Public School and Art Museum

Today, Gabriel and I went to the museum. It was P.S. 1, a modern art museum in Long Island City, Queens. It was only a 15 minute bus ride from my neighborhood, so no going into Manhattan during rush hour with carriages. Oh yeah, it was another Thursday Adventure for my baby group. Only four of us went. It was really nice.

It wasn't breathtaking art-- not for me, anyway. Some of it was interesting, some of it was funny, some of it was thought provoking, but I didn't love most of it. And I really like modern art. There was this one exhibit where an Australian woman made "mind maps" embroidered on sheer cloth-- and I liked that a lot. It was very intricate, and a lot like the Aboriginal Dream Maps, which I love. Bad art reviewer who can't remember her name. Gabriel liked an exhibit of watercolors on paper... John Lurie, that was his name. They were very odd and art brutish. Strange animals and faces where G's favorite. He would keep turning back to certain pictures. Funny that, even at that young an age, they have preferences in art. There were also a lot of video installations, and I guess that's not my favorite medium... the babies seemed to like them, though. Especially when they could get out and crawl around on the glossy gallery floor.

P.S. 1 is actually an old school building. I love those old school buildings. It get so nostalgic for I'm not sure what.

The other moms and I were also talking about the future of school for our kids. Yes, they're terribly young now, but there's a worry in NYC about preschool and good schools and finding our kids places in said schools.

One of the moms said she's not worried because the demand for better schools is really strong right now in our neighborhood, with the huge generation of kids coming up, but even if they don't manage to fix the schools by the time our kids are ready, she said with the talent in our mother's group, we could start our own school.

Why does that idea keep coming up in my life? For the last ten years, that idea has popped up again and again, even before I got my masters in Education. And it makes me excited. Even though I generally teach High School, and Gabriel is a long way off from that, I love the idea of starting a co-op school. Oh, alternative education, how you pull my heart. Oh, progressive education, I do miss you.

We were also talking about how, if we didn't have our group, we probably would not be doing so well about now. Our friends and communities have seemed to go their own ways, and so the mom's group has given us something new.

It's not just the one glass of white wine I had talking, is it? The one I sipped as we sat outside in the museum courtyard? Maybe some things are going right in this motherhood thing. Maybe life isn't quite over, and new opportunities are opening up.