7 Museum Takes

[Obligatory Picture at the Alamo]
One
We can officially call this whole holiday a success, having made pilgrimage to the Alamo and bought some useful items in the gift shop. Until that critical moment, whatever else we undertake to experience, we can’t really say we’ve been on vacation. I’m not sure why this is, especially since this year we walked through in about ten minutes, and then spent fifteen minutes in deciding between the pocket knife, the leather coin purse, or a stick of candy–and I thought, because of course I did, maybe we could have just gone straight to the gift shop, because although David Crockett’s vest and sword are the coolest objects in the universe, we did just see them last year. Nevertheless, I pushed that ridiculous feeling right down and carried on taking pictures of kids on canons.

Two
We also drug the children off to see the San Jose Mission which we all enjoyed a lot more. There’s so much scope for the imagination in that big open grassy vista–the neat square of Eurocentric tiny houses built right into the protecting wall. Each small house sheltered the converted Indian against the unconverted one, giving him a comfortable place to learn his new faith and be treated for all his new diseases. You wander along and fill in the spaces in your mind’s eye, imagining women kneeling before the great ovens making…would that be tortillas? Am I being racist? Then you can crouch before the little round holes inside the houses and pretend to shoot a gun, letting the bullet fly all the way down the wall to destroy your brother enemy.

Three
Spent the whole week considering to myself what goes in to making a good museum. For instance, I had been pretty excited to finally get to climb up and down and all over the Lexington. And the scope for the imagination should have been there in abundance–the confined quarters, the dentist chair, the engine room, the captain’s quarters. All of it should have put you right there, in the thick of a terrible battle, ready to hear your orders and pull that poor guy’s tooth out. And certainly, one of my children had no trouble going to that exciting past and living there the whole time. He marched up and down the boat and stood at attention, and let the ladies go first (tiny, cute, cisgender bigot that I’m raising him to be). Whereas I, well. My soul chafed. Because instead of the boat being plain, left as it was with only a few precious artifacts here and there, the whole place was stuffed from one corner to another with memorabilia and staged mannequins, some of whose lips moved and eyes swiveled back and forth.

Four
Also, there seems to be some warehouse where you can go get the Standard Museum Font and board/picture layout. Whatever museum I walk into, especially of the historical variety, there’s the font and the color of board and the same sign saying ‘don’t go over there’. There is no variation of shadow of change, no flaw in the professionally curated information. The mind has to beat past the present to run free, to turn the eye to what it must have been like so long ago.

What I long for is the home done, quirkily curated tiny museum, with handwritten signs, and information that’s jumbled so that meaning has to be teased out by the one walking by, wondering why on earth those two objects where laid next to each other. But I suppose as soon as you get a grant, or funding, someone arrives with the official font, and all the charm is carefully shuffled away into a back cupboard.

Five
Anyway, we’re filled to the brim with educational experiences and so we can stop worrying about that for a while and concentrate on swimming, eating food with no nutritional value, and complaining about the car being too hot.

And I will start packing the bags and preparing for the next leg of the journey, which I am going for leave hanging out there as a cliff hanger.

Six
Am finally getting a chance to read Finding Livelihood by Nancy Nordenson. Am loving it. Remember all that mean stuff I said about badly written books? Well, this book is beautifully written. The pacing is lovely, and, for me anyway, it is the right blend of surprising insight and poetry melded into prose. Not very far in, so more about it when I get farther.

Seven
And on that note, I will go and apply some dye to my hair, because, as someone wonderfully said, I’ve moved beyond self acceptance. Go check out more quick takes!