The museum is one hell of a building. We spent a while outside marveling at the building itself before going to see the art. We went through three exhibits that almost made sense to me, but now that we’re away from paintings of people and landscapes, I’m completely lost. I don’t function well outside of the logical and literal. Art seems to be the first interest Bri and I don’t have in common.
She lingers in front of an oversized painting of squiggly lines and stick figures, her eyes drinking it in like words on a page, telling her exactly what it means to say.
“I don’t get modern art,” I admit. “Like, how is a dangling string of lights an artistic feat?”
Her lips tilt into a smirk, and I have a feeling she’s about to read me. “Contemporary art isn’t meant to be looked at; it’s meant to befelt.” She loops her arm through mine and pulls me with her. “The ‘art’ isn’t always the technical prowess of putting it together, it’s a visual depiction of a message. For instance, this one.”
She stops us in front of a wall with two analog clocks side by side. Nothing else, just two clocks, one ticking and one not.
“If you’re seeing it for what it is rather than understanding the expression, it’s two clocks. But when you learn that one clock represents the artist’s partner who was diagnosed with HIV during the AIDS epidemic of the eighties, you might start to see it differently.”
The abstract is abstracting a little too hard for me to decode. “I still don’t get it.”
“The artist wanted the two clocks to be installed side by side, perfectly in sync. While their time was ticking by—the dreaded countdown to when his lover’s life would end—they were together,”she explains. “Some interpretations say that, eventually, both clocks are destined to stop. Here, his lover’s clock has stopped, while the artist’s is still going, ticking down until it ultimately stops as well, the seconds counting down until they can be in sync again, in death.”
I watch her eyes swim with thoughts while I hang on her every word. “You get all that fromthis?”
“Yes,” she says simply. “While one clock is still moving, I like to think that when they read the same time, it’s those moments when grief takes hold of you. When the loss feels present, no matter how much time has gone by. For a split second, we remember when they were still with us, and the pain of losing them hits the same as it did then. Yet we keep going through the motions, day after day.”
I grip my chest, emotions aching beneath my hand and clouding my vision. “Well, fuck. I get it now.”
“It’s not about the clocks,” she says.
“It’s not about the clocks,” I agree.
She takes me past a few more pieces, but I don’t care to see them. Her mind, her outlook on life, is all I want to decipher.
“How do you know all this? Are you an artist?”
“No, I just love being in museums. I don’t really care what’s in them, I love the way theyfeel.”
To me, without the art, this place would be a white-walled box. “Explain.”
“When my mom was sick, the hospital was right next to a few museums and galleries. I’d go there when I needed a break from the anxiety. They became my meditation space,” she says. “My dream was to design them, but I never quite got there in school.”
“Why not?”
“Life was life-inghardduring undergrad.”
Somehow, I understand exactly what she means. Not that I had alife that could have been life-ing in college. School was a distraction from the life Ididn’thave. I dove headfirst into classes, ended up getting a dual bachelor’s in computer science and business, then got my MBA in tech management. Being directionless ended up directing me to a very specific career.
“I have a bachelor’s, it just took longer than planned,” she says, as if I’d judge her for not finishing a degree. Speaking at twice her usual speed, she explains, “I started in pre-med like my mom wanted, but my grades were abysmal. Art history wasn’t tangible enough for me, so I decided to go for Architecture. But being behind already, I’d have to take a three-year master’s program no matter what. It was either interior design or industrial design, so I chose industrial for the exhibit design studios. But . . .” She returns to normal speed. “I paused there. And I still haven’t hit play.”
“What’s stopping you from going now?”
Her arms wrap tighter around mine. “Debt, joblessness, being homeless, general internal crises over my life being uprooted by a cheater and his second family. Nothing huge, really.”
Stupid of me to ask when slapping her would’ve had the same effect. She jokes, but her grip on my arm is the same level of touch she uses to calm herself. The rebuilding she’ll need after everything her ex did is no small feat. She needs time to meditate, time to breathe. And I can give her that.
We step out of the exhibit back onto the walkway overlooking the rotunda, taking the ramp to enjoy the view. “Thank you for entertaining me,” she says. “We can go back to the hotel now. We should probably look at flights.”
I pull her to a stop.Tell her.“Or we could wait, maybe?” How was that supposed to be a segue? “I got my job back.”
“Oh my god! Congrats! Are you excited?”
“Sure. I mean yes. I like my job.” Not the stress, but Sai and thesalary make up for it.
“Moving back will be so much easier for you now.”
