SAAM Reflection: Ain't No Place I'd Rather Be ...

Do you believe in love and that we were meant to be?
Two words can free us, so repeat them after me
‘I do’ from a boy in love to a girl called Tennessee”

Bonnaroo was .... more than good. It was a nice kick, and a soft rub. But gone by too soon. I think I may have achieved short bursts of egotistical enlightenment between cheese-filled Venezuelan arepas and sun-soaked puddle naps. Or maybe I was writing someone else’s words down altogether… most likely I was just dreaming out loud. We painted, we sang, we danced and we slept with the worms ... comfortably.

After allowing reality to pull me away from the tranquility of doing nothing at all but looking and listening, I followed the sunset away from Manchester and towards Nashville to switch gears from low to high (or vice versa). Missed the plane but missed myself even more so a good night's sleep was welcomed before taking off bright and early in the morning. I woke back up just as the plane's feet grabbed ground and tripped into the airport's men's room to trade my mud-caked reefs for a pair of glass slippers and an orange shirt to match the Dept. of Homeland Security's color level current warning then bought a pack of gum to remove from my mouth that bitter taste of coming back down to earth after floating in the clouds for four days. The juxtaposition was a bit jarring.

We spent the afternoon at SAAM getting orientated, ate a Whole Foods lunch and took a few brief museum tours ... all were very fulfilling. A few months removed from the Louvre, Pompidou and Orsay the halls and evenly spaced frames punctuated by cool, white sculptures was soothingly familiar. Like most things American, the lack of "classics" adorning the halls and galleries is quickly apparent. All our sculptures have heads. Instead of Monet we have Winslow Homer. Rather than Picasso, it's Basquiat (although I couldn't find any works of his listed online - why is that?). Per my previous blog post, I would much prefer to take in museums at my own pace and felt rushed from room to room, even getting lost at one point while staring at Mark Tansey's Interception. Several Tecumseh alarms later we were out in the rain running and through the Star Wars tunnels to our hotel. Had a beautifully informative night tour around the city and couldn't help wonder what these pristine monuments would look like in ruins as many similar testaments to grandeur around the world have been tragically reduced to.