A window to my past. by Mark W. Ó Brien

"After Hart." ("A Scene in the Helderbergs near Albany.")

© Mark W. Ó Brien 2017

Recently it was the anniversary of my Mom's death. So it seemed appropriate to take my daughter and granddaughter to one of her favorite places. 

One of the fondest memories of my youth is that of walking through museums with my mother. 

Many was the summer when we wandered through every museum from Glens Falls to Albany to Williamstown Mass. and Bennington Vermont. 

One summer I remember she read someplace about the burgeoning art of gravestone rubbing. The next thing you know she dragged us to Vermont to make a rubbing of Robert Frost's gravestone!

By far Mom's favorite museum was the Albany Museum of History and Art and it was always a highlight of my summer when we went to see "The Albany Mummies." Capped off by seeing The Hudson River School Landscape paintings!

Mom was an amateur landscape painter who never got to fulfill her dream of art college because "Women didn't go to college back then."

So, when I reached college age and wanted to go to art school she happily lived vicariously through me.

When my children were born I did likewise by taking them to museums whenever I got the chance. By then there was also the New York State Museum in the Empire State Plaza. 

My kids still talk about the time I took him to see an exhibit on the making of windows. They sat with me through the most boring slow paced movie about handmade windows ever produced. I loved it! And they enjoyed it just because they were with me.

The other day, for the first time, I went to the Albany institute of history and art with my daughter Sarah and my granddaughter Josephine. Passing on a tradition now four generations long and strong!

~

I miss my mother
And our walks through museums
She taught me how to see.

~

© Mark W. Ó Brien 2017