Personal Essays

The problem with expatriates visiting places from their past is that they’re only intermittently present when they do. As I walked up the central staircase away from the Great Hall, I was mostly on autopilot, moving towards the place where I last remembered seeing my favorite paintings. Except that they weren’t there. The sneaky little cut-through that I used to take back to the Impressionist room had become a wall with a sign that apologized for the inconvenience. I wandered through the galleries anyway, was surprised by a cache of paintings by John Singer Sargent (one of the people I always wished I could paint like) and snapped a few shots here and there for posterity’s sake. But the whole time, a voice in my head was like a three-year-old asking “are we there yet?”

The upside of being cast totally adrift from my old routes was that I saw a lot more of the Met than I otherwise would have. Yes, I was looking for something else when I found the famous courtyard of mounted cavalrymen in the Arms and Armor wing, but I still found it. The same with Andres Segovia’s famous guitar, the one he played for over 30 years. I finally saw what real 24-karat gold looks like. However these things happen, at least I know enough to be impressed by them.