2010-12-04 - 6:15 p.m.
Just got back from a walkaround. My cheeks are still cold. It was windy, gray skies, a bright little pocket of sky off in some corner, between the buildings, where the sun was setting. Went to the library, which was selling books that don't get checked out. Got some Time-Life picture books about old sailing ships. Then, I thought, the museum's free, and so why not? Walked around by myself, enjoyed the quiet of the place, especially the portraits. The middle-aged Renaissance Italian men in those flat-topped hats, the kids in ridiculous outfits, the somber, pale women so pretty they break your heart. And I thought: inside these people, their worlds were just like mine. They had headaches or they were worried about money or they were hungry or they were excited about a party or they wished, just then, that they could talk to their mothers. And, just then, my mom called. We spoke, she loudly and me very quietly. By then, I was in the sixteenth-century room, and all those faces stared at me, listening maybe, and for a little while it was hard to tell at all that they were dead.
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