WHAT IS EXPERIENCE WITHOUT BIOGRAPHY?
As the European journey winds down, I enter the last two weeks with a different day's agenda than at the beginning. No longer controlled by sites to see, museums to consume, history to absorb, I spend more of the day observing and talking to people.
The most creative museum I have seen: The Museum of Broken Relationships. It is a touring exhibition, collecting from many countries. Some letters and mementos were from Bloomington, Indiana. The exhibition reflects a universal experience more so than any antiquity or Michelangelo...
...for we have all loved and lost.
People wrote a sentence or paragraph and sent in a tangible memento of a former love or lover. There was everything from the entire wedding album to shattered glass. On a pane of glass, the forlorn had written and glued a poem to the former beloved. Then she shattered the heartfelt masterpiece and artfully collected the pieces in a glass jar. The words could no longer be read, but oh, the meaning was clear...
As one who punched out a large plate glass window in my mother's kitchen in West Covina, California, long ago, I felt the pain.
Stories were represented by everything from a pair of hiking boots, a tiny glass dog, broken beads of a gifted bracelet, an entire novel (written by the forsaken), clothes left behind, pressed flowers, sex toys...
People from all over the world shared their hurt. Some times people met on a journey, and what was true in passing, a miracle of the moment, did not meet the reality of long-term.
There was another written by a woman similar in age who had a relationship with a man 30 years younger. I believe a reader knows who can relate...
It amazing that a place like this exists. Just amazing.
ReplyDeleteI was shocked to find a museum like this Gretchen! The receptionist at the hostel told me about it. She was a sweet girl and so helpful. Many of the desk people study tourism... where the jobs are.
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