On the Bus

On the bus with my high school class. No idea what year. Funny how absolutely undefinable and irrelevant the time stamp is: ninth grade, maybe? Journey and Peter Frampton are the soundtrack, maybe. I only care to find my age because the impression is so deep, so lasting.

We were on a field trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum. Now a world-class monument to Calatrava architecture with wings that make it fly along the shores of Lake Michigan. Then, in the 1970s, a cold, dark, dank cement tomb with poorly lit paintings hanging on the walls and cracking black marble floors that hurt your feet through your shoes.

But the Georgia O’Keeffe room, that was a sight to behold. It touched me, tickled me, to the bone. Her curves flowing across the surface, sometimes colored, often white, all thick and luscious. Whether they were flowers or feminine flesh, clouds or bones in the moonlight, I don’t remember.

And there was a Lucio Fontana painting, over there, in the corner, on a wall all by itself. The tan canvas slashed, twice maybe three times, revealing blood red behind the cuts. It didn’t make me want to paint or slash. It made me want to stay and be swallowed in awe.

The sky outside was gray, gloomy, moist. Depressing, actually. But I was lit from inside. Warmed by wonder. My first encounter with modern art, at an ageless point in my life, that stayed frozen just as it was, in my bones and heart forever.

On the bus on the way back to Sheboygan South High, I remember pressing my forehead awkwardly against the bus window to feel the coolness against my flushed skin. I saw myself as a scene in a movie, everyone else on the bus blurred. My blue eyes blinking slowly, staring at nothing but the slate sky moving by.

I was changed. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why. But I knew.