On a rainy Sunday, we continued the exploration of our new city by visiting the Mint Museum. Cubicle Charlie and I both love a good wander through a museum — a pastime that I am hoping the bambino will want to get in on. Traversing the early American art section, I was reminded of how many centuries of people have claimed to know the world. The map that I studied in grade school is vastly different from the one hanging on the museum wall.

People used to worship this chap.

And this Aztec beauty used to have turquoise eyes.

Even today, we live on one planet, but across it there are millions of worlds. History proves that nothing is permanent — whole cultures are watered down or washed away, entire empires rezoned and renamed. I will spend a lifetime attempting to understand my own world, which is forever changing. This sort of realization creates a panic, as it has for the countless other unfortunate souls who dwell on impossible notions. What is there to hold on to?

For me — there is this chair, in this home, in which I sit to write. There is the man who shares the mortgage payment. There is the dog snoring on the couch, the family that first opened my eyes to this world and the friends who make it so fun to live in. There is every cause I believe in, every meaningful word, every moment of peace and every daydream. There is the tiny heart beating alongside my own and any other beautiful thing that has yet to reveal itself, in its own time, as long as I never stop exploring.

BOM