starry night

My favorite painting ever is by Van Gogh.
It's the only painting i have a framed print of.
A large part of the reason the painting is special to me is because of its prominence in the song "Vincent", by Don McLean. That song is one of the most beloved of my little life, in part because i see just a tiny bit of myself in Vincent. I think many do.
Wednesday afternoon, i saw the actual painting for the first time in my life.
Unexpectedly.
Which, i suppose, is the best way for that sort of thing to happen.
I had no idea the painting was even in New York. My mother and sister came to town for the day, and we went to the Museum of Modern Art. I had never gone before. And on the first floor we went to, i was innocently walking along, and then...well, the floor didn't drop out, but almost. A part of me still doesn't believe that it was real. My favorite view of it was when i knelt and looked up. The living textures were so beautiful.
I was taken by Rousseau's "Dream". And the work of Dali. Surprisingly, i was quite moved by the work of Pollock, when the other works on that floor left me flat. And most conspicuously, the thirty-foot water lilies by Monet. My jaw dropped as i took it in, the way it shimmered with a depth that seemed impossible.
The art wasn't behind protective glass walls, and for that i am quietly and deeply grateful to the good curators. I was also unsettled, though. As the afternoon went on, and i realized how many of the world's most famous paintings were in this building, something felt wrong. It seemed to embody the uglier aspects of our country, the self-importance and greed, that so much of the world's greatest art is not on display in the artists' native lands.
But it was a very beautiful day to be alive. We ended it with a Cinnabon and my first trip to the top of Rockefeller Center, which was in some ways more satisfying than the Empire State, in that you may go to the very toppermost part.
I love my mother and sister very much.