It’s Monday morning. I walked my husband to the parking garage on 57th, helped him load the car, and kissed him goodbye for the day. He’s heading back to our everyday life and a business meeting. I, on the other hand, am staying in New York City for one more day, a birthday weekend extension. Today, the Met awaits me.
I haven’t been there in years. And after recently visiting the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and boldly declaring it my new favorite museum, I felt the Met deserved a fair chance. After all, my love for art was born there, sometime in 1994 or 1995.
Back then, one of my professors at Marymount College assigned us to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, find a piece that inspired us, and write a paper about it.
At the time, I had never been to a museum. I groaned at the idea of taking the train into the city and navigating the subway just for a paper. I procrastinated until two days before it was due.
A wiser Ana would have caught an early train and gifted herself the day. But “that” Ana only gave herself two hours.
When I arrived, the museum itself felt intimidating in its sheer size. I was a Brazilian girl in New York, clutching my discounted student ticket. I had no idea I was about to step into one of the most meaningful days of my life.
That was the day I fell in love with art. The kind of love that lifts you out of your bones and keeps you soaring, like a bird that has just learned how to fly.
If you’ve been to the Met, you know, you don’t measure the experience in hours, but in heartbeats.
I took far too long to choose a piece for my assignment because everything moved me. In two short hours, the gallery I entered whispered to me. Every painting and sculpture seemed to know something about me I hadn’t yet discovered. Maybe it was the novelty of it all, or maybe my soul had a date with art that day, and I just hadn’t known it until I showed up.
The museum closed before I was ready, and I was one of those stragglers the security guards had to gently (or not so gently) usher out. I even shut down the gift shop that evening.
The paper I submitted was only halfway done at best. But by the following week, I was back at the Met; this time on purpose. I wore the little metal “M” pin with pride, as if it announced: I belong here now.
I lingered on the steps, just like the people I’d called “annoying” the week before. I took the earlier train. I gave myself the day.
And my heart opened.
This morning, as I walked toward the Met with Central Park as my backdrop, I was reminded of something simple but profound: life is good. And life is good because we make time for the things that bring us joy.
If you haven’t visited a museum lately, schedule a visit. Go alone, so you can spend enough time with what truly calls you.
And when you stand before the work of the masters, take this thought with you:
What made them masters wasn’t only the years of study, the technique, or even their perseverance through countless rejections. What made them masters was their willingness to pause long enough to listen, to see, to sense, to receive inspiration from the Creator. And then, they let their hands do the talking.
Ana Barreto
And the more I thought, it doesn’t really matter which museum becomes your favorite. What matters is finding a place that speaks to your heart, that moment when the art stops being an object on a wall and awakens a part of you that had been waiting to be seen.
Whether it’s the Louvre, the D’Orsay, MOMA, the Met, or a small local gallery tucked away in your town, the “best” museum is the one that awakens something inside you. Make time for inspiration.
How do you get inspired?
Take the Passion Inventory
