Transcendental Tourist

In 2009, my sister & I took a weekend trip to New York City for the specific purpose of touring as many museums as week could fit in to our short time. We ventured to the Guggenheim for a Kandinsky retrospective, saw some extraordinary and grotesque artifacts at the Met, and, while at MoMA, we happened on what was my favorite Picasso work at the time: Three Musicians. I loved it because I was in a 1960’s-era jazz phase, and though this painting is not supposed to be of actual musicians, something about it made me create my own story of it, with my favorite performers standing in for Picasso, Apollinaire, and Jacob.

We were scolded by a museum guard after the fact; but we did, in a very slapstick-type move, manage to get a picture of me in front of it:

(Note in the corner a fleshy, overfed arm. That’s me; but I have deliberately cropped myself out because that was also the era that I was about 30 pounds overweight. Nobody needs to see that!)

So, I qualify my favorite with at the time because I really had no idea that there was a much more fascinating side of Picasso’s work that I had yet to discover.

This happened about half a year later when I was back in NYC for business with a few days of pleasure tacked on either side. During one of my free days, I returned to MoMA for a special exhibit of Picasso’s graphic and printmaking years. I wandered among the bulls, minotaurs, and an inspiring sampling of erotic sketches - and when I finished, I was so mesmerized that I took the entire tour again.

Afterward, with my head in dreamland, I drifted over to Bryant Park and sprawled out on the damp grass. I stared up at the nearly cloudless sky and the looming mirrored buildings, then closed my eyes, replacing this vision with images of mythical creatures. Were they peering over me as I slumbered under the warm sun?

It was a few months later that I learned that many of these Picasso illustrations were paired with the work of the passionate and mournful poet, Pablo Neruda, in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. I sought out the book in question: a tiny, rough-edged volume that will fit in the palm of your hand. In the corner of the library, I paged through it until I came upon this: 

We Have Lost Even
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin between my hands.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that is always turned to at twilight
and my cape rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
towards where the twilight goes erasing statues.
-Pablo Neruda

And then I forgot myself for a moment. And let these lonely, lovelorn words invite tears to form in both eyes. As they swelled and pushed at the rims of my eyelids, I tilted my head back trying to will the rising pools to absorb back in. But they grew larger and spilled down my cheeks, with a force that pushed them over my chin and along the length of my neck, soaking into the straps of my dress. More and more followed, rushing faster than I could brush them away. And without a tissue to wipe away the ravages, I knelt, tucking myself as closely as I could into the shelves, and turned the page – to this:

Waiting for the composure I would need to make my escape from the public, I considered this wondrous marriage of surreal and sublime. How rare it is to truly be overcome. By fantasy. Or by emotion. Or the two at once.