With eyes wide open for the first time in galleries visited before.

Gems after gems after gems after gems. As if the lights had been turned on for the very first time, the Met was glowing with brilliance yesterday. The rooms were the same, the objects were the same, the time was the same, but finally, finally the tiny splinters came forward and rushed to welcome the visitors. No death this time. More the record of life. The colors, the colors. They were not those faded-over-centuries ones, this time they were time travelers, telling stories of burned glazes, of cows eating nothing but mango leaves, and layers upon layers of the incredibly dangerous urushiol. Was it a cloud, was it a mystic something into which the freshly combed lion was pushing his claws? What did the horse without a neck do in a painting that had the clear traces of photoshop tennis? How and why did a giant piece of furniture appear in a world created for smaller things? How come the stones did not even need a date? How brilliant, how brilliant, how wonderful to see that the most elaborate clothing is often the best camouflage. How incredible to see a tiny painting of fire that manages to sting the eye. How incredible to see worlds again for the first time. Oh, I want to go, I want to go, I want to see the giant scissors of Hans Christian Andersen cut tiny mirrored ballerinas and swans, out of blotting paper. I want to see the projections of shadows imagine to be moving groups in a shadowy world. Where is that room in which it is allowed to use magnifying glasses. Yesterday's visit to the Metropolitan Museum was spectacular. No pickles.