FAMILY MATTERS
Visit the museum, view your inner landscape

By Michael C. DeMattos

It was the perfect day for a trip to the museum. The sky was dark with brooding clouds, and a gentle but persistent rain covered the land. The air was chill, making a light jacket just right for the walk from the parking lot to the main building.

I love museums. I love strolling the aisles and examining the artifacts from years gone by. Each item serves as a missing piece for the puzzle that is me.

Some may marvel at the unlikely and bizarre in a museum, but I find the exhibits strangely comforting. No, my comb is not made of spiny sea urchin quills, nor is my roof thatched. Still, my needs are not dissimilar from those who came before me.

For all the advances in technology, our basic needs remain the same, and I remain connected to my past.

My daughter ran from lizard skeleton to weathered photo to ancient pot and pan. She proudly read the placards describing many of the exhibits. Appropriately for a 7-year-old, she seemed most enraptured by the plant and animal exhibits and especially the giant sperm whale hanging from the ceiling. I, on the other hand, enjoyed viewing the clothing and other textiles used by our ancestors.

Later that afternoon, my daughter met up with two of her friends and, with parents in tow, we made a second pass through the museum. This time we explored an auxiliary gallery, where the kids found a little nook on the second floor complete with insect costumes and puppets. They loved it. In fact, they soon forgot about the other exhibits.

While the parents sat comfortably on a bench and talked story, the kids let their imaginations run wild. They donned caterpillar costumes and crawled over each other. They became bees and spiders while remaining 100 percent kid.

When I was a child, museums were more like mausoleums — one had to be deathly quiet, with hands neatly stowed in pockets. Things are different now. Museums encourage touching and experimentation. Children and adults learn by using all of their senses. What was once a giant hall filled with other people's experiences has now become an experience itself.

In all, we spent nearly five hours at the museum.

Museums are interesting; they hold artifacts of lives once lived. And while I and many other people feel connected to those who came before us, one is also uniquely aware that these lives have been spent. When I think back to that Saturday afternoon, I see my daughter playing with her friends, laughter echoing through the halls, her tank full with an entire life left ahead of her.

Life is one part museum and another part playground — often found in the same building these days.

We recall and recount through ancient relics those who came before us. All the while, we celebrate and re-create through the lives we currently live, never confusing the symbols of a life fully lived with the life itself.

Over the course of one afternoon, I peered through a window and saw the past. My daughter looked through that same window and saw the future.

Our day was complete.

Family therapist Michael C. DeMattos has a master's degree in social work.