account of how some actual French Tapestries came into existences in the late 1400's. After reading the description of how the tapestries were made, I was thrilled to get to see some real ones up close.

Finally I forced myself to leave knowing the boys would be getting tired and ready to go back to the apartment. Besides, I had blisters on all my toes from walking so much and felt like my feet were about to fall off. So home we went by way of bus, subway, and a pleasant jog through torrential rain to top it all off. Just another day in Manhattan!